By Patty G.

Walk into the entrance of Let There Be Rock music school, which is connected to Apple Tree Creative Center, and you’re immediately hit with walls of music posters. Down the hall, past the rehearsal rooms — more posters. Keep going into the performance space, and the walls practically hum with even more.

At Apple Tree, located near El Paso’s Upper Valley, music isn’t just decoration — it’s everywhere. In sound form. In picture form. In people form. It’s music, music, music. And I’m instantly hooked. I spend workdays sneaking moments to watch a newly discovered music video or scroll Instagram — not for friends’ feeds (sorry!) but for reels, news, anything about my favorite musicians and their favorite musicians. I want my days saturated with bands and sound. Apple Tree feels like the kind of place to chase that, especially for El Paso’s youth. That’s exactly what the founders of the non-profit envisioned: a safe space where kids could learn to play, create and belong in the music scene without risk.

“No Violence, Drugs or Alcohol.”

“We have students that have ‘graduated’ in the sense that they form bands outside of the school; they’re getting to be a part of the music scene,” says Ernesto Carrillo, Apple Tree’s creative and outreach director. “The students would ask me, ‘Where can we play? Everything’s a bar.’ There are no spaces. There’s house shows, like DIY venues, but I was like, ‘It would be great for them to have a safe, regulated space where they could come and play.’”

Carrillo says Apple Tree follows the Gilman model, inspired by 924 Gilman Street, the legendary Berkeley punk venue immortalized in The Mr. T Experience’s song “At Gilman Street”:

“Seems like it was only yesterday / With nothing to do and nowhere to play / But we could go down to Gilman Street / And see Op Ivy / every week / No violence, drugs, or alcohol / Just maximum rock and roll.”

“I used to live up there (Berkeley), so that’s how I got familiar with it,” Carrillo recalls. “So I wanted to start that here — essentially an alcohol-free, drug-free safe space, or what they call ‘third spaces.’”

(“Third spaces” is a term coined by American sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe neutral places where people can find community and social interaction with regulars; a space beyond home and work.)

Since August 2025, Apple Tree has been opening its doors to bands composed of students from Let There Be Rock and to other bands across the city — a new home for El Paso’s next wave of musicians. It’s envisioned as a place where young people can find community, learn about making music and putting on shows and explore creative outlets like photography, zine-making and more. And, Carrillo says he wants to help build a culture where musicians get paid for performing (even if it’s a small amount, he wants this to be the expectation).

Carrillo, himself a seasoned local musician, hopes to build on the experience of El Paso’s seasoned musicians to help cultivate a healthy, thriving music scene. When catching up with friends, he mentions Apple Tree, but many say they don’t want to be “the old guy at the show.” Carrillo reminds them they have so much to offer the next generation.

“I tell them, ‘Why don’t you share your knowledge, pass it on to the next generation?’ and they seem more down for that,” he explains, adding that Apple Tree can also be a place where musicians looking for others to play with can meet up, network and maybe find their future bandmate.

It’s clear the Gilman method — an idea that emphasizes multigenerational community and cooperation — drives Carrillo to make Apple Tree more than just another venue. The connection and networking are what really seem to make him light up. Pursuing a graduate degree in mental health counseling, Carrillo says the teaching and education aspect can cultivate a thriving music and arts scene, one built with enough ownership and care that its people would never let it fade.

“I want the community to make this space theirs. Like, it’s not just my passion project. I hope the community picks it up, runs it. This is their space as much as anyone’s,” Carrillo says. “I want it to be able to be well-known and integrated in the community, to establish a positive culture again, with the shows being all ages and starting earlier. I’m already seeing ripples.”

One of those ripples is John Reyes, who started attending Let There Be Rock at 13 after a friend joined. Together they formed an alternative rock band called Fear of Tradition, which he’s still part of today.

“It taught me almost everything I know about bass,” he says. “My teacher, Jose, was a very good instructor. He taught me a lot of music theory and I think it definitely made me a better musician.”

Beyond learning to play music, Reyes says he’s learning more about the music industry: how to play in front of audiences, how to book shows for Fear of Tradition and how to throw his own shows featuring other bands. “It definitely gave me confidence,” he says. 

Reyes’s story is one of many — proof that Apple Tree isn’t just a venue, but a launchpad. A place where a teenager or young adult can walk in curious and walk out confident, ready to take the stage or book shows. (Carrillo tells me about one student, shy and quiet when they started, but up on stage and performing as their band’s lead singer just a few months later. “That’s what I love. Just like, ‘Let me give you the tools to do this.’”)

Apple Tree Creative Center was created after Carrillo had been teaching at the music school for some time. Let There Be Rock Director Pepe Clarke Magana saw that Carrillo was looking for something more. When Carrillo, who’s pursuing a master’s degree in mental health counseling, mentioned expanding the school to include a non-profit space, Clarke Magana was all in.

“I was like, ‘Man, this is a perfect way to hold on to Ernie and give him a spot where he can really grow and do what he’s been going to school for,’” he says. “It just seemed like the perfect fit for him to do this here and to keep it integrated within the school since he’s been with me since Day One. It’s been awesome.”

Clarke Magana — a longtime musician himself who’s toured with his own band, KYNG, and who plays drums for industrial band Ministry — envisions Let There Be Rock and Apple Tree eventually housed in their own building, a full‑fledged music compound. To do that, they worked on getting Apple Tree non-profit status through the El Paso Community Foundation. And though they are both new to the non-profit space, Carrillo says it has been great navigating the non-profit world with Apple Tree’s team. (You can donate to Apple Tree through the El Paso Community Foundation: epcf.org/appletree.)

Apple Tree is a venue space, but Carrillo sees it as much more than that. Again, like the Gilman model, he sees Apple Tree as a gathering space for all creative forms. “Arts, music, photography, live sound, the whole industry — like a community center,” he says.

“I know Paso is so vibrant in its arts. I’ve toured every major city multiple times and when I come back to El Paso, I’m like, ‘Man, the arts coming from here are amazing. (El Paso) is a gem.”

As we chat, we keep getting sidetracked. The stories of mutual friends in bands from the ’90s and early aughts keep coming up. Stories of venues long gone, a vibrant scene driven by young El Pasoans bringing iconic bands here – it all keeps reminding us of why we want El Paso’s music scene to exist in a way that we knew it and for kids growing up in an ever-increasing digitized and saturated world. “If they knew their history here in El Paso, they would be, like, ‘That happened here? I want to add to that!’” Carrillo says.

Apple Tree is a place for those to get performance experience, but also for those who want to be behind-the-scenes to get experience too. “A kid in the community is like, ‘Hey, can I come do lights? I’m like, do it up,” Carrillo says. “He does an amazing job. They love it here. Why? Because it’s their own.”

Carrillo says Apple Tree will start holding workshops soon. For now, he’s working on making sure that Apple Tree’s community grows organically and strong. “When we filled up the space and I saw volunteers running the door, a volunteer doing the sound, and I didn’t have to do anything, I was smiling ear to ear,” he says. “Like they’re doing it. They’re making the space theirs — that was the greatest. … They’re reaching out to me now to do that and we’re not even a year in. So who knows what that will turn into.”

And maybe that’s the point. To remind El Paso that its creative pulse has always been beating, waiting for someone to turn up the volume. Apple Tree isn’t just building a scene. It’s building a legacy — one riff, one zine, one fearless kid at a time.