Juan Fabricio Córdoba López, thrilled yet calm, takes a deep breath as he counts his band, New Wave Kill, into the performance as worn-down prison inmates stare listlessly at the wall. “In the beginning, they were quite cold, you could sense there was a big barrier between us and the inmates. But as soon as we finished our first song, they were super excited. It was like giving a slice of life to the inmates. […] When they started to get up from their chairs, it was exhilarating because we didn’t expect anything to happen. […] It was weird and cool,” Córdoba said.
Córdoba, green behind the ears, began his musical journey in Venezuela. He picked up his first instrument in his freshman year of high school and soon joined the school rock band as a drummer. During this time, he grew his passion for moving people’s hearts with music. “Having lived in Venezuela, South Korea, and now Spain, I have diversified my view of life. When I can be close-minded, I take that into account. I put myself in another person’s shoes and see it from every single perspective. I can be very empathetic with the way I move myself,” Córdoba said. His diverse experiences enable him to form a deep bond with his listeners that goes beyond the riffs.
After his graduation from DIS in 2020, Córdoba faced unprecedented uncertainties in the face of COVID-19. Nonetheless, he chose to dive into the unknown and attend an unconventional university in Spain that defied the regular four-year college plan. “They have their own name here, but you would call it a ‘trade school’ which studies a very, very specific subject in two years. It was very different in grading and the way the semesters worked. My classes were very small and it was very intense but very short. Also, you couldn’t see people switching majors or that kind of thing because there really wasn’t an option for that,” Córdoba said.
Unlike his classmates, Juan Córdoba, with a myriad of interests, was less certain of what to major in until he came across a music assignment that required him to compose and record a simple song on the drums. “Even though I love stuff that has to do with music, I have a lot of interests. [But] what motivates me the most is indeed stuff that has to do with music. So I took that as a starter. I started to look at every sort of degree you could get. I always liked the technical side. So apart from playing, I started to look into that and found out about audio engineering school. The kind of music that you could play with a microphone caught my attention. It just fell into place very quickly because I’m a very impulsive and very quick decision-maker,” Córdoba said.
After Córdoba decided on music as his path, a mutual friend approached him during class and recommended that he try out for a band. To his friend’s expectations, he aced it. “I tried out for the band, everything went great and that is now history. The lineup has changed a lot, but everything’s been really good,” Córdoba said.
Eventually, Córdoba settled down on New Wave Kill, which released four singles that combined goth rock and post-punk neofolk. Córdoba said, “We [looked for] the biggest pillars of music we wanted to make and fell into those three genres. There’s more behind those three main genres, but you could group it into what we make right now. We also have the opportunity to spread out and make other sorts of sounds or take into account any other sorts of sounds apart from those three things.” To their fourth single, Córdoba and his bandmates draw inspiration from a variety of genres.
Although the band has received significant recognition in the Madrid music scene, Córdoba feels a rush of exhilaration each time he stands on stage. “When I get on stage, it’s not really nerve-racking but more like a rush of adrenaline mixed with being nervous. I really like being on stage. I can be as wild as I want and people will enjoy it because it’s a rock concert. You get to see raw energy from another person just playing and see people screaming and clapping. It’s cool,” Córdoba said.
Nonetheless, the two performances his parents attended made the Hall of Fame. “One of my performances that my mom was able to see was acoustic. Since we have a lot of Western influences, we were all dressed up like cowboys and that was fun. The other time was when my dad came to visit me. It was a sold-out show in a very good place to play and the sound was really good and the people were cool. It was on the 30th of December two years ago and it was full of friends and fun,” Córdoba said.
At the moment, Córdoba is on a short hiatus from live performances as he prepares for the New Kill Wave’s first full album. Although excited about the big day, he longs for more opportunities to play on stage as the waves of applause motivate him to continue his career. He highlights, “At the end of the day, I’m also part of the entertainment business. It’s a part of my duty to make people feel entertained. That’s something that has always come easy to me because I am very expressive, very dumb, or even very crazy on stage. People seem to like it.”
Córdoba, pioneering his own path in the band scene, continues to bring his audience a slice of his diverse experiences and form connections with them. As he prepares to release his first-ever album, the Jets Flyover can’t wait to see his band’s performances. Make sure to keep an eye out the next time you browse Spotify for a now-familiar band, New Wave Kill – you might just find a familiar face.
