Adrian Quesada’s ‘Boleros Psicodélicos II’ Continues His Latin American Music Journey

Adrian Quesada is reaching legend status in Austin. He first made his mark as a member the Grammy-winning group, Grupo Fantasma, and the band's funky side project Brownout, before taking off in Black Pumas alongside Eric Burton. Quesada has been nominated for eight Grammys and currently runs his own studio in town called Electric Deluxe. In 2025, he received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for his track “Like a Bird” featured in the movie “Sing Sing” (2023). That’s the extremely abridged version of his accomplishments, but the real meat and potatoes comes with “Boleros Psicodélicos II,” his new record coming this Friday.

While he just wrapped a national tour with Hermanos Gutiérrez, “Boleros Psicodélicos II” continues Quesada’s mission to celebrate and reimagine the style of Latin American balada music that he first dove into with “Boleros Psicodélicos” in 2022. The second installment features Cuco, iLe, Angélica Garcia, Ed Maverick, Monsieur Periné and more.

The first album was made during the COVID-19 pandemic and fans all over the world quickly began asking Quesada when volume two would come out. This second installment has been about three years in the making. Quesada spent a good amount of time in Los Angeles, where his co-producer Alex Goose is based, and in the desert of Delicias, Chihuahua to record with young Mexican singer-songwriter Ed Maverick.

American-Statesman: Did you initially set out to make the new album as a follow up to “Boleros Psicodélicos,” or did things fall into place along the way of making a standalone record?

Adrian Quesada: I definitely set out to make another one. The first one was done during the pandemic. Because I never had anyone in the same room as me, I wanted to give it another try and do another one that felt a little more intimate, with more of an exchange of ideas between the musicians and collaborators. It’s hard to say what you want to say in 40 minutes, so as soon as I finished the first one, I started the second one.

How did traveling to certain places to make the album influence your creative process?

I’ve worked in Mexico City quite a bit. There’s something about the kind of desolate, quiet nature of the desert that’s very different from making music in a huge metropolitan city. There’s a sense of space and long sweeping strokes of sound that come with vast landscapes like that.

You worked with musicians from Colombia, Chile, Cuba and more. How did you balance the cultural background of working with such a large diaspora of Latin American artists?

People were asking me if these were all Bolero singers, and very few of them really do sing in that style, but they’re all people I’m a fan of who are really creative in their own way. In many ways, I’m working with people who have a much wider fan base than I do, so I’m just happy that they’re willing to collaborate with me.

Did you learn anything new or have any revelations during the process of making this new album?

I’m getting better and better at trusting collaborators and watching them work. I kind of pick up something from every person I work with. But it’s really about letting go and trusting other people to help along the way and not being super precious. When you’re working on something, and you’re obsessed with it for so long, it gets a little blurry towards the end, and you lose a little perspective. Any time my knee-jerk reaction was ‘no’ to something, I would sit with it a little bit and make sure I wasn’t being close-minded so I could entertain any idea, and some turned out to be really good.

Will you continue to pursue solo projects going forward, with more collaborative elements?

It was kind of a vulnerable move for me to put my name on it. It’s not my style to be in the forefront like that, but it made sense at a certain point when I put out “Boleros Psicodélicos” and “Jaguar Sound.” It would have gotten way too complicated if I made a new artist name for this whole thing. I made that step to put my name out there, and the more I thought about it, this makes things a little more streamlined and easier for people to follow.

You have a history of involvement with multiple groups throughout Austin. Has making the shift to more solo projects and a producer role with your studio, Electric Deluxe, helped with your longevity in the industry?

It clears out your lane a little bit where you can do your own thing and express yourself and get things out there quicker. It wasn’t anything I was really crazy about, but that’s just the best way for people to find your music. I don’t even release half the stuff that I make, but I do want people to hear it, with all the work I put into it.

You’re originally from Laredo. Spending so much time in Mexico, did your border accent start to come out?

I get so many questions in Mexico when I speak Spanish, people asking where I’m from. It’s such a unique way of talking, that border town ‘Spanglish,’ we don’t speak English or Spanish very well, but I’ve been spending so much time with people from Mexico City and working down there that my Spanish has definitely improved a lot — to the point where I can hang over there and not just be speaking curse words.