If you're going to be in the audience at tonight's appearance of Los Lobos at the Michigan Theater, be sure to bring an appetite for fun - and you'd better not be a finicky eater. Known as an energetic and entertaining live act, Los Lobos will serve up a generous portion of rock 'n' roll, funk and blues, spiced heartily with plenty of traditional Mexican folk and sizzling Tex-Mex styles.
Los Lobos began its career more than two decades ago in the Latino barrio of East Los Angeles, playing traditional Mexican folk music. In time, they began to broaden their style to incorporate rock and blues. By the mid-'80s they scored their first major hit song with a cover of the Richie Valens-penned title track from the movie "La Bamba."
In 1992, Los Lobos released the album "Kiko" to much critical acclaim. Over the last decade, they have been nominated for several Grammy Awards and have become a mainstay on adult album alternative radio stations, one of the country's fastest-growing and most popular formats.
Throughout its development and rise to critical and commercial success, Los Lobos has continued to explore and expand its sound, incorporating a truly diverse set of influences which run the gamut from blues to free jazz to pop. In a recent interview with The Michigan Daily, Lobos saxophonist Steve Berlin discussed, among other topics, the roots of the band's genre-bending sounds.
"Guys like Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed; (they influenced) everyone. ... For myself, Tom Waits is one. Sun Ra. And NRBQ. To be honest with you, they've always been inspiring to me," Berlin said.
"I think one of the cooler things about my band is that everybody's got different people that they would name(as influences). I know David (Hidalgo, Lobos guitarist, vocalist and songwriter) would probably say early Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green and Albert King. Cesar (Rosas, singer-songwriter-guitarist) would probably say Hendrix, more than
anybody. Everybody in the band would probably have a different list," Berlin said.
Undoubtedly, each of the influences named can be heard in any Los Lobos record. But Berlin is quick to state that this is not the result of any meticulous planning on the part of the band. "We never really think about, 'Oh, what a jumble of stuff we've used.' To us, it's just kind of like the threads of the fabric; we just kind of weave it together.
"But I'll be totally honest with you. We never, ever premeditate anything. Ever. So, basically what we do is we show up at the studio and just see where our music's going to lead us that day," Berlin said.
"It's never like, 'Oh, gee, we'll use funk and blues influences on this record.' It's a combination of being open-minded and having (longtime Lobos producers) Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake there to encourage that. And having a really low boredom and bullshit threshold. Whenever anything seems even remotely off or fake or weird or not part of the Gestalt, if you will, it gets tossed out and we start over again or we go back to where it last was honest. So with all those different coefficients on the deal, the last two records have been really pleasant to make; really enjoyable, very exciting, every day there's something cool and different going on," Berlin said.
This sense of spontaneity was only exacerbated by the conditions under which the Lobos' current album, "Colossal Head," was recorded. "We had just finished a really grueling soundtrack for the movie 'Feeling Minnesota,'" Berlin explained. "Usually when we go into a record we will have had a little bit of time off; in this case, we didn't ... So just sort of being depleted, in a sense, made this record simpler and closer to the bone ... I think we made a really cool record and I'm really happy with it and really proud of it," he concluded.
"Colossal Head" was released in March of this year; since then, the band has spent a considerable amount of time on the road in support of the record. While the members of Los Lobos love performing, such extensive touring takes its toll. Said Berlin, whose wife is currently expecting the couple's second child, "I can't say that (touring's) like a complete nightmare, but at the same time, everybody's got families that they miss a lot. Quite frankly, the way I look at it is that's what they pay me for - to put up with missing my family."
Consequently, the band intends to continue to contribute to movie soundtracks (their credits to date include "La Bamba," "Desperado" and "Feeling Minnesota") partly because these projects do not require a touring commitment. As Berlin said, "It's a really good way to not have to leave home, and to make money, and to make music. For creative guys like ourselves - and I say that with all due modesty - it's a great way to do stuff and to keep going and to make interesting music between albums." In addition, the band plans to "either do another (studio) record in the spring or in the summer, and maybe have it out next fall," Berlin reported.
So the past has been successful, the present is busy and the future looks bright for Los Lobos. "It's hard to whine," Berlin observed. Fortunately, the audience should have nothing to whine about themselves after seeing this talented band perform this evening at the Michigan Theater. The band may be a long way from home, but whoever said Ann Arbor couldn't use a bit of East L.A. every once in a while?
Eclectic Los Lobos is set to rock the Michigan Theater tonight.