Reik

Reik are like any other California pop rock band: three clean-cut guys wearing faded tees and sneakers, singing about love. Only, they're from Baja California and they're singing in Spanish.

For Reik, whose name is literally the English word "rake" written phonetically in Spanish, normal is the new special. Formed in 2003 in the sleepy border town of Mexicali (just across from the U.S. city of Calexico), the group consists of Jesús Alberto Navarro Rosas on vocals, Julio Ramírez Eguía on vocals and guitar and Gilberto Bibi Marín on guitar. Despite being signed to Sony after just one year of playing out, singer Jesús insists they're just "tres dudes," adding: "[w]e like to read, go to the gym, we have many friends and spend a lot of time on the phone."

The rest of the time, they write hits. Songs like Yo quisiera (I wish), Qué vida la mía (What a life I have) and Noviembre sin tí (November without you) pushed their self-titled debut to gold sales in México. Their follow-up didn't disappoint a growing fan-base throughout Latin America with radio-friendly tracks like Invierno (Winter) and De qué sirve (What does it matter).

On their latest album, Un día más (One more day), Reik teamed up with famed producer Cachorro López (Caifanes, Maldita Vecindad, Julieta Venegas, Café Tacuba), for a fuller sound that is just as perfectly… normal as on the lead single Inolvidable (Unforgettable). Not surprisingly, the band isn't about to change their tune: "In general the album is geared towards the positive, happy things, the good side of life."