By Patty G.

By the time Bloomwave officially formed in 2023, the band had already lived an entire musical lifetime. Twenty years of starting over, switching projects, losing momentum, finding it again, and nearly calling it quits had shaped them long before they ever stepped onstage under their current name.

Maybe that’s why, when you hear them now, the first instinct is disbelief. They sound too locked‑in, too comfortable, too seasoned for a band only a few years old. But Bloomwave isn’t new. Bloomwave is simply the version of the band that finally stuck.

They’ve earned a spot on the inaugural Sol Summit Festival in May, a milestone that feels both surreal and overdue. The four members — Michael Pol (vocals), Miguel Alcala (guitar), Chris Lopez (bass) and Alex Hernandez (drums) — talk about the opportunity with the kind of awe that comes from knowing how close they came to never getting here at all.

Their story begins in living rooms, churches and middle schools across El Paso. Pol grew up in Socorro, introduced to music by his dad and playing in bands by the time he turned 16. Alcala’s first guitar came from Juarez — an acoustic his father bought him, later stolen along with the truck it rode in. Lopez started playing in a mariachi band in the third grade, eventually performing with Vicente Fernández, Pepe Aguilar and Luis Miguel at the Albuquerque mariachi conference. Hernandez learned drums by mimicking the drummer at his church and built his first kit out of shoeboxes.

These aren’t just origin stories; they’re the foundation of a friendship that has outlasted every band they’ve ever formed. Alcala and Lopez met in middle school and never stopped playing together. They opened shows at a local bar for Lopez’ orchestra teacher. They destroyed Chris’ parents’ computer with Limewire. They wrote electronic music before they even understood what electronic music was.

Hernandez found them on Myspace at 18, showing up to an audition in church clothes while another drummer arrived in full emo gear.

“It was awkward — they were all staring at me,” he remembers. “I was pouring (sweat)… because I was so nervous.”

But he got the gig. And the four kept orbiting each other through countless projects — sometimes two of them in one band, three in another — always shifting, always searching.

“We had one project and we would skip on to something else, and then two of us would join this project, and they would do something else,” Pol says.

Bloomwave wasn’t planned; it just happened. And when it did, it felt like the thing they’d been trying to build all along. Before the band came together, though, there was burnout.

“It sort of felt like we were done, like throwing in the towel,” Pol says.

But the El Paso scene has a way of pulling people back in. As friends started new bands, the spark returned. Pol credits one moment in particular.

“We have some friends in this band called Glorious and I feel, like, when they started their project, seeing them live was like, ‘Holy fuck. I want to get back to it,’” he says.

The break had done its job. They were ready to play together again.

Trying to pin down Bloomwave’s sound is like trying to catch smoke. Their influences stretch from Deep Purple to Slayer to Fiona Apple and Björk to Massive Attack. They call themselves punk‑psych rock‑alternative, but even that feels like a loose approximation.

Their first EP, TV Guide, is the sound of a band rediscovering itself.

“One thing I’m noticing a lot with this project is that we’re not being so hard on ourselves. I was trying to write, to not be cheesy,” Pol says. “But now it’s more of like, ‘Fuck it, man. … I think the music translates better when you can write just normally, without any pressure.

“There’s lyrics that I consider cheesy, like on both of the EPs, and I cringe when I hear them,” Pol says. “But then there are people singing it or they talk about it, and you’re like, ‘what, really?’”

Alcala’s songwriting process is equally unfiltered. “I write a riff and then it just kind of evolves from there. I hear the old demos and then the new songs and, holy shit, it’s totally different.”

Their music is inspired by natural elements — namely mushrooms and marijuana — and just life in general, Pol says. TV Guide leans into the psychedelic. Their second EP, Alien Death Cookies (named after a weed strain), is more aggressive. “These lyrics were more like a darker form of us,” he reflects.

And yes, they’ve named some of their songs after weed strains — “Wedding Cake,” “Alien Death Cookies,” “Animal Tsunami” — because why not?

Where their second EP leans into the darkness, their upcoming three‑song EP pushes further into experimentation, blending psych, punk and electronic elements.

El Paso’s music community isn’t just a backdrop for Bloomwave — it’s been a welcoming one that made it easier for them to find their place. “We’ve been around the scene for a long time. The people we grew up with now are throwing shows and they’re managing bars,” Alcala says. “It’s a little bit of a cheat code on our end.”

Their biggest recent break came from Sparta’s Jim Ward.

“Jim Ward, he’s making it happen for us,” Pol says, still sounding stunned. He listened to Wiretap Scars growing up on a daily basis. Ward, they say, was the one who told Sol Summit organizers about them — an honor they don’t take lightly.

When Lopez learned they’d be playing on the same stage as The Flaming Lips at Sol Summit, he didn’t believe it. “I thought it was fake at first, because we had already been receiving fake emails asking us to play,” he says.

But it is real. And it is happening. (Catch Bloomwave at Sol Summit on Sunday, May 3, in Downtown El Paso.)

After 20 years of almosts, false starts and near‑endings, Bloomwave has finally become the band they were always meant to be. They’re grateful for the support they’ve had so far and excited for what might come next.

Bloomwave is in motion now — refining a tight 30‑minute festival set, planning for out‑of‑town shows and pushing themselves creatively. They want to tour. They want to play Lollapalooza. They want to get signed. They want to keep evolving.

“It seems sort of unrealistic because we’ve been in this shit forever, but I’m not gonna let go of those fucking dreams till I’m dead,” Pol says. “We’ve got a lot of fucking support and I feel like we can’t let these people down.

“If you’re gonna do something, why not fucking go all in? I think we’re at that point now,” he adds. “We’re like, ‘the world is fucked, bro. It’s time. Let’s go. Let’s make this shit happen.’”

For Your Viewing/Listening Pleasure

Bloomwave Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloomwaveband/