INTERVIEW: Los Lobos celebrates 40 years of original music

Los Lobos, the influential band that originated in East L.A., is celebrating their 40th anniversary with a tour around the United States in the coming weeks. Bringing their distinctive sound and promoting a new acoustic record called Disconnected from New York City, the band members are ready to offer classic tunes to eager fans and attract new ears with their unique style of rock.

Steve Berlin, saxophonist for the band and a well-respected music producer in his own right, said he loves the acoustic side of the band, but the 40th anniversary tour will probably feature the amped-up rhythms. “What we can reasonably assure you of is that it will be a mix of all the different stuff that we do,” Berlin said recently in a phone interview. “And, yeah, you know, a mix of hopefully every era.”

Berlin said the acoustic evenings can sometimes be more fun for everybody, including the audience. “They’re not getting their heads blown off,” he said. “It forces us to basically be, I think, a little more present. It’s very easy to hide behind the volume sometimes and … I think that sometimes the volume works to our detriment. Certainly, you know, some people have an issue with it, so yeah my preference, my strong preference would be the acoustic shows. I think everybody comes out ahead. But, you know, I only speak for myself. I think at least a couple of guys in the band don’t like the acoustic shows very much. So there you go.”

The respectful push-and-pull of band members trying to create music and sustain the energy for so many decades is a hallmark characteristic of Los Lobos. The band, according to Berlin, is fairly democratic with all viewpoints fully represented. This allows them to spend time touring the world and also to take breaks.

“We’ve all developed different things that we’re doing outside of the band over the years. You know, Louie [Perez] is basically a playwright these days. He’s got a play that he tours with. David [Hidalgo] is the sideman of the moment. He’s on everybody’s record pretty much nowadays. I don’t know what Conrad [Lozano] and Cesar [Rosas] do, to be honest with you, but everybody knows that Lobos is the first job basically. Everybody is committed to that. I don’t think anybody has any illusions that any of the other stuff that we do is going to supersede what we do with Lobos.”

Berlin pointed out that the fans of Los Lobos over the years are quite intelligent, knowing that the band members need to flex their creative muscles sometimes. Thus, every Lobos concert is a different affair; it’s not simply a hit parade. “[W]e do need to change it up, and … if they’re willing to go on an adventure with us that they’ll be hopefully amply rewarded at the end of it for, you know, possibly hearing something that they didn’t expect to hear,” he said. “I’d like to think that we give our fans enough variety that we give them a reason to keep coming back.”

During the rehearsal and composing process, whoever is the songwriter for a particular tune usually takes the lead, but Lobos doesn’t necessarily have a leader, Berlin said. Although they often find themselves deferring to Hildago’s expertise. “His ideas tend to be pretty powerful nine times out of 10,” Berlin said. “You know, if he has a problem with something or if he wants to explore an idea, I think he gets perhaps a little more leeway than anybody else, but at the end of the day, I think it’s pretty much all of us have to be happy with what we’re doing. But that’s another way to stick together for this long, is you can’t run roughshod over anybody’s feelings. If somebody feels strongly that something is wrong direction or the wrong way or the wrong idea or whatever, then basically hear that person out and see what else is going to go.”

Berlin’s entry into Los Lobos actually began with another band: the Blasters. It was the 1980s, and Los Angeles was a hotbed of musical activity. Los Lobos up until that point had little acclaim — that is until they opened for the Blasters and impressed the crowd. Berlin, at that time, was actually a member of the Blasters.

“It was one of those deals where nobody knew what to expect. There was this band Los Lobos, and they kind of came out and blew everybody away. It was just astonishing. … Here’s this band from literally like a couple of miles away that were so advanced and so developed and had such a great idea and a great song sense. It was just kind of amazing. I know it was amazing to me that this could happen, that a band like this could exist and nobody knew about it until this show more or less, this show that they did opening for us, opening for the Blasters. So at that show we sort of bonded a little bit, and they said some of these songs that we’re doing have sax parts. Do you want to come sit in with [us] some time? Of course, I said yes.”

Berlin has been with the band ever since, and he has fond memories of those early days: “When the Blasters and Lobos started out it was an unbelievably fertile time musically. There were a million bands and a million places to play. It was before there was enough money that people got greedy or stupid. So there was a lot of brotherhood, you might say. I know once Lobos got exposed to the world through the Blasters, then Lobos was opening shows for everybody. And everybody wanted this band to be part of the deal and on their shows and stuff like that. And I just remember it as being a very — I don’t want to sound too hippie-dippie about it — but it was just kind of a beautiful moment.”

It was a musical scene where local bands played almost every night of the week, and audience members hungry for risky originality could follow the Go-Gos or X or the Blasters or Los Lobos from small venue to small venue. The vibe only dulled after the bands started receiving record deals and left their native Los Angeles in the rearview mirror.

“There was a moment there when you could see these bands every other week more or less, or every week if you wanted to, and that’s the moment I’m talking about,” Berlin said. “There were just these amazingly cool bands playing all the time, getting better and better and better every time you see them.”

That original energy is still harnessed and utilized by the band. Although Los Lobos has found substantial success and still plays to packed venues, the band is not too faraway from those first few venues. But one thing has changed: Berlin left Los Angeles a long time ago.

“I think a lot of what made it cool way back then was the fact that it was all new. This was an era of pre-cynicism. … My heart goes out to bands that are starting now, like the Lobos of 2013. Like where they find that kind of cynicism-free nurturing, I have no f***ing idea. I just don’t know where you go these days to get what we got, which was, you know, a nice, warm bed basically to get better and better and better until the point where we were good enough to basically go anywhere, play anywhere.”

In addition to producing records (his most recent clients include Matt Andersen from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Deer Tick), Berlin heads out on the road with the band he’s known and enjoyed playing with for many years. Who knows. Maybe when traveling around the world, they may find East L.A. once again.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

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