He heads downstairs to The Lab, a neat and tidy affair, devoid of the usual assortment of junk and tangled cables one usually sees in recording studios. They’re our employees - it really comes down to that.”īad Hombre is Sanchez’s sixth album, but unlike his previous records - starting with Migration in 2007 and ending with The Meridian Suite in 2015 - it’s a true solo effort, one that he wrote, performed, and recorded entirely on his own over the past year in his studio (“The Lab,” he calls it), which is located in the basement of his house. We have to speak up against our government.

“‘It’s my duty as an artist, as a Mexican, as a musician, and as a citizen to speak up.’ That’s what we’re supposed to do. “I always answer those people directly: ‘Man, it’s my duty to say something,’” he says. But whereas Nugent is pugnacious and caustic, Sanchez handles his critics the same way he commands a drum kit - with supreme authority, intelligence, and a confident flair. While he has yet to earn the title of The Left’s Answer To Ted Nugent, Sanchez has been a highly visible political force on social media the past few years, and he isn’t about to tone down his views or the frequency of his posts because of a few naysayers. But it’s amazing to me that so many people out there think musicians have no right to talk about what’s going on.” “Or ‘I love your drumming, but man, your political thing sucks.’ That’s another one.” He cracks a smile, then adds thoughtfully, “Of course, they’re not all like that. “‘Shut up and play your drums.’ I get that one a lot,” Antonio Sanchez says. The drummer is brewing espresso in the kitchen of his home in Jackson Heights, Queens. FROM DRUM! MAGAZINE’S OCTOBER 2017 ISSUE | BY JOE BOSSO | PHOTOGRAPHY BY EDDIE MALLUK

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