Digital Interviews: How did the group get together?

David Hidalgo: We were out of high school, and we were friends in the neighborhood. Just for laughs, for the fun of it, we got together to play some acoustic music. We’d been playing in electric bands for years, and it was nice to do something different. We started going through Cesar’s mom’s record collection, learning some old Mexican music, some traditional stuff, just for a laugh, actually. We found out soon that we couldn’t play it -- it was hard, so we gained respect for it right away.

DI: How did this evolve into playing electric music together?

Cesar Rosas: We played acoustic stuff for about nine or ten years, but before we started Los Lobos, we were rock and roll musicians. We were already playing in bands around the East L.A. area, in other bands. When the ‘80s came, we were playing folk stuff. We decided that we would start writing some music, and we decided that we’d “plug in” again. We became “sort of” an electric group. We started writing more rock and roll, which is very different from everything else we had been doing since 1973.

DI: Louie, What is the songwriting process between band members, especially between David and yourself?

Louie Perez: When we had more time, we’d sit down and do it the traditional way, both of us sitting down with the guitar and a pad of paper. That doesn’t happen anymore, because we don’t have time, so we communicate by cassette. I’ll send some words over, and David sends some cassettes -- and Cesar stays up all night long, that’s how he does it. [laughs]

CR: That’s why I never write anything.

DI: Tell us about the re-release of the original Just Another Band From East L.A. album.

DH: It’s a full album that we recorded and sold ourselves, back in ’77. It’s folk music that we were doing back in those days.

DI: You were asked specifically to do the soundtrack for La Bamba?

LP: We had met the Valenzuela family, and we were asked to be part of that. We met them first, and then we became the band.

DI: How did the success of that album change the band, or the perception of the band by the public?

LP: Well, we became the “’La Bamba’ Guys,” because no one knew anything about us beyond that. All our real fans were just scratching their heads. All the college kids that followed us -- we had a solid college following, we were on the college charts and all that -- they just went, “Well, these guys are [commercial] now, so we don’t need them anymore.” It was weird.

DI: Is that why you followed that up with a more traditional album, La Pistola y El Corazon, and a few experimental albums?

LP: Ah! The monkey wrench in the works. That’s what we did. We threw the wrench in the whole machine and stopped it.

DH: We’d be tall hogs at the trough right now. [laughs]

DI: Did not succumbing to that instant stardom allow you to explore more as a band?

DH: Yeah. If we would have gone the other way, maybe we would have followed it up with something half as successful, or something, but that would’ve been the end of the band. So, it was the only way that we could get back to the beginning, to find ourselves again, because we were confused. We got caught up in the whole thing, so we had to get back to square one. It was for us, as well as the audience, that we were still the same guys that we were before La Bamba.

LP: Took the Testarossa back …

DH: The DeLorean, you know… [laughs]

LP: I met the guy I sold the Chevy to, and he agreed to sell it back to me -- for twice as much. [laughs]

DI: Starting with The Neighborhood, and carrying through Kiko and Colossal Head, you’ve been releasing some far-out stuff.

DH: It was out of this confusion. It took us a couple of records to get back. I think La Pistola was the beginning of the therapy, and Neighborhood -- I think there’s good material on it, but we were still kind of confused. We were still trying to find our way back to where we felt comfortable again, where we could just continue where we left off, and it wasn’t until we did Kiko that it actually felt, “Okay, our boys are back.”

DI: Your relationship with producers Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake really blossomed around this time.

DH: Mitchell Froom had played on our records since the first record. At this time, we didn’t want to fight the record company anymore, like we did with Neighborhood. We wanted to produce it ourselves, and they didn’t think we could do it. They said, “We’d like you to use a producer, Mitchell Froom.” We thought it was a good idea, and it worked better than we expected. We really got along.

DI: David, tell us about your side project with Louie, Mitchell and Tchad -- the Latin Playboys.

DH: It came at the end of Kiko. We’d done Kiko, and ideas kept coming. We just kept putting it on tape, and when there were quite a few things there, it became the album. I played these tapes for Louie. I’d say, “This is just the stuff. I don’t know what it is, or what it’s for, or who it is, or who it’s for, but it’s stuff, and I want to do it.” Louie liked it, but he thought it sounded like it should be treated differently from the band. It sounded like a departure from the band, so we got together with Mitchell and Tchad, and we decided to make it a band, instead of the “Louie and Dave Project,” or whatever.

DI: You’ve already released two albums. Will there be more to come?

DH: I’m sure there will be, as time allows. We do it on the side, when it’s comfortable.

DI: You were also, along with Cesar, in Los Super Seven -- a Latin “super group.”

CR: Super-duper group!

DH: It’s the Latin [Traveling] Wilburys. [laughs] We didn’t know what was going to happen. Rick Trevino is a country singer. His manager and himself had this idea -- getting people to come in [and] do some of the old songs they liked. It started out more like a Tex-Mex thing. We did it with Freddy Fender, Flaco Jimenez, Joe Ely, Rubén Ramos, Doug Sahm. We did the first album in a week down in Austin. It was a great experience, you know, a lot of fun. It was a breeze.

DI: Too bad you couldn’t get anybody good to play. [laughs]

DH: [laughs] I know, yeah.

CR: The “B-List,” you know. [laughs]

DI: Through all of your side groups, and Los Lobos, you always seem to be paying tribute to the great old music. Do you do that consciously?

DH: I don’t know if we do it consciously. Sometimes we do. I guess we realized that we have a responsibility, since we’re in whatever position we’re in. If we can say something, or pay tribute to someone, we will, because we have a lot of respect for the people that we listened to growing up, and the people that taught us how to play.

DI: Who were some of the performers you listened to growing up, some of the favorites?

CR: Sam and Dave.

DH: [agrees] Sam and Dave.

CR: Otis Redding. Aretha Franklin.

DI: Cesar, tell us about your solo release, Soul Disguise.

CR: That was some songs that were “left over” from some of the projects [laughs], some of the songs that didn’t get on Los Lobos projects. Being the big blues and R&B fan that I am, I thought it’d be fun to put out a bluesy record. Just for the fun of it, you know, for some of the fans out there that missed Los Lobos’ old stuff.

DI: When you sing the traditional songs, a lot of people aren’t aware of what you’re saying -- but there’s a feeling going on. Tell us about the relationship between you and your audience.

CR: As we always say, if it’s good music, it’ll always come across. People can sense the sincerity of the musicianship, and the vocal styles. The traditional music, or folk music, you just can’t go wrong. The heart is in it. It’s the truth.

DI: How did your collaboration with Willie Dixon come about?

CR: Besides being a massive fan of Willie forever, because of all the blues -- Howlin’ Wolf and the Chess records and all of that -- he eventually, in the later part of his life, moved to Glendale, California. In the ‘80s, one of the guys that worked in our office, his wife managed Willie Dixon. Living around L.A., we got to meet him. We would run into Willie, occasionally, at certain fundraisers. We’d help out. Anyway, we were talking about doing the next Los Lobos record, and I thought it’d be great to get together with him and collaborate. I thought, he’s getting old, you know, and he’s one of the last of the cool guys. I love him so much. I thought it’d be cool. Also, it was always suggested, Willie’s wanting to write with people, so it just all fell together. Once they asked him, they dropped it on him, the news came back that he was really ecstatic, that he was really into it. Eventually I ended up at his house, eating dinner with his family a couple times a week. We got to hang out with him, and he had such a beautiful family.

DI: Tell us about the upcoming Los Lobos box set.

CR: There’s going to be a whole lot of songs. Four CDs worth of music, about 90 songs. It’s studio stuff and some rarities and outtakes, and a few live things that our audience may dig. We’re hoping to get it out before Christmas. This is going to go out on Rhino Records.

DI: If there’s a young musician reading this, what advice would you share?

CR: It may sound corny, but it’s true -- I think they should follow their dreams. Listen to a lot of good music, and listen to a lot of cool stuff from the ‘50s and ‘60s -- rock and roll. If their heart’s into the rock and roll thing, listen to the foundation, listen to old R&B music, and it’ll teach you something. Never give up -- just keep on with your dreams and see them through. Look at us. We’ve been together 27 years, and we’ve had a few hard times, but we’ve always managed to take everything with a grain of salt. Just have fun. Have fun with the music. Play something that you love, and stick with it. Follow your dreams, man. Just keep on.