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Ride of a Lifetime
PHOTOGRAPHY
Andrew Takeuchi
WORDS
Richard Frias
Los Lobos celebrated its
30th anniversary with the release of The Ride
When the sun finally rose over Chicanos in the late 1960’s, the grandsons and daughters of Mexican braceros from three-generations ago stared wide-eyed into the light and let Huitzilopochtli, the fabled Aztec god of the sun, lead them into an era of cultural renaissance.
Remembered as el movimiento, the Chicano movement inspired new ideas about self-identity, the preservation of culture and the rediscovery of Mexican history. The movement gave rise to such cultural icons as Corky Gonzales and Cesar Chávez, the student political group MEChA, and the paramilitary community group, the Brown Berets. It was a time of new beginnings.
In East Los Angeles, another group formed as a result of the movement. Unlike other Chicano bands of the time, Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles (as they were originally named) had no political agenda and instead edified a harmonious message of pacifism, optimism and cultural eulogy through music. Poetas of the street, Los Lobos’ exemplified the romanticism, folklore and social strife of the era without imposing nor promoting ethnocentric separatist ideologies. Like Bob Marley, another purveyor of peace and unity, the message was and always has been “one love.”
Now, 30 years later,
the song remains the same. The beginning of this year marked the 30th
anniversary of the little band that could. Band members Louie Perez, David
Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas and Conrad Lonzano all met—and later formed
Los Lobos—while attending famed Garfield High in East L.A. Since
then, Los Lobos have been on a musical pilgrimage that has spanned performances
at weddings and backyard parties to shows around the world. It is no coincidence
then that the legendary band titled their 12th studio release The Ride,
in reference to the never-ending journey they have been on since their
teenage years.
The band released
its first album, the traditional Los Lobos Del Este De Los Angeles, a
collection of boleros and rancheras, in 1977 on the New Vista Label and
then in 1983 signed to Slash Records where the band met current saxophonist/keyboardist
Steve Berlin. Los Lobos’ first record on the Slash label, the seven-song
And A Time to Dance, earned them a Grammy for the song “Anselma”
and set the eclectic precedent for albums to come. Produced by T-Bone
Burnett, the album incorporated Burnett’s signature Tex-Mex sound
(a sound that Los Lobos would later become synonymous with), bar-band
blues rock and, of course, Mexican music. It also featured a cover of
Ritchie Valens’ 1958 hit “Come On Let’s Go,” which
would later prove to be serendipitous.
While on the road in Santa Cruz in support of 1984’s critically acclaimed How Will the Wolf Survive?, the band’s first legitimate full-length album, Los Lobos were sent a note backstage informing them that the Valenzuela family—as in Ritchie Valenzuela—were at the show and wanted to meet the band. Surprised and honored by the gesture, Los Lobos agreed to meet with the family of the legendary kid from Pacoima. The Valenzuela family ended up inviting Los Lobos to their home in Watsonville, California the following day for lunch where they shared family stories with the band. Los Lobos were told that a movie about the life and tragic death of Valens was already in the works with Taylor Hackford (Bound by Honor, The Devil’s Advocate) set to produce and Luis Valdez (the man considered the founder of modern Chicano theater) brought in to write the screenplay and direct. The Valenzuela family agreed to release the rights to the film only as long as Los Lobos covered the songs for the 1987 film. The result was a #1 hit for the Los Lobos rendition of a 150-year-old folk song, “La Bamba”.
Instead of riding
the wave of success from their work on the La Bamba soundtrack by releasing
a more commercial album, Los Lobos headed in the opposite direction, returning
to their roots to brave the release of La Pistola Y El Corazón
the following year. The album garnered Los Lobos their second Grammy for
Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group. After quietly releasing The Neighborhood
in 1990, Los Lobos released what many critics believed to be their best
album in Kiko (1992), an honest and compelling interpretation of different
social issues that brought awareness to homelessness, child abuse, alcoholism
and rape.
1995 saw the release
of Papa’s Dream, a children’s album that further demonstrated
Los Lobos’ innate knack for stretching the dynamics of its ingenuous
songwriting. The following year, Los Lobos hit soundtrack gold again,
with their third Grammy win for the instrumental track “Mariachi
Suite” from the film Desperado. And in 2001, the band rekindled its
relationship with Robert Rodriguez by composing songs for the Mexican
director’s high-action kid flick Spy Kids. In addition to composing
films, Los Lobos were offered and accepted the job to write and perform
the original theme song for the Warner Bros. network series Greetings
From Tucson and scored all ten episodes of the short-lived comedy-drama.
After making music
together for 30 years, there isn’t much left for this band of brothers
to accomplish, even if they insist there is. To celebrate the milestone,
Los Lobos released The Ride, a collaborative record with guest appearances
from a hall-of-fame cast of artist friends that includes Mexican alternative
rockers Café Tacuba, seminal Chicano rock pioneer Little Willie
G, Panamanian actor-singer Ruben Blades, folk hero Tom Waits and singer-songwriting
legend Elvis Costello. The album is icing on the cake for what has been
a remarkable career that seems to only get better with time. So while
the sun continues to shine on the pride of East L.A., the legacy of Los
Lobos, the little band that could, lives on until “The Wolves”
decide it is time to ride off into the sunset.
Open Your Eyes caught
up with Los Lobos drummer-songwriter Louie Perez to talk about their latest
record and find out how the wolf has survived.
Looking back on
the last 30 years, bands these days would be lucky to last three years
together. Marriages would be lucky to last ten years. What’s so special
about Los Lobos that you guys could last this long together?
I would like to say that it’s the fact that we were friends before
we became musicians together. We weren’t put together through the
classified ads. We’re all buddies and we all grew up together. We
all went to high school together, and all of our parents knew each other.
That’s real deep stuff. That’s really deep roots that are very
hard to pull out. I would like to think it’s friendship and family
that has kept us together. On an artistic level, that’s a little
more spooky because I really don’t know what keeps everything intact
and keeps us so enthusiastic about everything that we do. We hang together
obviously, we’ve been through some tough times together and it’s
really at those times that we realize it’s beyond music; it’s
a lot deeper than that.
Back when Los Lobos
formed in 1973, were there a lot of Chicanos into rock n’ roll? Was
there a music scene similar to the rock en español scene of today?
In ‘73 the Chicano renaissance was in full swing: art, music,
dance. There were some bands after us that were just a little more political
and I think they put that before the music. We always chose to perfect
the vehicle first, and we weren’t so much political.
Were there any
clubs or any places in particular that embraced Los Lobos early on in
its career?
What really supported us was the whole movimiento that was happening
at the time. During the early 70’s, there was a lot happening. MEChA
was happening. We played all over the state and we played a lot of colleges.
And, of course, there were always the weddings, the quinceañeras
and the community things. We always played community functions and that
kind of kept us alive.
Over the years,
Los Lobos’ fan base has remained strong. How difficult has it been
to maintain your popularity for so many years?
We’d like to expand our audience of course, but there are no
outlets for that anymore. Radio is un-listenable, and record companies…there’s
no such thing as growth in this industry anymore, because when a song
comes out, it has its proverbial 15 minutes of fame and then goes away.
When we were all kids, we had favorite bands and artists, and they became
part of the family. You were able to grow up with them, record after record.
You followed their careers, and you bought their records.
It seems like the
only way to hear Los Lobos on the radio is through college radio stations
and National Public Radio.
And thank goodness for the left side of the dial. But for the most
part we’re looking at it as if we’re going through a whole new
phase.
How long has Los
Lobos been in preparation for this collaborative album?
When Hollywood Records picked up the option after Aztlan, we said,
“Well what kind of record are we going to make next?” And we
thought, We’re going into our 30th year, so we’re going to have
a big party. How should we celebrate? The first thing you do when you
have a party is decide who you want to invite. You send out invitations
and see who RSVP’s. Those who could make it, made it. Some of these
artists were really honored, but couldn’t make it. Nevertheless,
it was a cool party.
With all the different
influences Los Lobos incorporates into its music, does the band enjoy
complete creative freedom or do the labels ever try to influence you to
make more commercial records?
I think you’d have to be absolutely out of your mind to begin
to try to tell a band that has been together for 30 years what to do.
For any artist or musical group that has been together this long to reinvent
themselves for the sake of selling records…to have any kind of success…well,
Carlos Santana is an exception. His career kind of skyrocketed after doing
something similar to what we’re doing. But of course, we didn’t
place these artists on our record for their commercial credibility—obviously.
I’m sure a lot of people out there, even our own gente, are wondering
who the heck Mavis Staples is…but for the most part we’re just
indulging ourselves to a certain degree with artists that have meant a
lot to us, and people we’ve met along the way. We planned to celebrate
our 30th anniversary by having a pachanga.
Speaking of Carlos
Santana, was there ever any pressure from the label to collaborate with
younger commercial artists like Santana did on Supernatural?
No. We had come up with an idea. We had come up with a list of artists,
and they pretty much left us alone. We recorded this thing at home, at
Cesar’s house, which was one of the biggest decisions we made along
with self-producing it. The record company didn’t say much about
that. I’m sure they were probably scratching their heads a little
bit. Then we went ahead and made all of the contacts with the artists
that would be able to appear as guests on the record. And then we just
kept recording. I think we were probably just about done with the record
by the time the record company ever heard a note.
Explain all the
shifting around from parent label Hollywood Records to their sub-label,
Mammoth Records, and then back to Hollywood.
We were originally with Hollywood Records. Hollywood had just formed
when we were doing This Time a few years back, and there just wasn’t
enough time to set it up properly. We were just kind of disappointed with
their performance. They had an all-new crew of people [working] there,
so we made the shift over to Mammoth.
With Good Morning
Atzlan [the album released on Mammoth] there was a boardroom meeting on
Friday, and they decided to shut Mammoth down. Friday we had a record
company, and Monday there was no record company. That got us kind of lost,
so we made our way back to Hollywood. It’s a new regime there, and
there are new foot soldiers in all of the different departments. They
seem pretty excited about us. Over the years we’ve heard plenty of
pitches about how, “We’re going to do this,” or, “We’re
going to do that.” We’ve been doing this for 20 years with record
companies, and we’ve come to understand that you don’t always
necessarily get what you’re promised. But in this case they seem
to be really working hard.
Were there any
collaborations that didn’t make it onto the album?
No. We pretty much used everything. As a matter of fact, we handed
them 13 songs, and they said, “Man, this record’s too long.”
The only thing that they said was that maybe we should cut a few songs.
At that point we said, “No. There’s nothing here that we can
cut. This is a document of the whole thing that went down,” and they
were fine with it.
Was there any artist
that you wish you could have worked with on the album but couldn’t
get to commit?
Steve Winwood couldn’t make it. Keith Richards would have loved
to do it, but he couldn’t. Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top has been a friend
for a long time but couldn’t do it. We said, “What the heck
do we do?” Jose Alfredo Jimenez is dead. But of course, we got Café
Tacuba. They really don’t qualify as an influence because we’ve
certainly been around longer than they have, but they are inspiring because
of what they do. We feel kind of an affinity for what they do because
they remind us of ourselves in that they don’t follow the patterns,
even those set by rock en español and the other genres of new music
coming out of Latin America. They just kind of stand alone, and we have
always thought highly of them.
Tom Waits and Elvis
Costello had to mail in the tracks to their parts on The Ride. How difficult
was it to write songs this way? Without having most of the artists in
the studio, did Los Lobos have to direct any of the artists to how the
band envisioned the songs?
Directing them would be the last thing we wanted to do. We like the
idea of just giving them stuff and saying, “Do whatever you want
with it,” then just waiting for it like a present in the mail. That’s
really what it amounted to. For example, the track with Café Tacuba
was pretty much all done except for those sections that we left wide open
for them. We talked to them and said, “Okay, it’s coming in
the mail.” We just identified the spots for them and told them, “Do
whatever you want.”
Did any of the
artists ever have to re-record their tracks because the music didn’t
quite fit the songs?
No. We sent Café Tacuba’s track out, and a week later
they sent it back. All we had to do was mix it.
With Elvis Costello we had to try to somehow find time to put it together
as a collective. But he got so busy that we said, “Elvis. You know
what? Why don’t you just record the song any way you want on your
own, and we’ll figure out the rest.” And there it was in a FedEx
package. We opened it up and put it on. He recorded the song solo with
piano and vocals during a sound check in Oslo, Norway.
Of all the collaborators
on The Ride, if you could add one of them to Los Lobos, which one would
it be?
Every single one of them. And I’m not passing on this question,
but every one of them had their own kind of thing. For instance, Ruben
Blades. We sent him the track and it was just a track. It had no melody,
no lyrics, no nothing. We told him, “Do whatever you like with it.”
He showed up a couple of weeks later and said, “I’m back in
the country, and I’ve got it all figured out. When do I come down?”
He came down and it was an amazing thing. He had everything in his head.
He had the lyrics written. He had the melody. He had the chorus, and he
had the harmonies and everything. He put the whole thing down in about
45 minutes. He was like this incredible cyclone that came through the
studio. But [to answer your question], it would probably be a little piece
of everybody.
When Los Lobos
goes out on tour, how does the band plan to perform the songs from The
Ride without the collaborators from the album?
What we’re doing is…for instance with “Is That All
There Is?”, the Willie G song, we’re doing the new arrangements
with David singing. With “Wreck of the Carlos Rey,” we’re
doing it with Dave singing instead of the duet [with Richard Thompson].
With “Rita,” David sings. Cesar sings “Hurry Tomorrow.”
We’re working up “La Venganza de los Pelados” and trying
to figure out how to do the Tacuba part without them. But in general,
it all sounds pretty good, and I think a lot of our fans understand what
the record is. We’ve always believed that what comes out while recording
in the studio is one thing, and what we play live is another thing. We’re
not like Britney Spears, where everything is programmed into the computer,
and everything sounds exactly like the record. That’s no fun.
After recording
an album of this magnitude, the band’s 12th overall, do Los Lobos
still feel as if they have much more to accomplish?
Oh yeah. You know when we put out the box set, we spent months coming
up with the song selection, and it took a while to put the book together.
At the end of it, when the whole package was finished, there was something
really final about it. It kind of gave us the creeps. And then we just
kind of shook it off and made a couple more records.
As far as this one goes, it is kind of an interesting record because it’s not like a retrospective in any way…After 30 years this is kind of a marking, another kind of place along the road. But there is certainly lots of music left in us. After 30 years it kind of amazes me that we’re still excited about what we do and very seldom repeat ourselves. We somehow seem to re-invent ourselves to a certain degree every time we put out a new record. We are always challenging our listeners. We are always challenging music in general—not to mention challenging our own gente, because sometimes they just don’t get it. I tell you, I wish we had stronger support from Latinos.
As you’ve
mentioned, Los Lobos’ fan base is very broad, with a large percentage
of those fans being non-Hispanic. Does the band make it a point to address
the demographics of its fan base when making an album?
Well, I guess it can flip the other way. I mean when we make music,
we don’t make it because we know that there’s a majority of
our audience that is not Latino. There’s no question about who we
are and where we come from. That is deeply engrained in the creative process,
so it will always be Los Lobos from L.A.—Chicanos. We just don’t
feel that it is anything that we necessarily have to prophesize in any
way. I mean back in 1987 there was no question that there was a #1 hit
song from a band with a Spanish name called Los Lobos singing a 150-year-old
Mexican folk song. And that’s pretty heavy shit right there, without
having to try too hard. But to address the point more specifically, we
always have something traditional on our records, not because we figure
we have to throw [Latinos] a bone or something, hoping that they wake
up. It just feels right for us to do that stuff, like when we did stuff
in Spanglish with “Mas Y Mas” on Colossal Head. That was a lot
of fun. There has been a more Caribbean sort of Latino sound making its
way into our music. Whereas before it was strictly just mexicano with
Tex-Mex and folk. And for that matter, Tex-Mex? Hell, we’re from
L.A., not even Texas. But yeah, I we wish we had a little more support
from mexicanos and Latinos. I’m just a little more disheartened than
anything else. But this [mix of music] is what Los Lobos do. It kind of
reflects the way we grew up in East L.A. listening to Motown and James
Brown—not to mention the musica mexicana that was playing in the
background to our lives as we grew up. I think as musicians, as artists,
we’ve chose to embrace all of it.
After 30 years
as a band, it is surprising that The Ride is the first album Los Lobos
has self-produced. Why did you finally decide to produce an album, and
what were some of the benefits of working with producers on previous albums?
The way I look at it is, we’ve been making our own records all
along. With Mitchell Froom and Tchad Black as engineers, that was [the
album] that really mattered as far as I’m concerned, because that’s
when we did Kiko all together. If you open up the dictionary and look
up producer, you’re definitely not going to see Mitchell’s picture
in there because what he does is completely different than anybody I have
ever worked with before. I think it’s discounting him by calling
him a producer. Los Lobos were together for 11 years before we made our
first legitimate record where we actually signed a producer. And I think
even from then we all scratched our heads and wondered, “What does
a producer really do?” So really we’ve been making our own albums.
The last [record] Good Morning Atzlan with John Leckie—he’s
a great guy and everything—but we just made the record we wanted
to make and it’s been that way.
Even with the sudden popularity of rock en español, none of
the rockero bands have been able to crossover to broader audiences the
way Los Lobos has been able to do. Are there any bands that Los Lobos
would like to pass the torch to and see succeed in crossing over to a
broader audience?
For instance, Café Tacuba, they have a huge audience here in
the U.S., but because they sing in Spanish, their audience is only Spanish
speakers. And that’s great, but we all have to live on this planet
together, so I think there should be a little more dialogue and not so
much separation. Because I think a lot of Latinos will go out there because
that’s their native language and they want to hear that. And we find
a lot of resistance for our music from the nacionales in Mexico. We do
what we do, sure, but it’s not like it’s all in Spanish. Which
is fine. But here in the U.S. there are great bands like Café Tacuba
that should have an audience beyond the Spanish speaking population. A
little bit of that is happening, and maybe it takes somebody like us to
point them in that direction.
Can Los Lobos weigh
the significance of the barriers that Ritchie Valens crossed as a Mexican-American
rock n’ roll star in the 1950’s? Did he influence Los Lobos
at all?
When we were growing up, somebody would always play oldies but goodies.
There was always “La Bamba” and “Donna.” But it wasn’t
until I got a lot older that I realized his significance. It probably
happened in the 70’s with a lot of other young Chicanos that were
discovering their roots. We realized that he was a pretty significant
guy. He certainly made people listen.
How do you see
Latinos in the mainstream media today? Do you think we have reached an
equal playing field, or do we still have a lot more work to do?
We haven’t got there yet, but we certainly have to be reckoned
with just by the sheer numbers of Latinos in the U.S. We’ve been
touring for 20 years and I remember in 1983 when we went out on the road
throughout the U.S., there weren’t that many Latinos out there. And
fast-forward to where we are now. I can go to Birmingham, Alabama. I can
go to Vermont and Minneapolis, and I’m talking about—there’s
Mexicanos out there. I saw New York change from one tiny little taqueria
way down in the Village to mexicanos working in the kitchens all over
Manhattan, like they do here in Southern California. So I’ve seen
that change a great deal just by sheer numbers, and you already see the
corporate world starting to pay attention to Latinos.
But as far as a level
playing field for us, certainly they’ll recognize us as a market.
It’ll happen, but it seems to be inching along. So many of the Latinos
here in the U.S. think that we are moving at a higher rate of speed, but
it isn’t. But it will happen. As far as music, it’s gonna be
a lot more than what we experienced a few years back, which was almost
embarrassing—with the whole Ricky Martin, Latin wave thing. What
was all that about? I had journalists asking, “With the Latin wave
that’s going on, how has it affected your career?” And I was
like “It hasn’t!”
To the Chicano
community, Los Lobos are representative of so many things: pride, hope
and culture. When it’s all said and done, when it’s time for
Los Lobos to hang it up, how would Los Lobos like to be remembered?
If it ended tomorrow, I’d be a proud, proud man, for everything
that we’ve accomplished. This little band from East L.A. that made
enough noise to just change the way people listened to music. It’s
something that I take a lot of pride in. To be remembered as an American
band, in the true definition of what it is to be American, which is a
cross-collateralization of a lot of different cultures. And I’ll
stick the flag on the mountaintop to claim that peak. But I’m not
claiming it just for us as Chicanos. I’m claiming it for all of us
as a human race.
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