Cole Menarez

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Cole Menarez, is a cultural anthropologist, and a soul searcher. His music explores the core of what makes life meaningful to all people - passion, wisdom, and the sacred. "Everyone's life is about dealing with the basics - family, faith, love and pain". His music captures this struggle.

Power brokers, peasant mothers, and shamans have all shaped his life and the music:

"Life has blessed me with some clear convictions - you must fight for your daily bread, hold fast to your faith and your dreams, and  thrive on moments of inspiration. I have no choice. I've done wrong too often and known better for too long to live any other way. My music is my reckoning".

Above all, Cole's stories and confessionals seem devoted to guide the listener's soul toward divine light. His influences come from his upbringing - As a boy, Cole lived off and on with his grandmother in rural Madison County in western NC. He learned about the "high lonesome" music of Southern Appalachia, as a refuge for its people and a comfort to be shared.

By contrast, as a native son of Galicia, Spain, his songs express tension and conviction, and often demand from the listener, the Iberian's passion for taking action and a commitment to tough love.

Simple melodies with a heavy load to bear might sum up the music. Cash, Wilco, and Beck have surfaced as comparisons.  For certain, Cole Menarez' performances are an almost reckless commitment to giving up his ghost to the living and the dead.