On how DJ Art Laboe and the \u201coldies\u201d sound influenced the group<\/strong>:<\/p>\nArt Laboe has been DJing since the \u201860s in LA, and he was on KLRA. If you grew up in the \u201880s or \u201890s, you heard him on the radio, and he would spin oldies \u2013 Black music from the \u201850s and \u201860s. Part of Chicano Batman\u2019s ecstatic is to represent that era. That shit runs through our blood. Leon Michels, our producer, is just like that, another cat who listened to that music. We really see eye to eye on a lot of different influences, and it\u2019s because of our generational connectivity \u2013 anything from oldies to hip hop. And he has worked on attaining much of the gear that was used for those older recordings, like a tape echo delay on analogue, tape machines, old amps from the \u201850s and \u201860s, and so on. Walking into that studio was so new for me, and it was an amazing learning experience.<\/p>\n
On how the group\u2019s latest album, \u201cFreedom is Free,\u201d was recorded in just two weeks at Michel\u2019s New York studio<\/strong>:<\/p>\nWhat we\u2019ve been doing since the beginning of our career is recording a live take of a song, so bass, drums, and guitar are recorded all together, so the listener can get the vibe of the performance. We were just performing in Detroit, and the classic Motown songs were recorded on two tracks \u2013 they recorded the band on two tracks, and then they recorded the vocals on two tracks, and that was it<\/em>. All that music we grew up with was recorded live to tape to get the best quality.<\/p>\nOn why sounds of the past appeal to him<\/strong>:<\/p>\nIt\u2019s the history of the LA area. I grew up in La Mirada, which is right next to Sante Fe Springs, where they have this swap meet that became a pillar of Chicano culture for Mexican Americans who had been living in the area for generations. To listen to oldies was cool! That was what people listened to. I remember my homey Brian \u2013 he came from a gangster family, and oldies were all he listened to, especially compilations, which were huge at the swap meet. You had low-rider oldies, Art Laboe, and other classics.<\/p>\n
On the band\u2019s concept<\/strong>:<\/p>\nThe concept of the band was always political, such as including \u201cChicano\u201d in the name. The ideas behind the band were always heady. I\u2019m a big fan, for instance, of Gilberto Gil and the Tropic\u00e1lia artistic movement, and I love watching the films of Godard, and Kurosawa, and Bu\u00f1uel. I think it\u2019s all related \u2013 people from all over the world have used American pop culture because it\u2019s the center of art, given American global hegemony; they use American culture to represent themselves, just as Chicano Batman is our way of representing ourselves.<\/p>\n
Nobody has been representing the music that was coming from Chile, Columbia, all other Latin America. This is music that is becoming more recognized, especially with companies re-releasing the material nowadays, but I grew up with that shit. I have those records in the closet, as did a whole generation of people in Los Angeles. From the beginning, Chicano Batman was about representing that era. That\u2019s why we appeared, on our first record cover, in tuxedos with the ruffled shirts. And groups back then had names like that \u2013 Los Chicanos, and so on. Chicano Batman could have been a name back then.<\/p>\n
On traveling the country while on tour<\/strong>:<\/p>\nThis country is such a trippy-ass place, and the more we drive through it, the more you realize how messed up and colonial it is. Take Detroit \u2013 I skated through the city, and I felt like I was driving through Vernon, which is a wasteland in LA where they throw all the waste from factories and warehouses. Detroit is like that, but with non-functioning warehouses that are all abandoned. It\u2019s crazy to see that, because you think you\u2019re in the Soviet Union. There is so much poverty in this country, to the point where it\u2019s third-world status. It\u2019s like being somewhere in Mexico or South America. There is that much economic inequality, and you see those things when you\u2019re on the road.<\/p>\n
On \u201cThe Taker Story,\u201d the group\u2019s most political song yet<\/strong>:<\/p>\nFor me, the song is about being as explicit as possible in trying to describe the issue of humanity, but through a particular epistemological framework, which I learned from reading Ishmael<\/em> by Daniel Quinn. The first time I read that book, my mind was blown. It essentially tied together everything I had ever learned in my life \u2013 from when I started remembering facts to when I earned my master\u2019s in Latin American Studies \u2013 and did it all in a very simple framework.<\/p>\nMost of the time, when it comes to studying history, we focus on modern history. We do not go into ancient history, but instead study history after the Industrial Revolution, or the arrival of Europeans in the American continents. When I started reading Ishmael<\/em>, it became clear to me why. The way Daniel Quinn breaks those things down is so simple, and it makes so much sense. The concept is, this gorilla is telling these things to a man, and he\u2019s trying to explain to the man the myths of western civilization. He\u2019s asking the man, did history begin in 1600? Did it begin when humans began civilizing other cultures? No! And I\u2019ve known that my whole life. I know it from the way my mom sways her hips. I know it from the way my dad moves and acts. I know it because the way I feel, the way I breath. Everything says \u201cNo\u201d to everything we\u2019ve been taught since grade school.<\/p>\nIshmael<\/em> provided a concept for me to work on that song, the writing of which was the most important undertaking I\u2019ve had as a songwriter.<\/p>\nOn why he is ultimately an optimist<\/strong>:<\/p>\nI feel blessed being who I am, and feeling how I feel. So I\u2019m naturally optimistic, I\u2019m naturally jovial, and I owe it all to my mom. She\u2019s from Cartagena, Columbia, which is in the Caribbean, and she\u2019s an amazing woman who is extremely happy all the time. Her radiance pours into you. I\u2019m a mama\u2019s boy, and I\u2019ve always been very attached to her, so I have the same spirit. Music has always been central to our family. We dance every day \u2013 if my mom comes over, I\u2019ll put a record on, and we\u2019ll immediately start dancing. And that\u2019s the point of \u201cFreedom is Free\u201d to me. You\u2019re crazy man, you cannot tell me that freedom isn\u2019t free! I\u2019m free, bro!<\/p>\n
We just played in Grand Rapids, and it was such an amazing show. Half the time, it\u2019s not even our performance, but the crowd, and the environment we\u2019re creating together. When I feel that, it really uplifts my spirit. Working as a performer is really good for your spirit, and I understand why you have all these rockers who are in their 80s and are still doing it \u2013 it\u2019s such a high, that kinetic energy that transfers between a performer and the audience. It\u2019s an existential thing. Music has always been to create a sense of unity and cohesion among a group of people. It\u2019s not a bad field to be in to find happiness, because that\u2019s the whole point of it. I find a lot of hope in this field. We get to spread love and communicate our happiness.<\/p>\n
For more on Chicano Batman, click here<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Peter Thomas Ricci \u201cFreedom is Free\u201d \u2013 the new album from the awesomely named, Los Angeles-based rock band Chicano Batman \u2013 is one of 2017\u2019s best albums, a wild […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-news","category-features","category-interviews","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}