Los Lobos – Back to the future
Says Berlin, who coordinates the production and is perhaps the band member most interested in sonic experimentation, “I don’t think Howlin’ Wolf sat around and thought about whether what he was doing was the way Skip James would have done it. Not to put ourselves in that pantheon, but I think any song form grows best when it’s messed around with. A lot of people are so reverential that they forget to improvise and create something new.”
Though The Town And The City is recognizably the work of Los Lobos, both the textures and the themes push the music into uncharted territory. While the narrative arc transcends literal storytelling, it takes the listener on a pilgrimage that begins with the dawning of a civilization in “The Valley”, proceeds through the existential despair of “Hold On” and the dark night of the soul in “If You Were Only Here Tonight”, shows what’s been lost along the way in “Little Things” (with a nod toward Procol Harum), and ultimately contrasts the Ellingtonian sophistication of “The City” with the dreams and indelible memories of “The Town” left behind.
“The record is about us, but it’s really kind of about our parents, and an experience of this journey we’re all on, not to sound too philosophical,” says Perez. “And along the way we find ourselves in unfamiliar places. You can’t ignore the issues of immigration that are in the news, though the song ‘The Road To Gila Bend’ is the only song that’s specifically about that. But as a whole this is a story about struggle. I think everybody experiences the feeling of being a foreigner, being a stranger in a strange land.”
For Perez, it’s also about being in a band that started as best friends and the tolls that both the years and the music industry have taken on those relationships. It’s about how everything changes, and how the passage of time forces everyone to consider what’s truly important.
“I don’t know if it’s a midlife crisis or what it is, but we’re all in our 50s now, and there’s definitely a looking at what we’ve done and the time we have left,” he says. “And that has something to do with this record. The song ‘Little Things’ is about the things we overlook, because we get so damn busy. And it could be about this band.
“The powers that be in this business will try to beat the shit out of you, so you try to live in the very small fraction where it’s just about the music. Without going into detail, we’ve had some tough times and seen a lot of stuff happen — stuff around the world, stuff with us personally. These are difficult times for us as a band, and this record might be a reflection of that. We don’t see as much of each other anymore. Our kids are all grown up now, and they get along better than we do. And I say that with a bit of jealousy, because we’re not the friends we used to be. But I know that if you would strip everything away, you’d find these guys who grew up together and are still really best friends.”
As the last to join and the one who didn’t grow up with the rest, Berlin never imagined he’d still be making music with Los Lobos more than twenty years later. Now he finds it easier to imagine the band still together twenty years from now.
“Well, we’re not really qualified to do much else, so our job options are pretty limited,” he says with a laugh. “Seriously, all I can say is that basically the personalities seem to fit. We’ve got guys who have been married to their wives 20-23 years, and I guess when you’re happy with what you’ve got there’s little impetus to change. And we still feel we haven’t made our best record yet, so we’re always trying to push on for that as well.”
ND senior editor Don McLeese has long believed that Los Lobos is the best band in America and David Hidalgo the most multi-talented musician this side of Prince.