| Maybe Steve Berlin isn't the guy to ask. After all, he's the new guy in Los Lobos. He has only been in the band for 22 of its 30 years. But the crucial question is, after all that time, how does Los Lobos – Spanish for The Lobos – keep from sucking?
"Besides plain old dumb luck?" the sax man says chuckling before pausing for the right words. "I think we're not satisfied. We still feel, to a certain extent, we're always trying to prove something. We don't feel like we've arrived any place. So every record that we make, we take the attitude that it's like our first record. We're trying to push the envelope as much as possible.
That's the bottom line. They're just a bunch of guys who play music they enjoy and want to keep experimenting and improving their craft. Certainly, old-timers like the Stones and Aerosmith constantly have cynics muttering behind their backs, "Why didn't they quit after the ’70s?" Los Lobos, however, haven't turned into self-parodies and still command respect. Par example, their April 18 show in Calgary sold out well in advance. What do East L.A.’s roots-rock golden boys have left to prove?
"It's the same shit, really. I still think people misconceive what we do and who we are. There's still residue from La Bamba, believe it or not. I think that the last two or three records really weren't heard. More so than any other time, we wanted to make the record we just finished count. We felt somehow or other we were going to make people pay attention to what we're doing. And it's our 30th year so there's a confluence of a lot of things going on."
Set for release next month, The Ride, the band's 13th studio disc, is sort of a career-spanning effort. It captures many of the musical flavours Los Lobos have cooked up as a band and in their numerous side projects, and they took the unprecedented step of having 10 guest musicians take the spotlight to flesh out their new material as well as reinterpret several songs from their back catalogue. Roots legend Richard Thompson supplies vocals and one-of-a-kind guitar licks to "Wreck of the Carlos Rey." Tom Waits and Martha Gonzalez wail on the Latino wierd-fi of "Kitate." Mavis Staples helps hammer home the soul when they revisit "Someday." There's more – Elvis Costello, Dave Alvin, Rueben Blades, Cafe Tacuba, Willie G. and soul legend Bobby Womack.
Berlin hails everyone rather than pick favourites, but he confesses a special fondness for the Womack session that yielded a medley of Los Lobos’ "Wicked Rain" and Womack’s "Across 110th Street."
"That was the only one where we cut it all live in the room – live vocal, live everything. Tha one's a little more special for no other reason than that was the only one that went down that way.
"We rehearsed the track prior because we had to be sure the two songs were going to intersect properly. We had worked on it at sound checks, but hadn't really started hammering it out that morning before he got there. Then he showed up and it was just like magic. He just jumped right in and started singing. I'm thinking, 'Jesus Christ, it's Bobby Womack singing our song!'"
"To show you what a cool guy he was, we're all about the early take. We're not one of those 50-take kind of bands. With Bobby, because he wanted to, we went much further. I was in the control room and I felt we had it within the first two or three and we could edit the best of those, but he says, ‘C'mon, let's do it again. We can do it better. Let's try this. Let's try that.' He was just non-stop. It was such a joy to participate like that. My only regret is that we couldn't get him to play guitar. For some reason, he doesn't think he's a great guitar player. I think he's one of the best guitar players alive, but he's very humble about it."
Not unlike Los Lobos. They make music for the right reasons in an industry ruled by ego and commercialism. That is what makes them a great band.
While the band started the project with the concept of allowing the guests to shape their record, there was no grand design from the outset. The writing took shape after several sessions reinterpreting old material. Thus they didn't really know what they got themselves into.
"It was kind of daunting in spots. There was a moment or two during the recording that I was afraid it was going to sound like a mixed tape. I wasn't sure if it was going to hold together as a record." Berlin was worried that the album would be too jarring from track to track to hold together as an album. Drummer-guitarist Louie Perez had the same concern, but when the two of them revisited the album they found they could stop worrying. "He listened to it right around the same time I did," says Berlin. "I remember the next day he came in and goes, 'Man, it's a really good record.' We were surprised it held together so well." |
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