Las Vegas has produced a new hard rock band called Adelitas Way, and they have broken into the mainstream with a hit called “Invincible.” This song has a connection to the WWE Superstars. Why? Because it is their official theme song. They were tagged to perform their song “A New Day” as the theme song for the tag team The Legacy. Their debut album has been out since its release on July 14, 2009, and you can find these hits on it, along with some of their raw hard rock.

Adelitas Way signed with Virgin Records in 2008, and has been working hard on the road since their release. The band is comprised of Rick DeJesus (lead vocals), Chris Iorio (lead guitar), Keith Wallen (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Derek Johnston (bass guitar), and Trevor “Tre” Stafford (drums, percussion).

We had the opportunity to get an interview, courtesy of Dex, with these guys, and they have a cool story about how they really got their name. It kind of brings back some memories of days in Tijuana for some of us.

Dex: Give us the list of the bands that you tour with right now...

Rick: Sick Puppies, Hurt, and Tunnels to Holland

Dex: And Veer Union, they had to drop out because of some issues with the vocals? What happened there?

Rick: Well, we play a lot of shows, and sometimes you’re gonna do 160-170 shows within a span of 180 days, so you get really beat up. It’s a singer’s biggest fear to blow out your vocal cords, and we send our best wishes out to Crispen. He’s a super talented guy; we just hope he gets his rest and can be back out on tour with us.

Dex: Absolutely. Hopefully he’ll be able to catch up with the rest of the tour. You guys are actually based out of Las Vegas, am I right?

Chris: Yep, Las Vegas.

Dex: What’s the scene like there? I know they have a huge nightlife, but for a local band to really break out there, what do they have to do? The competition with the national acts and casino shows has to be hard to deal with.

Chris: You gotta work REALLY hard. Vegas is kind of a tough place because there’s so much going on every night, so it’s kinda hard to get people out at the shows, once you get the people, then they’ll start coming out on a regular basis.

Rick: Yeah, we pestered everybody in Vegas. Before we got signed, we handed out like 6,000 demos. Every person that was walking down the street or on the strip, we gave them a demo. I think the secret is making your band an event there. Now, when we come back to Vegas, it’s a big deal. Everyone in the town starts talking about it a week before. And then, the next thing you know, it’s on the radio every five seconds that we’re coming back, and I think it’s all about building up that reputation and getting to that point where people make you an event. Like, on Saturday, I’m putting everything aside, and I’m going. We show up to Vegas, and it’s a pretty crazy night.

Dex: Yeah, speaking of crazy nights, One of those nights lead to the band name. Details?

Rick: Ah, man, there’s a lot of wild nights on tour. There’s a lot of wild nights everywhere, but how we got our band name was one of the craziest stories. We were supposed to go to the San Diego Beach. I fell asleep in the back of an SUV, and I woke up, and we were getting arrested in Tijuana. There’s a cop banging on the window. I look up, they’re robbing my friend, and I see him take like 500 dollars and put it in his pocket.

I see them throwing him around, taking all of his stuff and putting it in their pockets, so I shove the twenty dollars that I had, in my boot. The cop pulls me out, searches me, can’t find any money. He’s so mad, he’s throwing me against the car. He’s like, “give us the money!” He gave me a breathalyzer with his hand. He’s like, “blow into my hand.” So I blow into his hand, and he’s like, “you’re wasted, give me $500.” So it was a crazy experience. Mexico is no joke.

So we were all bummed out. We just got robbed, and they were ready to throw us in the Mexican jail, and we were like, “Whoa!” We didn’t want to mess around with any of that, so it took us a while of smooth talking to get us out of going to jail. So we see this bar called Adilitas, and I had $20, [said] “let’s go get a beer.” So we’re in there, and I look around, and I see all of these young, beautiful women around us, and I’m like, “This place rocks, what’s going on here? But I see them leaving with older men, like they keep going in and out. And it was a weird vibe. All of these old men are getting all of these young pretty girls. So then this BEAUTIFUL girl comes up to me, and she’s like, “Hey, what’s your name?” and I’m like, “Oh, nice to meet you.” And she sits down, and she had to be like 17, 18 years old, and I start talking to her, and she’s like, “Hey, you wanna get out of here? You give me $50, and I’ll leave with you right now.” And I was like, “FIFTY BUCKS? What ??”

Dex: So she’s a hooker?

Rick: Yeah, and it freaked me out because this girl is gorgeous! And she was literally like a girl you would see in Maxim Magazine. And I was like, “What makes you come here every day and sell yourself for 50 bucks? You’re way too pretty for that.” She got super serious. It wasn’t like she was in selling mode anymore. She said, “I’ve been doing this since I was 12 years old. My mother and father are sick, I have 9 brothers and sisters, I have to support my family. I’m the only one in my family that can make any money. I’ve been doing this since I was a little kid; I was born into this. This is the only life that I know.” And it bummed me out, man. I left that trip like I’m never taking anything that I have for granted, ever. Ya know, because there are people that complain when they don’t get a video game or they don’t get what they wanted, but you have to be fortunate in what you have. I have the opportunity to go out there every day and do what I love, and there are a lot of people out there who have a chance. There are people out there who have no chance, they have no future. It’s like they’re born into selling drugs, they’re born into being a prostitute. And Adilitas Way reminds you to not take anything for granted. What we have…we are very, very fortunate.

Dex: Right. And I was reading about you guys a little bit more. In your song-writing process, you try to use true stories. You try to use a lot of the things that happen in your life.

Rick: In our life…,and I like to live through other people’s experiences. Sometimes I will watch someone close to me go through a hard time, and I’ll feel for them, And I’ll be like, “I know how they’re feeling,” and I’ll write a song pertaining to that. I want people to listen to our record, and when they hear a song, I want them to be able to relate to it, [think/say] “I’ve been through this.”

Chris: We wrote our song “Scream,” in a crummy hotel in Memphis, TN, you know, while we were hoping not to get killed--because we were in the worst neighborhood possible.

Rick: To get to where we are right now, we definitely had a long road. He was 16 when we were trying to demo songs and trying to get a deal. I mean, we were living in a van in L A. We couldn’t even afford to eat 99-cent chicken nuggets; we were showering at the gym; we used to scrounge change for gas money...

Chris: We got excited when we bought $2 fans.

Rick: We got excited when we bought these little electronic fans with batteries, and when we used to sleep in the van, they used to cool us off a little bit. And we did that for months, and the whole process... we’ve just been through so much because we knew this is what we were gonna do. I lived in my first car when I moved to Vegas. I sold my first car to do our first demo. I was homeless; I had nowhere to go.

Dex: A lot of people don’t hear these kinds of stories from bands. A lot of bands won’t talk about “that time.” Getting signed is a hard road.

Rick: It is, it’s so hard. We got kicked and booted out.

Chris: Everyone passed on us.

Rick: There were guys who told us, “You guys need to learn how to do banking or something, because it’s not gonna happen.”

Chris: Everyone around us was telling us to get jobs, and just leave it behind. And we were like, “No.”

Dex: Cool. Now, real quick, just to wrap things up,…I’m very impressed with the music that you guys have. What did you guys do before the band? Of course, not much before 16, but what happened before you started doing music?

Chris: Well, pretty much, I left high school to do this band. I was halfway through my junior year, and my school actually started getting pretty hard on me because we were in LA all the time, and then we’d come back to Vegas, and I was missing a lot of days. It was kind of surreal because my counselor sat me down at my school and said, “You’re throwing your life away; you’re missing all of these days of school; why are you doing this band thing?” But this is all I’ve known. I’ve played music since I was 8, been In bands since I was 13. I winded up graduating on the road.

Dex: So when was your graduation? Where did you actually graduate? What venue?

Chris: I think we were in Michigan when I graduated. All I remember is my mom called me and said, “They e-mailed your diploma!” and she was all excited, and I was like, “Okay, that’s cool.” At least I got through, ya know?

Dex: What about you, Rick? Radio intern?

Rick: I was the worst radio intern on earth!

Dex: We have a couple of those.

Rick: I was so bad that they actually brought me on air, and I became an on-air personality because I was such a bad intern. They were like, “You are the worst intern we’ve ever seen in like 35 years.” I used to mess coffee up, messed food orders up, I messed everything up.

Dex: How can you mess coffee up?

Guy 1: I messed EVERYTHING up! But they loved me. They gave my phone number out on air, and I would get like 4,000 phone calls a day! They would have me show up to all of the events, and they would pull pranks on me all the time, but then it became like a big family in there. And I’m definitely known as the worst radio intern in history. I think I gotta plaque somewhere for it.

You can follow these rockers on their webspace at www.myspace.com/adelitasway or www.adelitaswaymusic.net. You can catch these guys opening for Shinedown on October 20 at the House of Blues In N Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and a later date, October 24 at The Uptown Amphitheatre at The Music Factory in Charlotte, North Carolina. Might want to mark your calendar because this will be a solid show. by Dex