Los Lobos – Back to the future
Where Kiko is airy and playful in its surrealism, The Town And The City broods with the bleak despair of existence. Kiko is childlike innocence; The Town And The City bears the onus of experience. In a manner that is elemental and almost mythical, the album’s “Hold On” sounds like a metaphysical chain gang song — “Hold on to every breath/And if I make it to the sunrise/Do it all over again” — shouldering the same existential weight as Albert Camus’ The Myth Of Sisyphus.
“Killing myself just to keep alive,” sings Hidalgo at his most world-weary. “Killing myself to survive.”
How did Los Lobos find itself in such a dark place?
“Not that we ever plan anything, but this darn record just wanted to make itself. ” says Perez. “I noticed after the first two or three songs that I was writing lyrically in the first person, which I never do. It’s usually more narrative storytelling. And I talked to David [who sings all of their songwriting collaborations] about it, because of course ‘I’ becomes him, and he said, fine, cool. So I didn’t resist and just kept going, and I started to notice an arc as in a story. And I go, do I steer it? If anything, I just leaned into it a little bit.”
“This album was different, all the way through,” says guitarist Hidalgo, who typically supplies the musical framework that Perez then fills lyrically. (As always, guitarist Cesar Rosas also contributes a few songs to the album, providing a grounding for the more radical innovations of Hidalgo and Perez.) “The musical tempos were medium to slow, and it wasn’t real obvious which way the album was headed.
“I’ll write musical ideas and give them to Louie, and then it’s his ball. It’s like a surprise, because the ideas that he comes up with are often quite a bit different from what I might have done, or better than what I might have dreamed of. So with his impression of what the music is, it grows to another level.”
More than most bands, Los Lobos functions as a working democracy, or at least a division of labor. Hidalgo relies not only on Perez to help shape the musical results, but the other band members to help determine which of his musical ideas can work for Lobos. (Others that are set aside might end up in side projects such as the Latin Playboys and Houndog.) Sometimes the ideas that get the band excited are ones Hidalgo considered throwaways. Perhaps the key to the band’s creative dynamic is that it combines a profound respect for musical tradition with a restless spirit of aural adventure.
“I would say musically Dave is the most equal among equals,” says Berlin. “Everyone looks up to him as the principal songwriter and the main genius of the operation. But I would say we’re as democratic as any band I’ve ever been around, with a bunch of headstrong guys in it. And we try to listen to any idea, no matter who has it.”
“We try to take the music to different places, to challenge ourselves to come up with something we haven’t done before,” says Hidalgo. “But at the same time, everything we do is rooted in American music or Latin American music. That’s our language I guess. When I try to come up with ideas for music, I don’t categorize anything. What happens happens. But then I see whether this is something that Lobos can get behind and perform. And everybody adds their own piece to it.”
Asked about his major musical inspirations, Hidalgo responds with something of a surprise: Captain Beefheart. In retrospect it makes perfect sense: The brilliant Beefheart all but invented his own musical language based on forms steeped in blues and jazz, so the gap between Beefheart’s Magic Band and Los Lobos isn’t as great as it might initially appear.
“If I’m writing songs and have an idea that’s kind of stock in a way, I think, ‘What would Beefheart do here? How would he approach it?’ I’ve gotten to know him over the last ten years [since Beefheart, a.k.a. Don Van Vliet, has forsaken music for visual art]. I’ve never met him in person, but I’ve talked with him on the phone. He’s just amazing, with his sense of humor and everything about him, his approach to music.
“And Bo Diddley’s another one, ’cause he’s always done things differently; there’s always a twist to it. I think Tom Waits said you try to approach it like a child, like a little kid, playing with stuff. Pick something up, turn it over, blow into it, hit it with something. Try to be open to whatever might happen. Out of the mistakes, it might not be what you intended, but it could be something different, or even better.”