The three members of Mirrored Vision sit side by side on an old sofa at Lockout Music Studios in San Pedro when the band’s lead singer, Mitchel Wilson, notices the huge photo of Black Flag high on the wall above them.
He asks the other two if they’ve ever heard that story about the time in 1981 when the student council at San Pedro High School booked the legendary Hermosa Beach band—fronted by its new lead singer, Henry Rollins—to play the school, without bothering to inform the administration what was coming.
“Yeah,” says Wilson, laughing, “the principal pulled that plug pretty quickly.”
Mirrored Vision (l to r): John Alanouf, Mateo Toro, and Mitchel Wilson. (photo: Carlos C. Caceres)
Such stories are more than mere trivia for this trio: Wilson and his bandmates John Alanouf and Mateo Toro are fully aware of their place in the musical tradition of Los Angeles’ South Bay. Stories like that of a young Black Flag playing the home of the Pirates, says Wilson, “just make me proud of being from San Pedro. We have that lineage.”
It’s a lineage that runs deep through the industrial landscape of this harbor town. Wilson arrived here at the age of 15, leaving both home and school in Redondo Beach in 1991 to move into a studio apartment at 10th and Meyler with a death rock band called Dark Enthrallment.
“Even then, I knew we were descended from the Minutemen and that whole early San Pedro punk scene,” he says. The town continues to influence his musical sensibilities: “Old ghosts all the way back—sailors and the port and pirates and satanic bunkers.”
For Toro, the drummer who came from Colombia via the San Fernando Valley, San Pedro felt like a journey back in time. “I was living in the Glendale area, and it all felt very plastic to me coming from Colombia, where everything’s very raw. Then I came down to San Pedro and found this skate park under the bridge of a highway, and I was like, ‘What the hell? That still exists?’”
Wilson. (photo: Carlos C. Caceres)
Bassist Alanouf drives from Costa Mesa for rehearsals, a journey that’s as much psychological as it is physical. “You get shaken up a little bit. You almost die around the big rigs in your little car, and you get over the bridge and arrive at this old building.” That building, Lockout Studios, with its thin insulation where every DIY band bleeds through the walls, enhances the immersion. “I’m from a place where it’s all businesses and strip malls, and then I find myself here, in this punk rock place.”
San Pedro exists in geographical limbo, “almost like a Bermuda Triangle,” Alanouf says, as he turns toward Wilson and Toro, asking, “Does your mail even say San Pedro on it, or does it say Los Angeles? It’s not LA, it’s not Long Beach. It’s not anything like Orange County. It definitely is just Pedro.” Like other cities known for their musical culture—Nashville, New Orleans, Austin—“There’s music here, but it feels like it’s a dirtier harbor version.”
Mirrored Vision emerged from pandemic boredom in 2020 when a former bandmate approached Wilson about writing songs online. Wilson, a self-taught musician who hadn’t performed live in over a decade, agreed on one condition: “I’d only be interested if the songs are great, if we push and complete an album.”
Toro. (photo: Carlos C. Caceres)
Alanouf, meanwhile, was using the COVID lockdowns to teach himself bass on a cheap pawnshop instrument, posting videos of his progress on social media. Wilson, noting that Alanouf was “fresh from a divorce,” suggested the band might help him get back into the social scene if those lockdowns ever ended. Despite initial reluctance about the commute from Costa Mesa, Alanouf was hooked once he heard the demos.
That first incarnation fizzled. Then Wilson started frequenting Distrito, a cafe in Downtown San Pedro, which Toro co-owns, where Wilson would hear the band’s debut album Unprecedented on the shop’s turntable.
“We had a throne available for a beat king like Mateo,” says Wilson. “I pushed him to audition, and he came in with a furious thunder, and there was instantly a connection between the three of us.”
The band’s new EP Vera Volantis—meaning “true will”—releases July 18, the day before their record release show at The Sardine. The six-song set represents their first truly collaborative effort. “It really is the first release because it’s the three of us and the real incarnation of the band,” says Wilson.
Alanouf. (photo: Carlos C. Caceres)
Their influences sprawl across the musical landscape. Toro, a self-described “’ 90s-punk kid,” points to Travis Barker and the Transplants, along with the Misfits and even Dave Matthews Band. Alanouf balances the raw aggression with ’80s New Wave—Joy Division, The Cure, and Sisters of Mercy. “I’m the least punk of the guys,” he says. “I like the attitude and energy of punk rock, but I don’t find myself listening to it a lot.” He’s always trying to find “some rhythmic thing that makes you want to dance instead of just punching your neighbor.”
Wilson’s vinyl collection runs deepest—5,000 records, if not more. His influences include The Chameleons, Gang of Four, David Bowie, and jazz pianist Bill Evans. “He plays a somber piano that could bring me to tears,” says Wilson. “His wife committed suicide, there was heroin addiction—it’s as punk rock as any punk rock story.”
What sets Mirrored Vision apart from rock ‘n’ roll’s time-honored recklessness is their professionalism. “We hope that’s an asset because, in music, there’s a lot of erratic behavior, a lot of unprofessionalism,” Wilson says. “We honor the music by not pissing all over it. We don’t get lit before we rehearse.”
Wilson’s attitude might have seemed outlandish to the original punk movement, but perhaps this evolution was inevitable. When an art form achieves sufficient cultural authority—complete with academic courses and museum exhibitions—its practitioners begin to treat it as a craft requiring professional standards rather than a weapon against them.
At recording sessions, established musicians are often surprised at the band’s efficiency. “They’re like, ‘you guys are doing that, in like, one take?’” says Wilson. “Well, that’s because we put in the work.”
Their approach mirrors their day jobs. Just down the street from Toro’s Distrito is Wilson’s Subterranean salon, while Alanouf is a self-employed hairstylist in Costa Mesa. “We all have day jobs and families and life,” Wilson says. “But I feel the music is really what we were born to do, so when it comes to Mirrored Vision, we’re serious about it.”
Live at The Sardine in San Pedro earlier this year. (photo: Carlos C. Caceres/Instagram: @carlitos.fx)
This controlled approach appears in their sound. “We want to bring chaos, but we also keep it tamed down a little bit,” says Toro. “You can hear it in the music.”
This mindset also reflects the realities of contemporary artistic ambition. Unlike the original San Pedro punks, who could survive on part-time work when rent was cheap, today’s musicians require steady day jobs to maintain the very studios and venues where they pursue their art. The members’ businesses are not obstacles to their creativity—they are the economic foundation that enables creativity.
That entrepreneurial mindset extends to how the trio approaches the band—and the music itself. “I just love the start-up energy,” says Alanouf. “Whether it’s a business or a band, I love bringing things together and into existence, and I love that we’re committed to doing that together and moving this music forward.” spt
Check out Mirrored Vision’s music at mirroredvision.com and catch them live at The Sardine on Saturday, July 19. Tickets at thesardinepedro.com.