Today we’d like to introduce you to Javier Cortez.
Javier Cortez, better known as Elephant Woman grew up in Tijuana until starting middle school, then his family moved to San Diego. His School as a musician started at 14, took piano, drums and cello classes in various Christian music schools, and played two times a week with a Korg x3 in front of around 50 people in a Christian church in San Ysidro CA. There he learned a lot about Gospel, Funk, Progressive and Latin Jazz, but even dough he admired their techniques very much, soon his personal taste started to emerge as a teenager and that inclined his ear to a more emotionally aggressive and personality charged kind of music without genres. Playing, listening and reading philosophy three years went by as he started to grow apart from the church and went on to jam with non-Christian friends. From this, three bands with original music became his focus for a while. He wrote the lyrics in all of them, sang in two and play the drums in the other. They played in bars and café shops around town for a couple of years. He says that a lot of frustrated energy from his church years was being released back then. By that time, he had made himself of a microphone, a Korg N364 Keyboard, a looper Jamman pedal, and a speaker. And so, playing alone just having fun at home, he came about two songs from where his solo project Elephant Woman was born.
Cortez felt Incredibly comfortable with the way this song came to be. Started thinking of names to open a Facebook and Soundcloud accounts for the project, and begun looking for a word or couple of words that would mean to him what this song made him feel. One day while he was listening to the band Blond Redhead, read the name of their song Elephant Woman. Immediately a picture came to his mind of the sadness and discomfort that one could feel for a woman with the deformities that the man in the Elephant Man movie had, since socially, woman is expected to be physically beautiful to be successful. Something in him felt that these two songs were a reflection of his sensitive and creative side feeling rough, ugly and at the same time sweet and open hearted.
This project became his focus and the other bands dissolved themselves in time since he was the driving force behind them. While creating more songs and uploading them to Soundcloud, he started making friends and fans around US, Mexico and a few scattered in other countries and continents. He got invited to play in a couple of states in Mexico, and those where his first gigs as Elephant Woman. Played eight shows in three weeks in Mexico City and Guadalajara, had a couple of interviews and a radio performance. Getting back to San Diego he got invited to play shows with other local bands, and then started making his own shows, usually for about 50 really loyal fans. Soon after this a friend of his started making piezo microphones and gave him a couple of them to try out.
Cortez started playing with them, trying sounds out of everything he could think of and that way found the fast and hard closing of the Bible from his old ways was a good kick sound, a box of matches hit with a spoon became the snare, and an empty can hit with the same spoon were the clicks and clacks that made the beats more interesting. Started looping this sounds to make live drums, adding keyboard sounds and singing the project evolved more into an avant-garde thing. This opened the door for him to meet a lot of artists from different disciplines and interesting people which lead to two years of playing a lot of shows in all kinds of art galleries, venues and festivals. This music became the mirror where he could reflect his soul to get to know it better and refine it, which then lead to a focus on creating and not playing live that much for a while.
Elephant Woman released his first and only instrumental album in 2013 “Canto de mi arbol en el incendio” via AtAt Records, which is the soundtrack for a book by poet Gerardo Grande. Cortez has written around 50 more songs since, which then separated in categories of themes and is planning to make a couple of EPs and a concept full album with a book of a story written by him too and related to its songs, both the concept album and book will be called “One Of Them”, It’s about childhood, and what many of us have forgotten about it. Things that could potentially help us become better people if we remember them, like creativity, playfulness and exploration.
This last few year while composing he went back to school to study recording engineering and learn the art of recording, mixing and mastering. It’s taken years of investment, time and money wise but at last it feels like it’s time for the final part of the process to begin. Right now, he’s working on the final version of his songs to release them. a few singles, collaborations, covers, and EPs first, then the full album. The Burnouts for example, is a three song EP about a world of people with a match for a head who burn their fire too early in life and try to ignite it again and again with soulless items and concepts. “The Burnouts” is a collaboration project with visual artist Dormidodespierto?, who is writing and painting the story behind it. He plans to finish the EPs and other songs in the next few months, and start releasing them by the end of October this year.
Has it been a smooth road?
For me personally, the hardest part is being constant in truly believing in my voice and ideas as something necessary in my life. It’s been a beautiful and emotional road, full of stubbornness that makes me go round and round for a while, and then heartfelt decisions that remind me who I am.
Elephant Woman Music – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I mix and magnify emotions. Make chemical cocktails of feelings through sound. I love connecting with other people in a personal deep level, where we know we can be very different but have the same struggles, strengths and hopes as a species. Connecting with our heaviest parts is crucial for me cause that’s where we usually feel alone.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
As an artist I hope I can be of service to the souls who appreciate and connect with the same feelings I do, letting my inspiration grow and flow free wherever it wants to take me. Business wise, I’m learning to separate the artist from the artisan in me. Shifting into the scoring and jingles industry. I love collaborating with creative people from other disciplines and making bigger and more complex things together.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 619 551 5883
- Email: elephantwomanmusic@gmail.com
- Instagram: elephantwomanmusic
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