Music is Job 1 for rising star Jessica Hernandez, though spreading the word about her native city also is a priority as she tours domestically and soon in Europe.
The singer's Detroit advocacy role emerges in a cover interview with Chris Home in the debut issue of The Devil Strip, a magazine in Akron, where Hernandez performed Saturday with her band, The Deltas.
Jessica Hernandez: " despite all the bad press that Detroit gets, I think that a lot of people have a lot of respect for the city."
She talks about "really trying to help out the city where you come from, one that’s really struggling, and trying to give people a different perspective on it -- a positive one instead of the negative publicity, which seems to be most of what’s happening lately nationally."
I don’t know what it is about the city, but it seems everybody that’s from there gets a lot of drive from being from there.
I think despite all the bad press that Detroit gets, I think that a lot of people have a lot of respect for the city.
As much as the band wants to better itself, you’re also really trying to help out the city. . . . Yeah, a sense of responsibility, of bringing something positive to it and then also, as we grow, being able to help grow the music scene and introduce other artists and help them any way we can. That’s definitely part of what we want to do.
Hernandez, 26, who got a national boost from a David Letterman showcase last November, is this week and will be at The Loft in Lansing on Friday with her band. That's the last stop before a 13-show overseas tour through May 3, opening for Social Distortion. Stops include London, Paris, Zurich, Amsterdam, Milan, Hamburg and six other cities. (The seven-country schedule is here.)
"We actually have more days off than we would on any US tour on our own," she tells the Ohio writer, "which is good because most of us have either never been to Europe or only visited a couple places."
In mid-June, the Detroiters are booked at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn.
Another nugget of interest: The rocker, who two decades ago lived above her parents' Mexicantown restaurant (Armando's) and worked in their bakery next door, talks about a possible business role in the community of her childhood.
Meixcantown Bakery, where the singer worked as a kid, is one of two family food businesses on West Vernor.
"I always wanted to open a Cuban restaurant with my dad" Omar Hernandez, she tells the Akron journalist. "That’s always been in the back of my mind: Well, if this music thing works out, I’m opening up my restaurant."
He’s actually transitioning his Mexican bakery in Detroit — he used to have about half as a grocery store and gradually he’s been getting rid of the groceries and turning it into more of a café and bakery. So we’re going to be doing stuff like Cuban sandwiches.
And so we’re already sort of starting that transition into that a little bit. . . . I’ve just always loved the idea of something that felt authentically Cuban. Just like a home cooking kind of thing, nothing fancy. Something simple.
And you know, my grandmother is getting older now so I’ve been trying to learn all her recipes to have those to pass on, so that’s something else that I’ve been trying to do.
Speaking of Mexicantown, that's where Hernandez and bandmates taped their new music video, released last month. The song, "Cry Cry Cry," is from their debut album "Secret Evil."
