Texas Music News — August 25, 2026
Snyder, Texas, songwriter Jordan Rodriguez named his Tejano band Asalto after a hailstorm pounded his cousin’s truck. Now the group’s new single, “Te Traigo en la Mente,” is climbing just as hard up the charts. It dropped July 31, and it hasn’t slowed down since.
Rodriguez didn’t grow up like other kids in Snyder. He picked up the accordion at four and was soon touring with his father’s band, Conjunto Mi Gusto. Weddings, quinceañeras, bars and clubs filled his weekends instead of playgrounds. “I didn’t have your normal childhood,” he says. “I didn’t get to play outside much.” But his father’s discipline taught him both sides of the business, the music and the money. Those lessons still guide him nearly 30 years later.
Rodriguez eventually struck out on his own. He recorded his debut solo album in a laundry room with a friend, right there in Snyder. It wasn’t polished, but it was his. For his 2021 follow-up, De Nuevo, he drove to New Braunfels, Texas, and worked with Grammy-winning producer Eddie Perez. A full band came together almost by accident. A friend booked him for a Lubbock benefit show and assumed he’d bring a lineup. Rodriguez scrambled musicians together, including drummer David Vargas, and Asalto took shape. His cousin, bajo quinto player Joe Garza, named the group mid-drive, joking that the hail was “assaulting” their truck.
The Hail Finally Caught Up With Them
That storm turned out to be a good omen. “Te Traigo en la Mente” is a heartbreak anthem. Rodriguez wrote it in about 15 minutes, after a friend handed him a single English phrase to build on. The band flipped it from a cumbia to a ranchera at the last minute, a gamble that paid off. Rodriguez calls the video “some of the best work we’ve ever done.” He studied under Siggno‘s Jesse Turner to sharpen his voice. He also leans on bassist Edward Garza and Jonathan Espinoza for help translating lyrics, since he isn’t fluent in Spanish. Asalto moves easily between norteño, Tejano, cumbia, country and banda. That range carries forward the same conjunto tradition Rodriguez learned riding along with his father decades ago.
Rodriguez knows Asalto might never outgrow Tejano heavyweights like Siggno or Solido. He’s made peace with that. “I want people to remember how hard we worked,” he says. “We didn’t cut corners.” For a kid who grew up in bars instead of backyards, that’s the whole pitch.
Details at Tejano Nation
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