FOR their latest EP, Bolton’s finest alt.texmex band Pancho Ballard and the Banditos enlisted a very special cover star — Oscar the donkey.

“Our trombone player knows a woman who has donkeys so we basically spent a lot of last summer having our photo taken with him,” says frontman Darren Riley, aka Pancho Ballard.

Don’t let the presence of a photogenic burro trick you into thinking that Five Songs for Oscar is only a clever joke stretched to the furthest degree. The songs might include, in Darren’s words, “everything from Mexican wrestlers to Nazi refugees in Argentina to songs about soup,” but there’s a sharp brain behind them, wearing a sombrero and a false moustache.

“Soup Song”, the video for which is available to watch on the Bolton News website now, is based on a recipe created by the Chilean magical realist author Isabelle Allende.

“She makes this soup whenever she’s had an argument with her husband, as a way to say sorry” says Darren. “You can actually make the soup by listening to the song. All the ingredients and the method are in there. Dick our trombone player wants to make it live on stage, but I think tehre might be some health and safety issues.”

Another track, titled Cut-throat of New Mexico is a horror story of haircuts gone wrong. “The character goes in to a barbers to get a shave but he falls asleep and the when he wakes up his moustache is gone,” says Darren. “He goes mad, kills the barber, and goes on a spree with his razor.”

The banditos are playing four gigs in the next few weeks, “which is probably more than we played all last year,” says Darren.

“There’s a lot more momentum in the band than we had last year.”

They will be at the Black Horse in Darwen on January 28, and Retro Bar in Manchester on February 21.

“I believe there’s going to be poetry and things going on so we should go down quite well.”

• Five Songs for Oscar costs £2.99 to download and is available via their website. A physical CD costs £4, email info@panchoballard.com to arrange payment and delivery.