Los Lobos
PLEASURE VEHICLE Thirty-Year Vets Los Lobos Carry Some All-Star Passengers for a Thrilling Ride
Los Lobos have meant a lot of things to a lot of people over the years -- they introduced a roots-rock influence to the nascent L.A. punk scene, they brought Latin music deeper into the mainstream than any band of their generation, and, of late, they've injected house-party energy into the jam-band realm. They commemorated their 20th anniversary with a full-fledged retrospective, Just Another Band from East L.A.: A Collection, so for number 30, the band decided to revisit their catalog from another angle on The Ride. The disc focuses on tunes from the vast Lobos archive, chopped and channeled with the help of guests as varied as Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Rubén Blades, and Bobby Womack. Los Lobos saxophonist Steve Berlin pulled over to give Barnes & Noble.com's David Sprague the lowdown on The Ride.
Barnes & Noble.com: How did you initially decide to do this record in this way?
Steve Berlin: It's our 30th anniversary, so that was the main impetus. We sort of felt some obligation to address that somehow, and that was the reason for doing the catalog material. That was a window into the project. We started with that idea; then lo and behold, the rest of the album took shape around those initial tracks. We didn't have a super-specific agenda.
B&N.com: Could you talk a bit about the individual collaborations?
SB: We had a list of people we wanted to work with, and almost everybody said yes. As we got the 'yes' responses, we sort of built the record around them. With Tom Waits, we sort of felt like we wanted to do something new ["Kitate"]. Obviously, he's kind of a special case. The Elvis track ["Matter of Time"] was one we knew he'd done over the years, so we asked him if he'd do that. We had a slightly more ambitious agenda for that at first. We were considering combining that song with "Tony and Maria" from the last record, since they're part A and B of the same thing, more or less.
B&N.com: The Bobby Womack collaboration was interesting, since you married one of your songs, "Wicked Rain," to his "Across 110th Street." How did that come about?
SB: He was at the top of our list, so when he said yes, we knew we had something that was going to work. We knew the track that we wanted him on, but at the same time, we wanted to honor him, and we had the idea that those tracks would sound cool together. We fooled around at sound checks to try to figure out the transition. That was the only track that was cut 100 percent live, as you hear it, live on the floor. It was an amazing experience just hanging out with him and hearing his stories. It's a very special track.
B&N.com: Was it hard to get back in the groove of recording totally live?
SB: Oh no, it's a blast. Unfortunately, it would have been hard to do that with a lot of the other songs, because very rarely are they 100 percent done. A lot of times, we cut an idea loosely and then tailor it in some way. We don't really believe in rehearsing, as a rule. We have a religious aversion to it. So as opposed to learning the songs as a group, we just basically play them with guys who know where the songs are going, then add stuff later. The [Little] Willie G track ["Is This All There Is?"] was pretty live, and the Mavis [Staples] track ["Someday"] was pretty live, too.
B&N.com: Did you try to fit the vocalists into your music, or was it the other way around?
SB: Well, I guess more fitting them into our music. We didn't want it to sound, with all due respect, like Santana's record [Supernatural]. We wanted our identity to be clear, and we wanted to make sure it sounded like we were having our friends and compatriots joining our little caravan. We tried at every turn to be conscious of it sounding like us. We probably could have made a Bobby Womack sound just like Bobby Womack, but that's really not what we needed to do. The big responsibility was not to overcompensate in any direction and, at the end of the day, make it a coherent record and not like a mix tape.
B&N.com: When going back to the older material, did you use your work on the originals as a framework, or did you start from scratch?
SB: I wouldn't say we started from scratch. The originals informed how we approached this record. We're not real parochial in any way, so we never thought, We can't do this, or, We shouldn't do that. We just mess around with stuff until it sounds right, like the Willie G track, "Is This All There Is?," was just us warming up. Literally, we were plugging in and getting sounds, but the groove was so cool...it's basically one chord through the whole song. At one point, we might've made it more complicated, but it didn't seem to want to go there, so we let it be.
B&N.com: You guys have moved in and out of a number of different scenes, from punk to jam-band. What do you think makes your sound so universal?
SB: I don't think we actually fit anywhere. We straddle so many different galaxies that we could be claimed as their own by a number of different constituencies. We're as much rock en español as a lot of those bands; we can be a decent reggae band or even a decent country band when we feel like it. I guess it's our ability to shape-shift as we feel like it. It certainly keeps us from being bored, and since we lose focus very easily, that's important to us.
May 2004
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