The value of these successes is not lost on them.
“Playing in a room with your homeboys, and then going and playing out of state in big shows, it does hit different, you know?” 17-year-old bajoquinto player Victor Leyva says.
As many young musicians end up doing at some point in childhood, Leyva and 16-year-old accordionist and guitarist Esteban Mendez decided to start a band with friends in 2021.
In the beginning, they didn’t use the accordion and they didn’t have a drummer, so they played sierreño, a genre of music from northern Mexico that blends a plethora of unique guitars, basses and other stringed instruments with blended vocal performances.
“We started, me and him, I started going to his house, and we started playing for fun,” Mendez says. “It was our hobby, and all of a sudden, we got an opportunity to play in a truck show that they do a lot here in Dallas. They gave us a chance there and people started to ask for our number for parties."
That sudden interest was the start of Grupo AVE (named for the first initials of Leyva, Mendez and a former group member). Despite the early challenges, the band continued to grow and have fun.
@losmenores_official EL CABALLERO #losmenores#foryou#voiceeffects #corridos #chaka #dallas #viral #tocada @Malverde _Productions ♬ original sound - LOS MENORES
A Professional Makeover
Around two years ago, the band met their current manager Jose Torres. They began working with Torres’ talent agency Malverde Productions, which led to substantial changes within the band. Torres brought in 15-year-old drummer Andy Barraza and gave Mendez the accordion to add a different voice to the musical act. Notably, Barraza didn’t have a full drum set, and at one point he was using an amplifier as a seat.
“They literally called me and they were like, ‘Hey, we got a drummer, but we don’t got a drum set,’” Torres says. “And I jumped on Facebook and I found one.”
The new instruments shifted the music to the norteño genre, which originates from the northern Mexican states of Durango and Sinaloa and can effectively be described as Mexican polka.
The band also changed its name to Los Menores to reflect the new additions and signal the musicians' youth. But perhaps the biggest change Torres brought was professionalism.
“When it was just us, we would kind of slack off a bit, so when he came in, he told us what to do,” Leyva says about Torres. “He basically got on our ass, and it’s been paying off.”
Not having children of his own, Torres remarks that the three band members are like his own kids. Despite the difficulties of managing young musicians (he jokingly pointed to each one and described their flaws when he first started managing them), the bond they have now is amazing.
“I see them as family,” Torres says proudly.
The schedule for the band became more routine, with performances at the end of the week Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The group's inability to work full-time is a blessing in disguise, they say, because it allows for the gigs to never really feel like work.
“I feel like it’s a hobby for me,” Barraza says. “A lot of people think I do it for the money, but no, I do it for my pleasure. I have fun playing and seeing people having fun [with our music].”
The Growth of Los Menores
The majority of norteño band’s fandom is made up of an older generation not reflective of Gen Z. But the members of Los Menores say that whenever time they speak with other musicians in the genre, the elders are always impressed with the high quality act by the high schoolers.“They like that we’re young and playing that type of music,” Mendez says.
Working with Malverde Productions had a clear effect when the band booked its first out-of-state gig in December 2022. A promoter saw the group's videos on TikTok and asked for the band to perform in the Golden State. Given that Torres drove the band to every performance, the parents of the musicians signed documents for Torres to be their guardian on the trip.
For several of Los Menores, it was their first time flying and their first time out of Texas. The group almost missed their flight because Mendez had water in his water bottle.
“I told him, ‘Do not put water in your luggage, bro’” Torres says while laughing.
The group saw the occasion as both work and vacation, and although everything didn’t go perfectly, it was a good learning experience.
Their success on social media did not end after their trip to California. In May 2023, Los Menores had a TikTok video hit over 500,000 views for the first time, where Mendez and Leyva played with Los Alegres Del Barranco, a famous Sinaloan band south of the border that also played norteño music.
Going viral had a noticeable effect, as the band started to book more gigs, including trips to Georgia and Kansas.
This month, Los Menores hit another benchmark on the short-form video platform, with a video that passed a million views and is currently sitting at 1.3 million. The performance in Fort Worth is particularly eccentric and is a quintessential example of the band’s ability to hype up a crowd. Coincidentally, it was also the first performance of 19-year old bass player Noel Castro, the newest member of Los Menores.
Leyva made the band aware that the video was going viral, sending messages in the group chat updating every single time the video passed a benchmark.
“It just kept going up, and I just kept sending screenshots,” Leyva says.
With a couple of songs already released, the band hopes that with more time off during the summer after school ends, they’ll be able to record enough songs to release an EP or an album.
“We really like what we do and, well, what is there more to be than to be successful?” Mendez says.
@losmenores_official El del palenque @losalegresdelbarranc X los menores‼️ #corridos #corridoschingones #corridosbelicos47 #corridosalterados #corridosvip #dallas #mexicanfyp #teclas #lagranplazadeftw#losalegresdelbarranco#eldelpalenque#michiocan #viral#xybca #fyp#foryoupage#musica#corridosbelicos #belico#pavelmoreno#makethisgoviral #lagilbertona ♬ original sound - LOS MENORES
