Finding the GROOVE
HOW THIS PHOENIX ARTIST BALANCES MUSIC AND GRAFFITI
Arizona Republic | USA TODAY NETWORK
With a paintbrush or an upright bass in his hands, muralist Tato Caraveo creates the groove. ● His artistic endeavors straddle two worlds, music and art. Some people know his murals that have graced the walls of downtown Phoenix for years, but many don’t know he’s been a musician for even longer. ● “I would play music by night then graffiti later on in the night,” Caraveo said. ● “Growing up my dad played music so me and my brothers grew up playing music. I’ve played professionally for over 25 years and I still play to this day.” ● Music runs in the family. Caraveo’s father played multiple instruments and his uncles and grandfather were all musicians as well.
When you see a Tato mural, you know it’s a Tato mural. The Phoenix native has a distinct style of elongated figures, usually paired with a musical instrument that plays on his love for music.
He started performing in a cheesy punk band
Like many kids interested in playing music, Caraveo began in elementary school. He started by playing drums. It was later, when he was in the magnet program at Phoenix South Mountain High School, that he found love when he picked up the bass guitar.
He began playing with punk bands on weekends.
“I was a kid so, we were called Screams of Aggression. I always laugh at that it’s like the cheesiest name,” Caraveo said. The band recently had a show together for its 25th anniversary.
Caraveo later joined the 60s psych garage band, the Hypno-Twists, then formed Sunorus in 2003. His music expertise lead him to become a longtime curator of music at Lost Leaf in downtown Phoenix. He even lived in a house across the street.
Balancing music with art
Though music was his bread and butter, graffiti art was always a fire burning in the back of his mind. Learning to do both was the challenge, but he eventually found the groove.
“I did a pretty good job at sort of separating those worlds being in the graffiti world and the whole time I was part of this skateboard community playing skateboard parties,” he said.
“Those two were completely different worlds back in the day. Now they’re all sort of one community. But growing up it was like you were either graffiti artists or you weren’t.”
He started a graffiti crew around 1991 that put a lot of murals up around Phoenix at a time he said there wasn’t much public art outside. The Roosevelt Row building he painted his first mural on that year is no longer standing.
Changes in the community inspire mural themes
Like many artists, Carevo draws on his own life experiences in his pieces. A good example of this is his untitled Roosevelt Row mural featuring a man in a pot.
“That one for me is a transplant. The rent just keeps going up and up and I’ve had to keep moving. So that mural for me is like pick up and go like a plant and just keep getting moved around,” Carevo said.
Painting a lifelike image of Malcolm X on Carly’s Bistro during the Black History
Matters mural project was a dream that came to fruition for Carevo, who admired the civil rights activist for years.
“I grew up in a majority Black neighborhood at like, 16th Street and Broadway. I was the only Mexican kid in my school, growing up there were no white kids at all,” Carevo said.
“I’ve known about Malcolm since I was a kid, I admire him and I read all of
his biographies and did papers on him in high school. Me and my friends would talk about him at school, so on that end I’m glad I was able to be a part of that.”
Ultimately he wants his murals to inspire and lift up the community.
“I like to really paint sort of selfishly, I like to paint what I want to paint because I love painting regardless of if I’m getting paid for it or not. I would just hope that it’s appreciated and hopefully it inspires other artists to pursue art,” Carevo said.
Elizabeth Montgomery is arts and culture reporter for The Arizona Republic, azcentral.com. Reach her at emontgomery@azcentral.com or 602444-8764. Follow her on Twitter @emontnews. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.