El Destroyo

Who is

El Destroyo??

by Robert Prevendar
When Rockin’ Billy Dean Cochran rolled into Hong Kong he was on the lam. He hadn’t had time to pack much but a few guitars and a Zippo lighter that was previously owned by Gene Vincent. Billy Dean is the kind of guy that never has to look very hard for trouble, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before it found him in such a legendary city of trouble. Sure enough, he’d barely burned through his first pack of smokes when he ran across Da Countess, a whisky toting lady who had spent years drifting around like the far away snows of the upper Midwest of the US, where she got locked up... for the first time. She did two months in the Anoka Pokey for walking out of a Minneapolis record shop with a 45’ of Wanda Jackson’s “Fujiyama Mama” under her hat. When she got out, she spent a couple weeks sleeping in the back room of a pawn shop, where she started messing around with a bass guitar that had been hanging on the wall since 1959. She was hooked.
When they met, Rockin’ Billy Dean and Da Countess instantly knew that they were cut from the same denim – true blue Rock ‘n’ Roll. When Billy Dean asked her if she knew any drummers, she informed him that her main man, Bubba, was her ONLY drummer. They had met in Chicago some years ago and lived together above the old Checkerboard Lounge. You could say Bubba is some kind of Rock ‘n’ Roll fanatic. He once spent 26 days in a dark room trying to recapture the exact drum sound from the Sun Records recording of Carl Perkin’s “Matchbox.” When he finally stumbled out into the afternoon sunlight he discovered Autumn had turned into Winter and it was time to get out of Chicago. He and Da Countess packed up their gear worked their way down to Memphis, through all the chitlin’ cicuit joints, on to Oklahoma, El Paso, and Bakersfield…eventually washing up in Hong Kong.
Billy Dean lives and breathes music, whether busking on street corners or rockin’ Carnegie Hall, seeing him play is like standing close to the blue flame of a Rock ‘n Roll blow torch. Together with the rock solid rhythm section of Da Countess and Bubba they are

“El Destroyo, the band that ate Hong Kong"

and they slam out a unique brand of Rockabilly that is as tough as nails, tight as a noose, and raucous as a prison riot. Musically speaking, they’re not the kind of band you want to meet in a dark alley. Check them out fast, before their pasts, or the law, catch up with them.

What folks are saying about the band :

TIME OUT HONG KONG ........ John Lloyd
El Destroyo are scene-changers. Before they arrived, the word “rockabilly” had barely seen ink in the pages of our newspapers and magazines. Now, for the few hundred people who have had the privilege to see this trio play live in Hong Kong, the rock-hillbilly hybrid has become associated with the words “fuck yeah!”. With Kiwi-born Billy Dean Cochran slamming it upfront with ass-kicking hooks on guitar, Maggie “Da Countess” Chang thumping it out on bass, and her hubby Babatunji “Bam Bam” Heath pounding out a riot on drums, they are winning over audiences with every kick and lick. The band demonstrate the limits to which music can be pushed, with just three instruments, a foot-to-floor mentality, and a lot of sweat.
Midnight Clay Review (HK Live show with Gong Wu and FBI)
El Destroyo - the most unexpected band of all time. El Destroyo are not exactly sprightly young lads, and it would seem a mystery what they’re doing here considering HK Live! tends to go for teenage dominance. The moment they play though, there is no mystery - El Destroyo may be the physical embodiment of old school rock n’ roll. Their lead singer and guitarist (Billy Dean Cochran) carries himself with the self-assured bad-assness of a man of substance from bygone times. Their music, an eclectic and frenzied mix of surf-rock, 50’s era rock n’ roll, and rockabilly, whipped the crowd into a frenzy I honestly did not think Hong Kong was capable of. Everyone in the crowd, from teenage hipsters, to punk rockers, to middle aged bankers just in there for a drink, to aforementioned metal-core fans, were fully held in thrall by the sonic beat down coming through the speakers. It wasn’t just the fact that the music was amazing. We have been waiting for something different - anything different - for so long, that this was the metaphorical dam breaking. We danced. And screamed.
Honestly, anyone in Hong Kong who have been waiting for something different really owes it to themselves to see these guys.
Scenester Column: TIME OUT HONG KONG
- El Destroyo at the Fringe Club on May 2 with Bone Table and Transnoodle.
From the moment they stormed the stage, El Destroyo were a towering inferno of sheer passion and rock-ability. They showed us how to play guitar, bass and drums, and how to entertain a crowd. Their formula: music that enthralls with delivery that compels.
Billy Dean Cochrane’s searing guitar licks had brought us from running with the wolves in ethnic Canada-Asia, via the cosmopolitan cruise drive of Audiotraffic, to the very roots of rock’n’roll in all its raw, sweaty glory. All in the space of one night in Hong Kong.
“There’s a good variation of styles here,” one punter understated to me earlier in the evening. I had to agree.
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