Interview:

Anyone that knows Quem Quaeritis, and admittedly that is only people on the west coast of the U.S.A, knows that we come from a place called Riverside, California. If I had to describe the factors that converge to make this strange, alluring, and terrifying place, I would say they are smog, heat, drugs and traffic; all of which we pay dearly for in the form of inflated rents. I would go so far as to say Riverside is a cruel place, but it is a decidedly weird place too, often in all the wrong ways. We are a product of this environment. Nonetheless, it is a place that inspires laughter and joy. Some of the funniest people we have ever met live here. In Riverside, laughter is religion, something that forms community and inspires elation despite the circumstances. Then we forget what we are paying to rent that third story oven with a freeway view with a sewage leak that the landlord won’t fix anytime soon. Riverside is notoriously one of the worst places in Southern California to live, but conversely it is also an out-there creative center, that makes its own fun and has its own sense of the absurd.

In Quem Quaeritis, we try our best to take the ideology of laughter as religion and push it even further. When playing live, our goal is to create an atmosphere of ecstatic glee and community that can help our friends and strangers rise up from the doldrums. Our attempt is to deliver an experience visceral and joyful enough to raise the audience and ourselves up. We utilize the absurd; playing in a camping tent, the humorous; donning an inflatable horse costume, all while trying to keep our Jazz-Funk-Cumbia-Hip-Hop chops potent enough to deliver the kind of soul experience that few things can bring like music.

All of us in this band have had a bad year this year, but the feeling that this band puts on performances and plays music that are important to people and has the potential for making them feel happy and included makes us optimistic. Plus writing songs about the neighborhood gangsters seizing political power through cumbia parties and the aid of Michael J. Fox makes us laugh.

“In Quem Quaeritis, we try our best to take the ideology of laughter as religion and push it even further. When playing live, our goal is to create an atmosphere of ecstatic glee and community.”
– John Thill, musician in Quem Quaeritis