My Father Played the Cuatro...

I caught Andy Tirado playing guitar at the Public Market:

"My dad was a musician. I come from a Puerto Rican household; he played an instrument called the cuatro--it's got four sets of double strings, so it's got eight strings total, but they're in groups of two. And so I grew up around it, you know, and it always intrigued me. I started playing technically like around age thirteen, fourteen, but I didn't really start taking it seriously until my early twenties--I'm 27 now--so, like, the past six years I've been gigging and playing shows and stuff. Lately I've been playing out weekly, sometimes twice a week, sometimes three times a week. I've been trying to play some more of my original stuff as well as covers; I'm also  a composer. I'm coming out with an EP by the end of the summer for my project called 'Jamazon.' It's like rock, but like fusion; it's got elements of everything--I like all types of music, so it's got some jazz, it's definitely got a lot of Latin from my roots, some funk. It's fun stuff and I think it'll appeal to a lot of different people because it's got a lot of different things in there. "
"What inspires you to write?"
"Personal experiences. Not just my own, but other people's experiences, too. Whatever moves me. For example, one of my songs is inspired by a friend of mine who was suffering from depression, so I wrote a song about that, but a more uplifting kind of story, 'cause he ended up being okay. So, stuff that just makes me feel good and that I think will make other people feel good, 'cause that's what everybody wants, right? To feel good."

Check out his Insta @andrewtirado19