A Conversation w/ Mint Field
From DIY shows in Tijuana to finding their footing on the road, Mint Field have learned to trust their ears—and give themselves room to grow.
Estrella del Sol remembers getting her first guitar pedal. It was a delay, a gift from her dad, and she was still learning how to play. She didn’t have a detailed plan for what her music should become. She just liked what she heard.
“I loved it,” she recalls. “This sound is incredible.”
That excitement helps explain how Mint Field began. Before the genre descriptions or the touring, there was the pleasure of trying something and wanting to hear more.
The project started in Tijuana in early 2015. Estrella wanted to play music and experiment with sound. Even the name came from a fairly simple place: she was obsessed with the color mint. A field of mint sounded peaceful and refreshing, somewhere she could imagine feeling at ease.
What the name represents has changed as the band has grown. But one part of her explanation feels especially close to the project’s beginnings.
“For us, it’s a space where we can express our purest selves,” she says.
Getting that space off the ground took some work. Estrella was around 17 when she started, in a city where she found few places for underage musicians to play. If Mint Field wanted a show, they often had to help make it happen: find a house, bring a PA, invite other bands, and put the evening together themselves.
She remembers Tijuana’s scene as eclectic. Sharing a bill didn’t necessarily mean sharing a sound. Bands came together partly because they needed the same limited spaces.
But she is careful not to romanticize those years. For her, being part of a scene didn’t always create a sense of community. Living at the border also left her feeling caught between places—far from much of Mexico, close to the United States, and unsure where she fit within that geography.
Those feelings contributed to her decision to leave for Mexico City. So did the practical reality that so much of the country’s music infrastructure was concentrated there.
“There are bands, but there aren’t spaces,” she says.
It’s a frustration that extends beyond her hometown. Artists can write songs, find bandmates, and rehearse, only to discover that finding somewhere to perform requires another kind of resourcefulness.
Learning to play was something the band could approach on their own terms. They remember how friends, online tabs, and YouTube made picking up an instrument feel accessible. Going to shows made playing in a band seem worth pursuing; friends helped make it seem possible.
That willingness to learn by doing still shapes their sound. Mint Field are often described through shoegaze and dream pop, but Estrella says they weren’t thinking in those terms when they began.
“We don’t really think about genre,” she explains.
Instead, they describe working with feelings and choosing sounds. What they listen to matters, but so do the things they see and experience. Their music has changed because their tastes have expanded, their playing has developed, and their lives have moved forward.
Estrella’s first delay pedal is a good example. She was drawn to the effect before she had a label for the music it might help her make. When people started calling Mint Field shoegaze, she could recognize the connection. It just hadn’t been the original assignment.
Their songwriting is similarly flexible. A synth idea or a beat might become the starting point. They jam, notice what’s working, and begin shaping a song. Vocals can emerge during that process, with lyrics arriving as the structure becomes clearer.
“There isn’t a formula,” Estrella says.
She describes writing words as a fairly immediate process, letting out thoughts that have been sitting somewhere in the back of her mind. Over time, she has noticed that many of those lyrics are things she needs to tell herself.
She talks openly about therapy, difficult periods with her mental health, and reaching a point where she understands what might help her live well. Putting that understanding into practice can still be hard.
“It’s really difficult to know it and then put it into action,” she says.
The songs become reminders she can return to. Progress doesn’t remove the possibility of another bad day, and knowing what to do doesn’t mean doing it will always come easily.
“We also have to embrace mistakes and pain.”
On the road, the band has learned to leave room for different kinds of responses, too. They describe Mexican crowds as vocal and expressive, while audiences in the United States can be quieter. They enjoy both. A quiet room doesn’t necessarily mean people are less engaged, just as shouting and dancing don’t mean they aren’t listening closely.
“They’re just different ways of being at a show,” they explain.
Touring also brings the question of spaces back into focus. They recall a show in Culiacán held in a rented event space, with rented sound equipment and organizers who made the whole thing possible. It’s an example of the infrastructure Estrella wishes existed more widely, but also a night the band remembers fondly. People showed up. The promoters cared. The show worked.
Those relationships are part of what they enjoy about touring Mexico: meeting the people putting on the shows, sharing a meal, and getting to know a city through its hosts.
There are practical things that could make the work easier. Still, they haven’t forgotten what made that night worthwhile. Someone found a room, brought in the equipment, and gave people a place to hear the band.
“As long as the sound is good,” Estrella says, “I don’t really ask for much.”
