Zoila Garman and Ramone Pickover on the Pure Local Extra show

Zoila is a good friend of the radio station, she’s been in before and hosted many events for us. Ramone is the opposite, it was his first time visiting or being on a show.

Firstly, Ramone talked about his band’s latest single. His band, Grand Mirage, released a song entitled Cow Eyed Glances yesterday. The phrase “Cow Eyed Glances” means a more romantic and flirty look you would give someone. Ramone explained that the song has a narrative to it, although it is more up to interpretation. The launch party was held yesterday evening and according to Ramone, it went very well. The party was packed and the song has already gotten many views online.

Zoila then talked about some of her upcoming music. She has been off the music scene for a little bit with her last release being around 2 years ago. In that time, she has been working toward a degree in music producing. Now that she has finished her first year, she’s ready to get back into producing music. Her next song is coming out on May the 5th. She told us that it’s more Caribbean and afro beats: all related to her Spanish and Dominican Republic heritage.

Ramone then told us all about Grand Mirage and how he ended up being their drummer. Grand Mirage has been together for around 4 years at this point, a little before the pandemic began. Ramone has only been with them for around a year and a half. The band had a different drummer but as they do, circumstances changed and they were in need of a new one.Ramone had recently arrived in Cardiff and it all went from there and now he drums for Grand Mirage.

Other than drumming, Ramone has recently dabbled in writing and has published a book entitled “Life in 8 beats”. As he is a drummer, you would expect it to be a guide all about drumming, however, that’s not the case. Kym thought the same when she bought it but she was pleasantly surprised upon reading it and seeing that it is a motivational book with drumming as an influence. Ramone said that he found that the book market is full of tutorials for drumming and music, this is his contribution but a little different. He said that he wants to write another, although he wants his next book to be fiction.

Then we talked about tribute acts: who Zoila and Ramone would want to tribute for if they did become a tribute act. Ramone said his father was in famous bands in South Africa as a drummer: influencing Ramone to get into drumming. Zoila initially said Tina Turner, but her answer changed to be her father as well after hearing Ramone’s answer.

Finally, what’s coming up: Zoila has her new song at the start of May which will also have a music video. She will also be doing some singing in Cardiff in a couple of weeks. As for Ramone, he has some gigs coming up. He is playing in London in May and playing in Hereford in August as well as a new single soon.

This isn’t everything we talked about, if you want to hear it all, you can listen to the full show here