The Division Men: Blending Shadows and Light

Home » Where Love Meets the Lonesome Chord: The Story of The Division Men

Photo of Caroline Rippy Portillo sitting on a recliner with a black acoustic guitar leaning on it and a red star lamp up above while J. Spencer Portillo sits in a recliner to the right of her with a lamp above him and acoustic guitar to the right of him. The husband and wife duo, known as The Division Men, are sitting in a backyard. — Nearly two decades in, Caroline Rippy Portillo, left, and Jesus “J. Spencer” Portillo — the husband‑wife duo behind The Division Men — are still chasing the same spark that first drew them together: a sound that’s intimate yet immense, shadowed yet luminous, haunting and deeply human.

By Adrian Gomez

Nearly two decades into their creative partnership, Jesus “J. Spencer” Portillo and Caroline Rippy Portillo — the husband-wife duo known as The Division Men — are still chasing the same thing that first brought them together: a sound that feels both intimate and immense, shadowed and luminous, haunting and deeply human. Their music has always lived in the space between worlds, and in many ways, so have they.

Today, the couple is back in El Paso, continuing to carve out their own lane in an industry that rarely awards the unconventional. Their latest album, Hymns and Fiery Dances, released in August 2025 on Motor Music, is a testament to that persistence: a sweeping, collaborative work that reflects not only their evolution as artists, but the long, winding journey that shaped them.

While making music these days has found its process between the couple, there is a long, winding road of love and admiration for the craft.

Caroline was raised in San Antonio, Texas, where music was part of the foundation of her upbringing. Her grandfather, Martin Macías, was a respected San Antonio luthier whose handcrafted bajo sexto instruments have become iconic in conjunto music.

Growing up, she played with a few local bands. A bass player now, she started her musical journey via flute and piano thanks to her mother, who helped guide her to music classes. It wasn’t until she was a student at St. Mary’s University, where a friend gave her an electric bass guitar, that her life changed. She picked up the bass and ran with it, eventually starting a band called Blank and later performing with other local bands around San Antonio.

By 2007, she began performing with Tito & Tarantula, whom she played with until 2012. The opportunity to join the band arrived almost by accident, through a mutual friend’s network. Caroline was getting ready to leave San Antonio for a job in Las Vegas, Nevada, when a mutual friend of Tito Larriva’s niece reached out to her to give a heads up about meeting with her. “They wanted to see if I wanted to try out to be their bassist,” she recalls. “They had been looking for a bassist as they moved from Los Angeles to Austin. Unbeknownst to them, I had already moved to Vegas and I let them know I would meet them in LA. It worked out from there for about five-and-a-half years.”

J. Spencer shares a similar journey within music and credits his mother for the exposure. Born in Los Angeles, his mother bought a piano for the house, as she wanted her three children to take music lessons. It was during this time that he found his footing within the world. By learning to play piano, chords, patterns and tempo became his language.

He began to perform with his friends that he used to skate and get in trouble with. One of those friends — Kenny Hopper, who would later become the first bass player for At the Drive-In — and J. Spencer would spend hours bouncing ideas off each other as they buried themselves in his bedroom and consumed everything to do with records and instruments.

In 2003, he made the leap to living in Berlin. It was a turbulent time to be an American abroad, as the United States had just invaded Iraq. “Everyone had opinions about you,” he recalls about that time. “I stayed there somewhere around seven years.”

During those last couple of years, a fellow El Pasoan and major player in the El Paso music scene (he helped start The Rugburn and The Golden Age), Eric Frescas, was living in Prague and told him about a guitar player named Steven Hufsteter, from Tito & Tarantula, who wanted to go to Berlin and check out the city. “I said, ‘Sure, give him my number, and he can stay at my place,’” he says. “Now, for many people, the idea of having a total stranger come to their house is frightening. I’ve lived most of my life traveling and being with friends and going on tour and sleeping on floors in different places every night, so the idea of just having a stranger in my house didn’t really faze me. I let him come over and he stayed with me for about a month.”

Eventually, Hufsteter tossed around the idea of Portillo’s band opening for Tito & Tarantula in Berlin. It was there, in a dim Berlin club, that fate intervened.

“That was the night I met Caroline,” he says. “And it was just love at first sight.”

Caroline remembers the moment with cinematic clarity. “It was definitely kismet,” she says. “It was love at first sight for sure. It was one of those moments where the dark, dirty bar door opens and he walked through the door. The bright light behind it opened and our eyes met and we’ve been together ever since.”

That’s why I took the name The Division Men, because everybody was divided and living in different places. We’ve kept the name since. Then when Caroline and I started playing these songs, we played them the way they were written, and their simplicity, with an acoustic guitar and a bass.
Jesus “J. Spencer” Portillo

After that magical first meeting, everything seemed to fall into place. Caroline says starting a band was something that was never discussed — it just happened. At that time, J. Spencer was burned out as he had been performing and touring with bands since the 1990s and wanted to create a collaborative project that brought together musicians from different places.

“That’s why I took the name The Division Men, because everybody was divided and living in different places,” he explains. “We’ve kept the name since. Then when Caroline and I started playing these songs, we played them the way they were written, and their simplicity, with an acoustic guitar and a bass. And eventually we started realizing that we could perform these songs live. So that’s pretty much where we started collaborating a lot more together and then writing and recording our first album (Live at Clap of Thunder).”

With Hymns and Fiery Dances, the duo continued its recipe for success with having a number of musicians play on the album. The album, the duo’s fourth, features Rafael Gayol (Leonard Cohen), Rick G Nelson (Afghan Whigs, Twilight Singers, Polyphonic Spree, St. Vincent), Jay Reynolds (Asleep at the Wheel), Fredo Ortiz (Beastie Boys, Los Lobos), Leah Shapiro (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), Dana Colley (Vapors of Morphine, Morphine), Asya Sorshneva (CocoRosie, Udo Jürgens), Beto Martinez (Grupo Fantasma), Josh Marcus, Jacob Valenzuela (Calexico, Sergio Mendoza y la Orkestra), Laura Scarborough, Barb Hunter (Afghan Whigs, Pigface), Eric Gorfain (Sam Phillips, Def Leppard, Queens of the Stone Age, Dr Dre), Peter Hayes (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), Roscoe Beck (Leonard Cohen, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson) and Alain Johannes (Eleven, Them Crooked Vultures, Queens of the Stone Age, PJ Harvey).

Photo of husband-and-wife duo The Division Men, of El Paso, standing in black outfits in a desert landscape. — Photo by Casey Chumbley.

Among those collaborations was one that carried deep emotional weight. The two had reached out to Mark Lanegan — best known for his work with Screaming Trees and his acclaimed solo career — who agreed to lend his voice to “The Night Calls.” But when it came time to record, the pandemic hit and plans were put on hold. Months passed and Lanegan fell ill. He told them he wouldn’t be able to record the song. Not long after, he passed away. “It was a sad loss, more than just for us, but for the world,” Caroline says.

That sense of shared artistry and loss only deepened their commitment to collaboration. “When community comes together like this and supports each other, it can change everything,” J. Spencer says. Their latest album is proof of that: it’s a tapestry woven from the contributions of artists across genres and geographies, each adding their own soul to the duo’s signature sound.

From San Antonio to Los Angeles, from Berlin to El Paso, The Division Men’s journey has been shaped by chance encounters, creative risks and a partnership that has only deepened with time. Their music remains a reflection of that path — dark, romantic, ethereal and unmistakable theirs.

Nearly 20 years in, they’re still writing the next chapter. And if their story so far is any indication, the best parts are still ahead.

Catch The Division Men at Sound Decay Records (314 S. Stanton St., El Paso, TX 79901) on Sunday, May 31, 2026, at Sound Decay Records, when they open for Paz Lenchantin (Pixies, Zwan, A Perfect Circle). The free show starts at 6 p.m., so get there early as there’s limited space.

The group will go on tour with William Elliott Whitmore for some U.S. dates in November and plan to tour Europe in April 2027.