Ever since he lost his father more than five years ago, wound up in prison for assault and finally reconnected with himself through music, the left-handed path has provided many answers for Rafael Reyes. Much like Reyes himself, a lifelong gang member and a self-described Goth, the dark yet affirming music he and his band mates create—often referred to as Cholo-Goth or Killwave—is a study in unexpected hybrids: both hard-edged and vulnerable, electronic and organic.
Reyes, whose stage name is Leafar Seyer (his name backwards), wears these seeming contradictions with ease. While his body is covered in elaborate gangland tattoos, he’s just as comfortable onstage in black lipstick and leather. “My vulnerability is my strength,” he reasons, “if I’m exposed then I have nothing to hide.”
When Tijuana native and beatmaker Dave Parley, the producer behind PRAYERS, first met Reyes he immediately connected with the energy of Reyes’s performances. Within two days of meeting each other the pair had recorded 8 songs, which went on to become their first EP, Gothic Summer. “Him and I are like spirit brothers,” says Reyes, “the minute we met we knew there was this transcendental connection, just not of this planet.”
It wasn’t long after that PRAYERS’s brooding, bleeding edge sound caught the attention of former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. Reyes, Parley, and Barker released the EP Young Gods in the summer of 2015. “This album represents empowerment,” says Reyes, “It came together so quickly, so organically, the three of us all working in sync. It shows the world that it can’t destroy me. My hope is that the listener will feel this too—they’ll be able to suffer any attack on them.”