Ricky Prado
The claims surrounding the origins of Ricky Prado's arrival in the U.S.
are as contradictory as they are legendary. His oldest fans still
peddle competing tales involving everything from dolphins that kept him
afloat in the waters connecting Cuba and Miami to massive Andean birds
that protected him from predators in his trek through the mountain
jungles. While there's likely very little truth to these stories, Ricky
doesn't talk about his journey to what he calls "this magical land".
Instead he prefers to leave it up to the public imagination. Whatever
the case, no one really knew who he was until he burst on to a
burgeoning musical scene that sprang up along the Gulf coast in the
late 1990s. At that time he was performing with a "techno-funk band
dedicated to tearing down the music industry from the outside in." They
called themselves the Beat-up Pickup Trucks, and amassed what was
perhaps the most loyal following of any musical act in the history of
the region. Fans swarmed festivals and bars to watch them play during
the band's most creative years from 1997 until around 2000. Before
catching on with the Trucks Ricky supported himself as a DJ in the New
Orleans club scene. And it was when he was in one of these clubs that
Ricky met the man who would become the BUPUT front man and lead
guitarist, Johnny Nashville. Their meeting was innocuous at first.
Ricky thought Johnny was just another one of his gay fans who always
seemed to approach him in the New Orleans bars because of all the
Madonna and Cher records club owners forced him to play. He had no idea
that they would start a musical partnership that would make it a goal
to change the way people listened to music. Unfortunately the
partnership couldn't last forever. In early 2000, rumors started
swirling around BUPUT's fans that front man Nashville had sold his
on-stage persona to the up and coming MTV stuntman/hipster Johnny
Knoxville. As the popularity of Knoxville's show swelled, fans no
longer believed in the mission of the Beat-up Pickup Trucks. They
stopped coming to performances and the band eventually broke up. Johnny
Nashville's New Orleans Garden District house, fleet of luxury SUV's,
and security detail belie his continued assertions that his image was
stolen and the rumors planted amongst their fans by MTV executives. He
has also gone back to using his given name, Garrett Braniss. For the
next three years Ricky went back deep into the underground scene in the
New Orleans area. He performed under pseudonyms and in disguise because
he thought "I'm so charismatic, that if people know who I am, they'll
follow me because of my image, not my music." It was in the middle of
this period that he met filmmaker Michael Miley. Miley was shooting his
second student film, "Surface Calm," in Lafayette, LA, and wasn't
pleased with the nightlife there. Miley wanted to throw the best
possible wrap-party for the cast and crew who had dedicated so much of
their time to the project. After asking around some New Orleans club
owners about good DJ's, one gave him Prado's phone number. Ricky agreed
to mix beats for the party, and when he showed up for the gig, he so
impressed Miley that the two have been close friends ever since. Ricky
claims that to this day his nearly seditious beats still influence
Miley's outlook on life and inform his craft. Tragedy struck Ricky
Prado in 2003. Sadly, while driving the very truck that inspired his
once great band's name, his brakes failed and he plowed nearly full
speed into a multi-car pileup on Interstate 10's Atchafalaya Bridge.
Ricky escaped with his life, but he injured his arms and hands so
severely that he can no longer mix records on his prized turntables.
Ricky now lives in a one-room apartment in Lafayette, LA and writes a
small, local political website. He claims his only possessions are his
turntables, his computer, and a futon. With luck he will eventually be
able to rehabilitate his hands enough to mix again, but until then his
friends claim that his unnatural fondness for the WB's "Smallville" is
blocking his inspiration. Ricky denies that he even owns a television,
but there is very little that anyone claims as undeniable truth about
the legendary DJ.