“It’s about giving voice to things I wanted to say when I was 16,” says Ed Maverick. “I wanted to express something. Most artists like talking about the moon and the stars and other metaphors, and I wanted to get away from that. I wanted to sing like the way I talk, that’s why I cuss sometimes. I think it’s more sincere that way, like I’m talking to you face to face. I don’t get too caught up in how I want it to sound, I like how it comes out. And it’s gone great.”
To say that it has gone great for Eduardo Hernández Saucedo might be a bit of an understatement. Every note that has come out of his throat and guitar has thousands of people listening and relating to all of the emotions he expresses with them. Since sharing his music in 2018, his videos have accumulated millions of views while his live shows are regularly sold out within minutes. He’s signed to Universal Music and making inroads to the mainstream, as well as embarking on his first tour outside of Mexico, a U.S. trek that includes a set at this year’s Tropicalia festival. Have we mentioned he’s currently 18 years old?
Naturally, many have tried to explain the sudden rise of a teenage singer from Delicias, Chihuahua into the hearts of so many young people. Speaking to Remezcla, Maverick might have given us the answer of his appeal to many a fan. There’s no bullshit to his music, it’s unapologetically romantic without succumbing to lyrical clichés. It has warts and nights spent looking at the ceiling, either drunk with love or unable to sleep thinking about what went wrong. Usually, Maverick is backed with little more than an acoustic guitar, playing a style that spans indie folk and corridos, something familiar to Mexican fans that can correlate their playlist with the music from their family’s functions.
Every artist has a beginning and Ed’s was inspired by another singer from Northern Mexico. “It all started when I heard Juan Cirerol. I didn’t know about Mexican music other than the mainstream stuff until I heard Caloncho and from there I started to dig more on YouTube. From Juan, I learned about Dromedarios Mágicos and that took me to Little Jesus and that to Camilo VII. That blew my mind when I was 16. This was something completely different and I loved it. I loved Juan’s behavior, El Drome’s… like Drome once said in an interview that a venue cut his set short, so he got on top of a table and started playing without mics or amps, not caring about anything. That’s awesome. That’s the seed of my project.” (Diego Puerta, a.k.a. Dromedarios Mágicos is currently part of Maverick’s live band)
Ed’s music is simple, yet holds a lot of yearning feelings within it. Some of it stems from the lyrics about love, but the music itself seems to be painted in sepia tones. Perhaps there’s a fundamental essence that gets stuck from the creative process of the songwriter. “It has a lot to do with my environment. In my mom’s house back in Delicias, there’s a park and some unkempt fields right around the corner. When the sun sets, it looks gorgeous. I would sometimes go outside to have a smoke and looking at the sunset would make me think about a lot. Then I would go inside and write something.”
Having played drums in church and in a corrido group, his new adventure consisted of writing songs every time his school work would let him, starting with “Quiero.” Under the production of Eidan Velázquez, he put out a collection of those recordings under the name Mix Pa Llorar En Tu Cuarto in March 2018. Soon after, everything would change. “There was a contest to open for Caloncho in Chihuahua right around the time we put out the album, so I tried it. That was the first time I played live as Ed Maverick. I came dead last,” he laughs. “But two people — these two complete strangers from another town — showed up and already knew every word of the songs, and the album had just been out for like two weeks. That was trippy.”
Thanks to word spreading via YouTube and Social Media, “Acurrucar” became a hit in no time. Once there was enough hype, Maverick and Velázquez booked 14 tour dates, financed with merchandise the pair would make themselves. “I was still in high school, getting told off by teachers because I was booking shows during classes. They thought I was on social media.” Soon the tours got longer and the operation bigger, culminating with signing a deal with Universal Music in Mexico. Still, there was so much work to be done for Maverick.
To fans and outsiders, things seem to be going just gravy for Maverick, a success story through and through. However, things have been more complicated for him. “There are no musicians in my family and I don’t have industry contacts or anything; I knew nothing about this and I couldn’t turn to anybody for advice. I didn’t know how to deal with people or to talk to the media, and everything went by so fast. There was a time I obsessed over every little detail because I didn’t know how to do it. Then there was another period where I was missing meetings. That’s something I didn’t dig but it was cool as well. A learning experience.”
“For a moment, I felt that my project was getting away from my hands,” Maverick continues about adjusting to a new level of fame and working conditions. “Now I make a point of getting involved in everything that has to do with my career. Until a month ago, I hadn’t written anything for so long. It’s the first time I’m writing and recording by myself so that’s a new challenge. I’m being more responsible.”
Another setback for Ed’s inspiration came from his change in environments. Having moved from the relative peace and quiet of Delicias to the bustle of Mexico City. “The city was bringing me down,” says the singer. “I stopped doing a lot of stuff because of how I was feeling around here. The weather here is very mild, and that doesn’t inspire me; also to live far away from my family is hard. I have adapted a bit now and have been working out these feelings. Nobody tells you how to live by yourself when you’re 18.”
As mentioned, Maverick has started working on some music for what he hopes to be his debut full-length to be released sometime in 2020. Having already established a sound, Ed is now ready to try new things, inspired by recent discoveries like Spinetta, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan. He expresses interest in going “beyond the acoustic guitar stuff, do whatever inspires me. Use whatever I have within my reach —I just got a mandolin, an electric guitar, and a tambourine— to make music. It’s not the same sound, but it has the same vibe.“
As for what the future holds for Maverick he tells us. “I don’t make plans. If everything runs its course in 10 years, I’ll be 28 and still have a ton of time to do something else in my life. I can do so much more. Or not, but at least I have done something already. There’s so much I have already lived that I’ll never forget.”
Still, Eduardo Hernández Saucedo is not ready to leave behind the Ed Maverick mantle. Brighter things might be just over the horizon. ”Things are going to be crazier [in 2020]. I think this U.S. tour is going to change a lot of things for me. It’s very exciting.”
ED MAVERICK – US TOUR
11.10.2019 – Tropicalia Festival – Los Angeles, CA
11.12.2019 – Bunkhouse Saloon – Las Vegas, NV
11.14.2019 – Voodoo Room @ House of Blues – San Diego, CA
11.15.2019 – Swedish American Hall – San Francisco, CA
11.17.2019 – Valley Bar – Phoenix, AZ
11.19.2019 – Lowbrow Palace – El Paso, TX
11.20.2019 – Three Links – Dallas, TX
11.26.2019 – Baby’s All Right – Brooklyn, NY
11.29.2019 – Schubas Tavern – Chicago, IL
12.01.2019 – Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX
