“Fue una estupidez, me equivoque, no vuelve a suceder, perdoname,” belts an emotional voice over a nostalgic melody, evocative of a 1950s love ballad.
Raw and vulnerable, over a gritty electric guitar, the voice continues “Soy un Chiflado, cuando me dices que si.”…
The juxtaposition of Spanish slang to the poppy, romantic tone of a 90s punk rock ballad is the artistic creation of Mexican-American singer, songwriter, and producer Jorge Castillo and his band Honeyrot, whose unique cultural representation of power-pop punk pushes the boundaries of what punk rock means while serving as an inspiration for artists of every medium.
With the painted fingernails and enlarged earlobes of a punk rocker and the kind, bright eyes and eager smile of a hopeless romantic, Castillo emanates all things authentic, including a deep enthusiasm for the beauty of his border home and an unwavering love for the creative process itself.
“I don’t want to live up to anything — that would drive me crazy. I just want to make it — it just comes out of me. There’s something inside me that just wants to put it out there. Recently I’ve been trying to make music that makes me feel good and happy, but also discovering the music and falling in love with it again,” he explained.
Together with Rey Muñoz on the bass and Felix Cadena on drums, Honeyrot’s music expresses frontera life as a playful dance between love and pain, where subtext matters as much as words do, and meanings are layered with depth.
Illustrating this beautifully is Castillo’s song “Chiflado,” from his second and most recent album, Agridulce (2025). He explained that what appears initially as a summer love story “goes way deeper” as “the character, who could be anyone on the border, meets a girl and can’t get enough, but it actually goes back to substance abuse and how heavy it is down here.”
Over the last six years, Honeyrot has recorded and released Agridulce and Noches de Terror (2023), and toured Texas, representing the southern border with their unique bilingual sound at music venues and weekly live performances, and boldly putting themselves out there despite the hurdles they faced.
“There are times where we’re in the middle of somewhere in Texas and there are comments and stuff, so it’s still tough. I know I am privileged as an American man, but I am a Mexican-American man, and at the end of the day there are all these barriers ,but we’ve gotta’ stand up for what we believe in, and I think that’s why people follow us and believe in us, because I don’t shy away from being myself, regardless of what people think or say,” Castillo said.
Despite these hurdles, he has remained tenaciously committed to his craft. “It is certainly different nowadays, but it’s been really rewarding just trying to be myself because it’s getting harder,” he explained.
And now, as live music events dwindle and the economy becomes uncertain, Castillo is adapting to this new era virtually, with the creation of social media music videos, set to some of Laredo’s most colorful and beautiful backdrops — not only to get the word out about Honeyrot, but also to share his joy and make people smile. “There are a lot of people that just watch our stories, and it makes them feel good. So even when I’m having a bad day, I know our videos are helping people, and that pushes me through. There are different ways of approaching and dealing with the problems we have, and making music might not seem like a lot, but I feel that it is, or can be, the beginning of something,” he said.
One need not be a punk rock fan to appreciate the force of creative energy and audio-visual excitement that Castillo has created and embodies, or to benefit from the precious wisdom that he imparts. “You can be a punk rocker regardless of what you do. You just gotta’ be yourself. I think that a lot of these values matter now more than ever, because there are a lot of things that are important, and sometimes the last thing you think about is where you’re living and what’s going on around you, keeping yourself honest and just being yourself. There is nothing more punk rock than singing in fucking Spanish, here, or anywhere, and there is nothing more punk rock than being yourself”.
Honeyrot’s music can be found on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your music.
(Hannah Frey is a freelance writer, student, partner, and advocate for the disenfranchised. Not originally from Laredo, she moved to the border in 2014 with her children, quickly falling in love with her new community that she proudly calls home. Her writing ranges from academic research to trauma-informed community columns to stories about the arts. She is consistently grateful for the opportunity to share her work with the community that she loves so dearly.)
