|
Words by Scott Caffrey
Los Lobos |
Los Lobos is easy to take for granted. As certified musical trailblazers, their path has always been a more difficult one. Trailblazing involves struggle and strife, misguided criticism, and can take eons for anyone to recognize it as a worthy pursuit. But as their latest album The Town and the City attests, it's clearly the only thing this 32-year-old quintet knows.
Being a maverick in the '80s music business was tricky, to say the least. A band making its own decisions was either a big gun or had some credibility in the hit parade. But even then, those breaking artistically free were often castigated to the "eclectic" bin. If they were ever heard from again, it was in the underground scene. A select few of these bands, however, made it out with their careers intact, and have become the New Legends.
Los Lobos is one of these legendary bands. They made their name by consciously, constantly, and creatively moving in the opposite direction of their last recorded step. And it worked because they're damn good. It's one of the ballsiest moves in rock 'n' roll, and they don't get enough credit for doing it. Because no matter how beloved any band is, making the anti-album is always a risk. But for The Wolves, these moves are normal, and they have come to define Los Lobos's career.
Los Lobos |
As history has vindicated, "eclectic" is now a badge of cool. And the guys in Los Lobos wear it well. While most people know them for their hit Ritchie Valens covers on the La Bamba soundtrack, not enough know them for the brilliant musical grandeur that comprises Kiko. So today, they command something of a comfortable middle ground – they had a whiff of big time stardom and have earned their stripes underground.
The group's continued success and rabid fan-base speak directly to the accessibility of their diverse music. On stage, their schizophrenic setlists foster a self-professed mission of intercultural and intergenerational harmony. Their shows have become something akin to a hip family reunion. It's such a loose and friendly atmosphere that you can walk up, meet each one, and even request "La Bamba" if you absolutely have to hear it. The thin line between success and failure has been kicked out of whack, bent out of shape, and moved clear to the other side by a quartet of Chicano friends from East LA – David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez, Cesar Rosas, and Conrad Lozano – and their lone recruit, Steve Berlin.
Born September 14th, 1955 in Philadelphia, Steve Berlin moved to Los Angeles at the ripe age of 19 after getting a call for a can't-miss gig. He quickly became a hot commodity as a session saxophonist, and it was during his stint with The Blasters that Berlin remembers seeing Los Lobos for the first time. The year was 1980, and Los Lobos were opening for Public Image, Ltd. at the Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. The punk audience threw everything they could – literally and figuratively – at the long-haired, fuzzy foursome as they played their way through a set of traditional, acoustic Norteño music. The gutsy display fascinated Berlin, who would later equate the impact to "finding a tribe of Indians living under a freeway underpass."
Steve Berlin |
It wasn't until the second time he saw them live, as openers for his own Blasters, that Berlin was gripped into a healthy obsession. "We ended up hanging out and I remember many, many times where I would do a gig with The Blasters or somebody else and then go screaming across town to catch the Lobos encore. Anything to get to play with them, to me, was what I would do. No matter how far, or how ridiculous the commute was, I was gonna be there just because I enjoyed it so much."
With fascination eventually turning into full-time work, no decision was ever really made for Berlin to join as honorary Chicano. "I played with them long enough, and worked with them long enough. It wasn't like they came to me and said, 'Would you?' I was sort of like, 'Hey could I?' So it all kinda melded into one big thing, I guess." Berlin would go on to co-produce their Grammy-winning EP ...And a Time to Dance with T-Bone Burnett in 1983 and more-or-less officially join Los Lobos sometime in 1984.
With his position in the band now firmly in place, Berlin continued playing countless sessions all over Southern California with a diverse array of bands, including the Beat Farmers, Translator, and Flesh Eaters. But as you'll soon read, it was a "record label family" assignment on Paul Simon's landmark Graceland that would shake Berlin to his core. And though Graceland amounted to a painful learning experience that none of the members have forgotten, one year later Los Lobos finally enjoyed their first taste of commercial success with La Bamba.
From there, Berlin's reputation as a producer continued to grow. He helmed sessions for acts as diverse as Faith No More, The Tail Gators, and his former Blaster-mate Dave Alvin. He remained a stalwart on the alternative rock scene and worked with the likes of The Replacements, John Lee Hooker, Leo Kottke, Sheryl Crow, and The String Cheese Incident.
Armed with obvious studio acumen, Berlin works hard to make the recorded Lobos sound meet the band's vision. And because of this prowess and thirst for record making, he spent every necessary minute poring over everything that was needed to create the wonderfully complicated The Town and the City. "Let's put it this way – I was the only guy there every single day. A lot of guys got to take some days off, but I didn't."
The Town and the City falls perfectly in the Los Lobos canon. It has an undeniable patience and tranquility, even when the guitars are jacked up. It also focuses on one big theme close to the band's heart: immigration. This is an album about people feeling out of place. It's about the hardships that come with being, and feeling, different.
The intricacies of sound presented on the album sway from the heart-wrenching laborer's lament "Hold On" (I'm killing myself to survive)" to the anthemic guitar power of "The Road to Gila Bend." Along with the unique sensibilities of producers Tchad Blake and Robert Carrazza, the band is still able to emit those subtle, strange, and weird noises – like the effulgent feedback guiding the listener through "The Valley." The Town and the City demands attention and repeat-listening. It's far too heady to get it all in one sitting. This album is the culmination of a musical family, living life together. Once again, Los Lobos has opened the doors to its collective heart and spoken for the world at large.
 |
| |
It was really a grind virtually every single day of making this record. Which is not to say it wasn't edifying. I mean, it's art. We knew what it was there for. It's not like it's supposed to be fun.
-Steve Berlin on making The Town and the City |
|
|
| |
|
JamBase: Congratulations on The Town and the City. You guys must be pretty proud.
Berlin: Thank you very much. You know we're still in that, more like the pain of childbirth is still too apparent to feel the joy of pride, I guess. It will take a little while before actual pride shows up.
JamBase: It's a very heavy-duty album.
Berlin: Yeah, that is true.
JamBase: But were you able to have any fun doing it?
Steve Berlin :: Producer |
Berlin: Ummm... No [laughs]. How honest should I be? I'll put it this way, we've been blessed, almost for decades, with records that either made themselves, or were incredibly fun to make, or just painless. Like The Ride just had one amazing moment after the other, with all these guest-stars stopping by and stuff.
I really don't remember a single day of making this album, where I'd go home and go, "Boy, that was cool" or you know, "Gee, I'm really glad I have this job." It was really a grind virtually every single day of making this record. Which is not to say it wasn't edifying. I mean, it's art. We knew what it was there for. It's not like it's supposed to be fun. It's certainly not in my contract that it has to be fun. But I don't remember a single moment relaxing or laughing or having a nice day at work. It was always two steps forward, one step back. Every day.
Is there anything any of you were able to point to...
No, I wish I could tell you. It wasn't apparent to me, that's for sure. It wasn't anything I could have fixed, or addressed or dealt with. It just seemed like the nature of the songs and the nature of the material just demanded that kind of application. And you know, I hate hearing more than anything in the world, musicians complain about making music for a living. So certainly I am well cognizant of the fact that I have the best job in the world.
Now, that said, and that clearly understood, it was still just really hard rock-pushing-up-a-hill-and-falling-down-again type of work, that's for sure.
Well there is that old saying, "Sometimes you have to struggle for your art." And even just speaking as a fan, you guys made a beautiful album here.
Los Lobos |
It seems to be very well-received. That point is really gratifying, because you never know what people will think about it. So it certainly does my heart good to hear all the nice things people are saying about it.
How involved in the production were you?
Let's put it this way – I was the only guy there every single day. A lot of guys got to take some days off, but I didn't.
Did that upset you?
No, that's just kinda what I do and how I approach it. I do that because I genuinely enjoy the process. I actually like making records, seeing how they get put together, come together. I've made some over the years that have been hard. So I know what a hard record is like. But there is still joy in art. I'm sure da Vinci had bad days, and Mozart had bad days, and Monet had bad days, or bad weeks, or bad projects, you know? You just gotta get through it. You make the best thing you can and hope the world appreciates it. Not that I'm putting myself or us on their level; I'm just saying that not all art is made in joy. A lot of times it's made in pain and you're sort of focused on a task and whatever that task entails you get it done. And that's pretty much how we do it. We just kinda found a song in there and just really ground it out.
How are the new songs for you guys to play live?
It's good. I mean they've been well-received. Some of them actually fit right in and people seem to really dig them, and some like "Hold On" require a little bit more of an adventurous audience. We've been playing it in the set every night. And sometimes, if it's a festival, or a really happy crowd or something, you just don't want to bring them down. How much do you want to play the new songs? It just feels like it would be a cruel trick to throw that song at them. You know we're judicious about it, but I'm happy with it.
The Blasters |
Now I'm gonna ask you to go all the way back. What was your original motive for moving out to LA?
It was '75 and my motive was being bored shitless in Philadelphia. Some guys I was playing with were, at that time, backing a group called the Soul Survivors. Remember "Expressway (To Your Heart)?" And they moved out, and within weeks, had gotten a gig backing up both Billy Preston and Gregg Allman. That's a pretty nice parlay. So they called me up in '74, I guess it was, and said, "Come on out, the pickins are easy."
Go figure. I came out in Christmas of '75, and they instantly lost both of those gigs. Like, within 20 minutes. Gregg went into rehab and Billy went and, I don't know, beat up his wife or something like that.
Oh shit... welcome to Hollywood.
Those gigs disappeared in a hurry. But I was just happy to be in LA.
So you liked it right off the bat. Do you remember some of the first things you did?
Oh, I loved it. I got some work relatively quickly. It wasn't instantaneous. We became a band, and we actually put out a record on Casablanca. Which is cool. I mean, that was the cocaine and disco label of all time. So we got to see, first hand, what that was like, which was pretty funny.
When did you start with The Blasters and about how long did you stay with them?
That would be... all those dates are fairly hazy.
And they're hard to find.
The Blasters |
Yeah, I know. They are hard to find. For instance, I've always told people that I joined Lobos like '82 or '83. And then we put out this live show, Live in '84, and I'm introduced as "Steve Berlin of The Blasters." And it's January, 1984. I remember the show very clearly. And in my mind, I was well into Los Lobos by the date of that show. All my dates are a little bit off. So I eventually had to move a few dates forward [both laugh]. If they're still calling me of The Blasters, it probably means that I was still working on the first record at that point.
I can only get bits and pieces of your recollections about when you saw them for the first time. Was it a pretty automatic thing that you wanted to work with these guys?
I was amazed, as was everybody else that was there. The first time I saw them was the infamous PIL [Public Image, Ltd.] show. I didn't see myself playing folklore, Latin American music. I didn't have a shred of that in me. So the very first time was more like, "God, those guys are brave for just standing there and taking spit and shit and other stuff thrown at them." So, it wasn't that moment.
The moment where they sort of came into everyone's consciousness was opening for The Blasters at The Whisky. They blew everybody away. They were just so realized. Everybody else, even The Blasters, at that moment, were still experimenting. I remember in The Blasters, we had a concept, a sound, a great rhythm section, and a great songwriter. But everybody – X, you name it – we were all just kinda like experimenting. Everybody was trying stuff out – trying sounds out, trying identities out. And here were these four guys from ten miles away who might as well have been ten solar systems away. Playing this fully realized music, largely self-composed, with all this great flavor and stuff like that.
It was an amazing moment. Just because everybody thought that they were hip, thought that they knew what was going on, and clearly had some total other world happening that we didn't know anything about. So that, to me, was the most intriguing part. How could I have missed this? How could I have not been aware of this? I gotta find out and I gotta learn more about it. And then they said, "There's a saxophone tradition in this music. Do you want to learn some of these songs?"
Fuck yeah! Let's go!
 |
| |
|
I have plenty of recollections of working on that one [Graceland]. I don't know if you heard the stories, but it was not a pleasant deal for us. I mean he [Simon] quite literally – and in no way do I exaggerate when I say – he stole the songs from us... The guy was clueless... He's the world's biggest prick, basically.
-Steve Berlin on making Graceland with Paul Simon |
|
|
| |
|
Talk a little bit about your audience. They're a pretty close-knit group, pretty tight.
I know from the traffic on the website and stuff. We always laugh and say "Conrad's had a beer with all of them." It certainly does seem to be a symbiotic relationship. We certainly don't put ourselves above anybody, that's for sure. We're not holding anything at arm's length. A lot of times, we've put the hardcore fans in our employ. We have guys all over the country right in [message board] The Neighborhood there. They're not just hanging with us, they're working. It works out well.
David Hidalgo by Tim Owen |
Maybe I can ask you to talk a little bit about your bandmates. We could start anywhere, but let's start with David.
Well, you know, he's the only genius [laughs]. He's always surprising all of us. The ideas are endlessly fascinating. It's always the funnest moment of any record when he puts out the new demos. It's very exciting. He's always very shy about it. But it's almost always amazing.
How about Cesar?
What you see there, is what you get. He's the blues master of the two. There's not a lot of the intricacy to the personality on stage. The gentleman you see is the gentleman that he is. He grounds us in many ways, I think – in his songwriting and his sensibility. Whereas Dave and Louie are both prone to taking flights of fancy, he's got his feet on the ground most of the time.
It's a Lennon-McCartney, kinda one-up-in-the-air, one-down-on-the-ground kinda thing.
They do seem to have a lot of that magic on a lot of their songs.
Cesar Rosas by Michael Weintrob |
They're definitely polar. It's what creates. It's what avoids boredom - the fact that they have such different sensibilities and are such different songwriters. Different everything, really. It's good. Going back and forth between the two is what makes for an interesting evening. We get too off in one world, going back to the other world is always exciting.
How much do you contribute to the writing of the songs these days?
Very little, really. I think my strengths tend more towards orchestration. Dave and Louie songs come in, more often than not, almost completely done, if not completely done. Cesar's probably contributed a few melodies over the years. I don't have what a great songwriter has. I don't wake up in the middle of the night with a song in my head. And I wish that I did. I have the ultimate respect for anyone who has that gift. And I just don't think I do. I've worked with enough great songwriters to know that what they have I don't have. I have nothing but the highest respect for those guys.
But I think all of us in the recording process contribute something special. My antenna's generally focused on orchestration, thinking about sequencing. Because I'm trained as a producer, I take a much longer view of stuff than guys who are just wrapped up in a part in a song at a moment, you know? I'm always thinking, "How does this song fit into the sequence?" and "Where is this song gonna go?" It's the way I've come to think about this stuff. I think it's a helpful viewpoint to have.
Did I miss anybody? Did I talk about Louie? He's kind of the soul of the band. He's the songwriter, so what we are in terms of the song is Louie. It's his point of view. It's his sensibility. He's very quiet. Where there are discussions or disagreements or something like that, he almost never really steps up. But when he does, it's because he has to, because he's making a powerful point about something. Myself, I probably talk to him more than anybody else in the band just because we have a really good running discourse about everything.
You know what? I bet everyone in the band would say that. I think all of us have talked to him a bunch.
Louie Pérez by Matt Schwenke |
After the success of La Bamba, he was adamant about doing the folk album (La Pistola y El Corazon). We all said, "Why now?" But in his own unerring, effective way, he knew that if we didn't do that right then, we might have had a much rougher ride to our career.
What a visionary. That kind of thing sometimes signals the death knell for a band...
Yeah, I know. He truly is. And it's not like we would have done La Bamba II, III, and IV. I just remember him being adamant about it.
Speaking of doing a lot of different records and working with a lot of amazing songwriters, I own a ton of the records that you've done over the years. One, in particular, I'd like to ask you about is Paul Simon's Graceland. I obsessed over that thing when I was young. Do you have any recollections of working on it?
Oh, I have plenty of recollections of working on that one. I don't know if you heard the stories, but it was not a pleasant deal for us. I mean he [Simon] quite literally – and in no way do I exaggerate when I say – he stole the songs from us.
Really...
Paul Simon by David Atlas |
Yeah. And you know, going into it, I had an enormous amount of respect for the guy. The early records were amazing, I loved his solo records, and I truly thought he was one of the greatest gifts to American music that there was.
At the time, we were high on the musical food chain. Paul had just come off One Trick Pony and was kind of floundering. People forget, before Graceland, he was viewed as a colossal failure. He was low. So when we were approached to do it, I was a way bigger fan than anybody else in the band. We got approached by Lenny Waronker and Mo Ostin who ran our record company [Warner Bros.], and this is the way these guys would talk – "It would mean a lot to the family if you guys would do this for us." And we thought, "Ok well, it's for the family, so we'll do it." It sounds so unbelievably naïve and ridiculous that that would be enough of a reason to go to the studio with him.
We go into the studio, and he had quite literally nothing. I mean, he had no ideas, no concepts, and said, "Well, let's just jam." We said, "We don't really do that." When we jam, we'll switch instruments. Dave will play drums, I'll play something. We don't really jam. Especially in that era. Louie will be the first to tell you this – he was made to play drums. They forced him to play drums. He's not really a drummer by trade. He's never practiced a moment in his life. Not once in his life did he sit down at the drums because of his love for drumming. The other three guys made him play drums in the early days, so he sort of became drummer by default. He hates playing the instrument, I think. Again, you should ask him, but I don't ever ever, ever get the sense that he was one of those dyed-in-the-wool, John Bonham, let's-play-drums-for-three-days-straight kind of guys. So consequently, as the core band was comprised then, we never jammed - never ever. Not by accident, not even at soundcheck. We would always just play a song.
So Paul was like, "Let's just jam," and we're like, "Oh jeez. Well alright, let's see what we can do." And it was not good because Louie wasn't comfortable. None of us were comfortable, it wasn't just Louie. It was like this very alien environment to us. Paul was a very strange guy. Paul's engineer was even stranger than Paul, and he just seemed to have no clue - no focus, no design, no real nothing. He had just done a few of the African songs that hadn't become songs yet. Those were literally jams. Or what the world came to know and I don't think really got exposed enough, is that those are actually songs by a lot of those artists that he just approved of. So that's kind of what he was doing. It was very patrician, material sort of viewpoint. Like, because I'm gonna put my stamp on it, they're now my songs. But that's literally how he approached this stuff.
I remember he played me the one he did by John Hart, and I know John Hart, the last song on the record. He goes, "Yeah, I did this in Louisiana with this zy decko guy." And he kept saying it over and over. And I remember having to tell him, "Paul, it's pronounced zydeco. It's not zy decko, it's zydeco." I mean that's how incredibly dilettante he was about this stuff. The guy was clueless.
 |
| |
Everybody was trying stuff out – trying sounds out, trying identities out. And here were these four guys from 10 miles away who might as well have been 10 solar systems away. Playing this fully realized music, largely self-composed, with all this great flavor and stuff like that.
-Steve Berlin on first hearing Los Lobos |
|
|
| |
|
Wow. You're kidding me?
Clue... less about what he was doing. He knew what he wanted to do, but it was not in any way like, "Here's my idea. Here's this great vision I have for this record, come with me."
Los Lobos |
About two hours into it, the guys are like, "You gotta call Lenny right now. You gotta get us out of this. We can't do this. This is a joke. This is a waste of time." And this was like two hours into the session that they wanted me to call Lenny. What am I going to tell Lenny? It was a favor to him. What am I going to say, "Paul's a fucking idiot?"
Somehow or other, we got through the day with nothing. I mean, literally, nothing. We would do stuff like try an idea out and run it around for 45 minutes, and Paul would go "Eh... I don't like it. Let's do something else." And it was so frustrating. Even when we'd catch a glimpse of something that might turn into something, he would just lose interest. A kitten-and-the-string kinda thing.
So that's day one. We leave there and it's like, "Ok, we're done. We're never coming back." I called Lenny and said it really wasn't very good. We really didn't get anything you could call a song or even close to a song. I don't think Paul likes us very much. And frankly, I don't think we like him very much. Can we just say, 'Thanks for the memories' and split?" And he was like, "Man, you gotta hang in there. Paul really does respect you. It's just the way he is. I'll talk to him." And we were like, "Oh man, please Lenny. It's not working." Meanwhile, we're not getting paid for this. There was no discussion like we're gonna cash in or anything like that. It was very labor-of-love.
Really...?
Yeah. Don't ask me why. God knows it would have made it a lot easier to be there.
And Lenny put you guys together thinking it would be a good match?
Los Lobos |
Well, "It would be good for the family." That was it. So we go back in the second day wondering why we're there. It was ridiculous. I think David starts playing "The Myth of the Fingerprints," or whatever he ended up calling it. That was one of our songs. That year, that was a song we started working on By Light of the Moon. So that was like an existing Lobos sketch of an idea that we had already started doing. I don't think there were any recordings of it, but we had messed around with it. We knew we were gonna do it. It was gonna turn into a song. Paul goes, "Hey, what's that?" We start playing what we have of it, and it is exactly what you hear on the record. So we're like, "Oh, ok. We'll share this song."
Good way to get out of the studio, though...
Yeah. But it was very clear to us, at the moment, we're thinking he's doing one of our songs. It would be like if he did "Will the Wolf Survive?" Literally. A few months later, the record comes out and says "Words and Music by Paul Simon." We were like, "What the fuck is this?"
We tried calling him, and we can't find him. Weeks go by and our managers can't find him. We finally track him down and ask him about our song, and he goes, "Sue me. See what happens."
What?! Come on...
That's what he said. He said, "You don't like it? Sue me. You'll see what happens." We were floored. We had no idea. The record comes out, and he's a big hit. Retroactively, he had to give songwriting credit to all the African guys he stole from that were working on it and everyone seemed to forget. But that's the kind of person he is. He's the world's biggest prick, basically.
Los Lobos |
So we go back to Lenny and say, "Hey listen, you stuck us in the studio with this fucking idiot for two days. We tried to get out of it, you made us stay in there, and then he steals our song?! What the hell?!" And Lenny's always a politician. He made us forget about it long enough that it went away. But to this day, I do not believe we have gotten paid for it. We certainly didn't get songwriting credit for it. And it remains an enormous bone that sticks in our craw. Had he even given us a millionth of what the song and the record became, I think we would have been – if nothing else - much richer, but much happier about the whole thing.
Have you guys seen him since then?
No. Never run into him. I'll tell you, if the guys ever did run into him, I wouldn't want to be him, that's for sure.
That's an amazing story. I can't believe I never heard it before.
We had every right and reason to sue him, and Lenny goes, "It's bad for the family." When we told the story in that era, when this was going down, we were doing interviews and telling the truth. And Lenny goes, "Hey guys, I really need you to stop talking about it. It's bad for the family."
Amazing. Talk about bad for the family.
I know. Again, it's just so incredible how naïve we were back then. You can't even imagine that era of music when you'd actually listen to your record company president who told you to shut up because "it's bad for the family." Now, I'd tell him to go fuck himself.
That's our version of it. I'd love to hear Paul's version of it.
But he's much richer now and could probably give a fuck about it. It's still one of those things where I've not forgiven anyone involved in it. It still remains. I haven't let it go, as you can tell. It was just so wrong and so rude, and so unnecessary. It is an amazing moment in our history.
Well, maybe we can turn to some brighter times – working with the litany of stars like Sheryl Crow, but also making really interesting records, like Faith No More. If I can pump your ego for a second, you really draw something completely different out of each artist and band that you work with.
Los Lobos |
You're very kind. I just feel that my job is to be as opaque as possible and elevate, in any way possible, what it is I'm working on. I certainly try hard not to stamp the work I do with me. I mean, certainly it's my sensibility and a lot of my choices. But I'm like a painter. Or, my game is just other people's imaginations. I'm just painting with their colors to create something.
When it works. I mean, it's something exponentially larger than what I, or the artist, anticipated. I've been lucky enough to have been in that situation a couple times. We start out with a cool idea, and it kind of blew up into a ridiculously cool idea.
Like what...
Like Faith No More. [Berlin produced the group's major-label debut, 1987's Introduce Yourself for Slash records, Los Lobos's label at the time.] I saw them and heard their demos and thought "Oh my GOD! This is the coolest shit imaginable." And I learned a lot from them. As you can tell, they really had their sound down. My role in that production was a lot of just letting them express it. And also, Matt Wallace, who came with them, was obviously so good at what he did, I just let that all happen.
You know, when I had finally been through The Town and the City, I started that futile process of trying to find its cousin in your canon. And I guess from a fan's perspective, if it had any equal, it could be closest to Kiko.
Los Lobos |
Well, it was by design, but not because we wanted to make it again. We really loved the way Tchad mixes sound and wanted him to be involved. We've done two records without him. Nothing against those two records, I think we're very proud of Good Morning Aztlán and The Ride. Tchad has a unique thing.
He was not involved in the recording process. And to get back to much earlier in this conversation, had he been there from the beginning and engineered, I think it would have been a much different record. And it certainly would have been a much more fun record. That's no dig at Robert Carrazza, who I think is an incredible engineer. I've done lots and lots and lots of records with him. But Tchad's personality and his view and just the way that he approaches it. It wasn't anything that Robert did or didn't do that made it hard to make. Robert and I will be the first to tell you, he killed himself to get this record sounding great. But how Tchad approaches his art, and just his personality, just this wonderful sense of "Let's go exploring today." And that's just really it. He has this great thing of going on an adventure to see where it goes.
Well, he's good for you guys. You've made a really patient-sounding record. If I can end with the whole La Bamba thing, I've heard stories about you guys playing it whenever someone requests it – even sometimes more than once in the course of a show.
Put it this way – it's not very often in the set anymore. It's never in the set, honestly. But if there are kids there or someone who really wants to see it, and that's what they're there for, then we'll play it. So we play it a lot. But as you can imagine, it's not our favorite song to play.
And because of that, I think it's a very cool thing that you will do it. I mean, music history is littered with guys who won't touch the song that made them famous in the first place.
What can I say? It's not our favorite song, but we don't mind playing it and it sure makes people happy. I mean, what is our job, really? It's to make people happy, so it's not that big a deal for us.
JamBase | Worldwide
Go See Live Music!
|
