"The Warning infuse rock music with a much-needed shot of adrenaline."

Photo provided by: The Warning Band

You wouldn’t think that discipline is something that is applicable to an artist or someone that is wanting to build upon talent. On the contrary, it is the most important trait that an artist or band could apply to themselves and routine. You could probably recall artists that have fallen far away from any thoughts of being disciplined. Applying rules or standards to their lifestyle seems far-fetched. After all, who wants to act with restraint. Depending upon the signals that you are sending to your fan base, you obeying rules is not something that is acceptable. However, this is just marketing. Every artist has a persona and means of marketing themselves to a specific audience. Depending upon genre. Though, for an artist to be successful a degree of self-discipline is needed. If there is no restraint or control over daily routines, then a life a musician will be short lived.

Neil Diamond once said the following: Songwriting is the only real discipline I've had in my whole life-that’s why I hate it so much; I don’t like imposing that kind of discipline on myself, but it must be.

His success was relative to his talent and discipline. One could not exist without the other. You may feel that obeying rules of a daily routine, or lifestyle isn’t necessary. Maybe, maybe not. However, obeying the rules and high standards for artists will determine how long you last in the spotlight. It will determine the quality and quantity of the albums you release.

Does discipline only apply to those in a certain age group? Neil Diamond was 16 when he first started singing in a choir. He applied the structure of discipline, and it produced great results. Neil Diamond went on to selling 130 million records worldwide.

Today we have three guests that we have featured on the cover of Guitar Thrills Magazine for the month of January 2024. There is a reason. There is an extraordinary band, that consists of a young trio of females. We wanted to find out more about their success and to what degree discipline has had on their career.

ABOUT THE WARNING

Hailing from Monterrey, Mexico, the trio of sisters - Daniela "Dany” (vocals, guitars, piano), Paulina "Pau" (drums, vocals, piano) and Alejandra "Ale" Villarreal (bass, piano, backing vocals) - erupt with mind-blowing riffs, unpredictable, stadium-filling rhythms, and infectious vocals. After exploding online with viral moment after viral moment, The Warning have used that momentum for a series of independent releases, including the Escape the Mind EP [2015], XXI Century Blood [2017] and Queen of the Murder Scene [2018]. After quietly amassing over 120 million YouTube views and 10 million streams, they have already burst into the limelight of the hard rock world with their debut single on LAVA Records, called "CHOKE”, in 2021, which reached over 9.2 million streams (just counting YouTube and Spotify) upon its release, followed by five more singles and a collaboration with Alessia Cara for Metallica’s "The Metallica Blacklist” album. Their third album called "ERROR" has been released on June 24, 2022. Last year saw them play over 100 shows in America and after taking over Europe by storm earlier this year, they will return to commence their 2023 tour in North and South America. According to worldwide media:

"The Warning infuse rock music with a much-needed shot of adrenaline “.

The early days:

It all started back in 2005 when Daniela was five and Paulina was three years old and had their first experience with music when attending a summer camp with music and theatre activities. After that they began piano lessons. They listened from children’s songs like Barney to rock and roll like AC/DC and Muse.

Fast forward a couple years later in 2007 when Daniela turned eight and Paulina six and they loved to play the popular video game ROCK BAND. This was a huge influence on which instruments the girls would start playing next.

Alejandra, being the youngest, had a whole different approach to music. She had to wait until she was five years old to enroll in piano and music lessons. Being raised in a house full of music and the role models that her older sisters came to be for her always kept her motivated to take a leap into music properly. It took her a lot of music-video-binging for her to realize she wanted to try out bass guitar, because she really loved the sound it made.

The girls never planned to form a band, especially since Alejandra was too young. The girls just liked playing music. It was a Christmas Holiday’s school festival where Daniela and Paulina decided to play together a song that they had been working on separately. They invited Alejandra and her skills were tested at such young age, but she handled the bass lines as if she had been playing for years. The satisfaction and enjoyment of that first musical experience on stage was so big they started practicing more songs together, setting higher goals for each on their instrument, goals that they saw and heard in music from the rock and roll bands they loved listening to.

They started videotaping those rehearsals and uploading them to their YouTube channel, where they had a few followers and with time started gaining more. But it wasn’t until they uploaded a cover for the song “Enter Sandman” by the band Metallica. This one broke the internet.

In just a few days it went viral and millions of people from all around the world became hardcore fans of THE WARNING, setting off a series of events that would kick the girls into the musical scene in a way nobody expected. Up to this day, this video still gets copied and reposted in social media and goes viral repeatedly to a cumulative total of over 70 million views, officially „liked”, shared, and commented by members of Metallica themselves. Fueled by this success and the fuzz it created, others of their covers got public acclaim by bands like Guns’n’Roses, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Coldplay, Muse and Twisted Sister and the band started to get into the focus of magazines like the Rolling Stone as well as music business and TV executives.

Escape the Mind (2015):

Soon after, they began writing their own songs and in January 2015 they recorded their first EP composed of original songs written and performed by them. Playing and experimenting through different styles and genres they found that rock and roll was the kind of music they loved playing.

By this time the sisters had a dream: attending a five-week summer course at Berklee College of Music. They created a GoFundMe campaign to raise the money they needed to attend the summer course. The Ellen DeGeneres Show found the girl’s viral video online and invited them to appear in the show for an interview and performance. Thanks to the huge support that Ellen showed to the girls and the significant fan base they had gained in their social media, they raised the money to attend to Berklee, where the talk show also followed and documented the girl’s experience during their summer course for Ellen Tube.

Inspired by THE WARNING's early achievements, the American video game developers Harmonix Music Systems became aware that their Rock Band video game had been the catalyst for this online phenomenon, so they reached out to the girls, invited them to visit their facilities and included their single “Free Falling” in the latest version of the game, Rock Band 4. Later, they also added their song „Survive” as a free download.

By this time, they started receiving offers to play in different venues around the U.S.A. and México, including large and renown festivals like the Pal Norte and SxSW.

XXI Century Blood (2017):

During the time of these shows and different stages they started the songwriting process for their first LP. Disappointed by the numerous offers from producers and record companies, that approached them, wanting to sign them only under the precondition of gaining control over their music and style, they decided to go independent instead, keeping full control over their image and creative output. During 2016 they worked on the recordings, editing and mixing of 13 songs written by them and their first studio LP was born: XXI CENTURY BLOOD.

XXI CENTURY BLOOD was released on March 27th, 2017, along with a six-minute concept music video for their first single also titled “XXI Century Blood”, that gained worldwide attention and achieved several awards at film festivals.

Queen of the Murder Scene (2018):

Throughout the first half of the year, they continued writing music and over time, the idea, not to release just another collection of songs, but to create a concept album following a storyline took form. Fascinated by psychological topics, like they already explored in certain songs on their first album, they decided to take the listener on a journey through the mind of a young woman, who drifts from unrequited love to despair, obsession, schizophrenia, violence, murder and finally her own inescapable death. The outcome was their second album QUEEN OF THE MURDER SCENE, that was fully financed (recording, editing, mixing, mastering, production of the physical copies on CDs and deluxe double vinyl) by an overly successful Kickstarter campaign, carried by their huge international fanbase. On November 25th, 2018, the album was officially released at a co-headliner show with Wacken Metal Battle 2017 winners Jet Jaguar.

2019 was marked by further live performances throughout the world to promote their QUEEN OF THE MURDER SCENE album. It began with a return to the legendary „Whisky a Gogo”, this time with a full two-hour headliner show. Later that year, they played a sold-out show at the „Foro DiDi” in their hometown of Monterrey, where they premiered their new song „Narcissist “, the first one in Spanish, which quickly became a fan favorite. They also played at the prestigious „Rock al Parque” Festival in Bogota, Colombia, the biggest rock festival in South America. Later that year, they embarked on a tour through Argentina with their friends Eruca Sativa. The year ended with two shows at the Mercury Lounge in New York.

Early 2020, they ran their second Kickstarter campaign to fund their next album and a Noth America Tour to overwhelming success. With over six hundred percent funded, it became the most successful Kickstarter campaign, that ever came out of Mexico and the sixth most successful worldwide within the rock genre.

The plans for their first extensive North American tour were already set. Beginning in March there would have been 23 dates all over the USA and Canada. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic put a spoke in their wheel. Nevertheless, they had the chance to play two times more in the sold-out Whisky a Gogo, at the Crossroads Festival in Brownsville, Texas, at the Vive Latino Festival and to open for the Mexican star-band Moderatto and Stryper before the public performances had to be stopped.

ERROR (2022):

However, 2020 has set another milestone in the history of The Warning for quite another reason: After watching them play, Jason Flom, head of Lava Records, a label of the Universal Music Group, got interested in the band. After initial talks it became clear, that the band had finally found a strong partner, who believed in their visions and was seriously interested in supporting them without trying to influence them into doing things, that they don’t want. So, after seven months of negotiations, The Warning finally signed a five-record deal with Lava Records and became the first Mexican band under a US major label’s wing.

Later that year, they entered a studio in New Jersey to record their third full length album with star producer David Bendeth, which will be published worldwide in 2021/2022.

On May 21, 2021, The Warning released the first single called "Choke" of the upcoming album, which went to number one in the streaming rock charts of Mexico, Peru, and Ireland. The video clip for "Choke" garnered over 1.6 million views on YouTube before the end of the year and got into heavy rotation at Sirius XM Octane. It was followed by four more singles, called "Evolve", "Martirio", "Disciple" and "Animosity". The video clip for "Animosity" was a collaboration with Webtoon and featured animated material from the comic "I'm the Grim Reaper" by artist Graveweaver.

On October 8 they finally released their six-song EP called "Mayday", which consists of the five singles plus the high energetic song "Z" as a sneak preview of the upcoming album.

They also took part in Metallica's project "The Metallica Blacklist" to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their legendary "Black Album" and recorded a new rendition of "Enter Sandman" together with Canadian Grammy winner Alessia Cara for it. All profits were donated to charities. This cover version was featured later as the background music for the trailers to Marvel's video game "Midnight Suns" and the NETFLIX series "The Imperfects".

With the pandemic finally coming to an end, 2022 saw them play over 100 shows throughout North and South America, not only taking part in well renown rock festivals like Sound of Music, Upheaval, Rock Fest, Louder Than Life, Aftershock, Rock Al Parque and more, but also in three tours as support-act for "Halestorm" and "The Pretty Reckless" on their "Summer Tour", "Three Days Grace" on the Canadian leg of their "EXPLOSIONS" tour and their own headlining tour "MAYDAY TOUR 2022". They also got invited by Foo Fighters to open their show in Mexico City in front of over 60,000 people and Guns 'n' Roses to be their support act for their stadium show in Monterrey.

While still on tour, their latest album called "ERROR" finally got released on June 24th, entering the rock and metal charts all over the world, achieving acclaim by critics and fans alike.

In 2023 they plan to tour Europe for the very first time, being already invited to perform at the "Rock am Ring" and "Rock im Park" twin festivals in Germany.

INTERVIEW WITH THE WARNING AND GUITAR THRILLS MAGAZINE

Guitar Thrills: If you were watching them perform live on MTV this year, you knew they were more than just a band with dreams of prosperity. I would have words with anyone that thought that they were not of the same caliber as other rock bands now, and those of long ago. I think the energy level was exactly where it needed to be. They looked like they have been there before. I couldn’t stop singing the song “MORE”. It resonated with me for days, on just how talented they are. I knew immediately that it was time to have them back for another interview. This time we it was for the cover of our magazine. They deserve it.

Guitar Thrills: Congratulations on your continued success. The Warning never lets me down. Your sound is impeccable. How did the opportunity to appear on MTV come about?

The Warning: Thank you so much! That means a lot! To appear in MTV awards was a team goal of ours for this year! We are so grateful and happy that we had the opportunity to be there and that they invited us to rock out with everyone!

Guitar Thrills: Was there a moment where you thought you were not good enough to be on such a large stage, in front of millions of people?

The Warning: Not really but the same thing goes the other way around there’s been a lot of stages where we’ve played that feel so surreal, we can’t believe we’re there. Still our mentality has always been to accept what we can always get better, there has never been a time when we didn’t wanna improve our craft and learn new things to apply to our music. And at the end of the day the most important thing about being on stage for us is to have fun and transmit that to everyone who’s listening so we can all have fun together through music!

Guitar Thrills: I have been a public speaker for decades. There are times, I get nervous in front of hundreds of people. How nervous were you before that performance? What did you do to calm your nerves? I must mention, you didn’t look nervous it was a flawless performance.

The Warning: We’re glad to hear we didn’t look nervous! To be honest with you we’ve been a band for 10 years now (THAT’S INSANE I KNOW!) and we’re so used to being on stage, still what a stage! More than anything i think we felt excited, motivated, and driven to rock out and make everyone have a good time. We call it “nervousitement.”

Guitar Thrills: I mentioned on the onset of this article that discipline is essential to becoming a great performer or artist. How important is discipline in your routine?

The Warning: VERY! we know that practice makes perfect but still we like to think that we practice so much that when the time to perform comes, the practice is not to be perfect, but to be able to enjoy and absorb the energy of everyone in the room to it’s fullest potential and focus on the feeling of the music! So yeah, practice and discipline is the key of that for us.

Guitar Thrills: What does your daily routine look like? What sorts of things do you do to keep yourself on point?

The Warning: To be honest it varies on our schedules! they can get crazy at times, this year we went on our first world tour! We visited Europe for the first time! And in total in this one year we played 75 shows and visited 13 different countries! And on top of that, in every space of free time we had we were in the recording studio working on new music that will join “MORE” in an album in 2024. So that limited our rehearsal times to soundchecks this year! While our team focused on getting the sound right for the shows, we would rehearse all we could in that time. Also, we make sure to stay fit through it all so we can go all out on stage!

Guitar Thrills: All three of you are young and have youth on your side. Have you ever thought about how long you will be able to perform at such a high level?

The Warning: Huh, no we haven’t but we will do this for as long as we can. We love what we do, and we’ll work a lot to make sure that we can keep at it in the healthiest way possible.

Guitar Thrills: Was there a point in your lives when someone else said you wouldn’t be able to make it in the music industry? If so, what was your response?

The Warning: A lot of times actually HA! They said we wouldn’t make it in music and even less if we played rock. But we decided not to listen to them and followed our hearts in their passion, still we are very grateful that the people that mattered most supported us with everything they have! Our parents were and are still super supportive and we have a whole team now who believe in us and our music, we couldn’t be happier, and we love them all very much.

Guitar Thrills: Have you compared yourselves to any other band past or present?

The Warning: Inspiration comes from a lot of different places, and yes, we have many bands we admire and look up to when we explore what to do with our own music. But we do focus a lot on the mindset of not wanting to do anything like any specific band. It’s very important for us to find a way to do things our way in our records and on stage.

Guitar Thrills:  I listen to play live, and I can’t compare you with any other band out there. Which means, that you have your own authentic sound. How important is authenticity to you?

The Warning: Thank you! Throughout our whole careers being authentic and true to ourselves has always been the focus of everything we do. When you see us play live or when you hear our music what you see and hear will always be the way The Warning wants it! That’s what music is to us! The perfect space to be completely and unapologetically us.

Guitar Thrills: Each of you play a different instrument on stage. Is there a specific brand that you perform with on stage consistently? If so, what makes the decision in the type of brand that you perform with?

The Warning: We’ve tried many different brands on each of our respective instruments over the years, not only in the instruments we play but on all the hardware we use live as well. The thing that matters most to us as a team and as a band when it comes to choosing what we play with is, comfort, how easy it is to travel with, how quickly can we set things up, and how quickly can we put these things away and achieve maximum efficiency It’s a healthy mix between personal taste and practicability.

We play with Spector bases, PRS guitars, DW drums, Sabian cymbals and Vicfirth drumsticks.

Guitar Thrills: What is next for The Warning? Is there another album release on the way? Are you going back into the studio?

The Warning: So we just finished recording lots of new songs so hopefully we’ll be releasing new music very soon, and we’re also very excited because next year we’re gonna have our first headlining tour in Europe in April but before we do that we’re gonna be playing at Shiprocked, and it will be our first time playing Wacken Open Air in Germany and Madcool festival in Spain 2024, and there’s more exciting 2024 things that we will share later on!

Guitar Thrills: It has been remarkable to interview The Warning. I am stoked on what you are accomplishing. Your fan base must be proud of you as well. I hope that you continue to enjoy your success and that you receive all that you reach out for. Let us know if there is anything we can do in promoting your music. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to answer our questions.

The Warning: Thank you very much! These were all great questions! Glad to have spent this time here! We send you all a big hug, Gracias!

Vera Black

A RECAP OF WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED: "The Warning infuse rock music with a much-needed shot of adrenaline."

• The Power of Basic Chord Shapes - Using the CAGED system: Part I
• The Power of Basic Chord Shapes - Using the CAGED System: Part II
• An affordable Rock Guitar the PRS SE NF3
• U2 - ZOO TV – Live In Dublin 1993 EP - OUT FRIDAY AUGUST 30th