Steve Berlin on Native Sons, L.A. Music and 5 Decades of Fun with Los Lobos

Berlin: Thee Midniters were like The Beatles in East L.A. They were on all those local ‘60s American Bandstand-type shows.And I didn’t grow up in L.A., so I didn’t know what they were. But they were on TV all the time, they were on the radio all the time, so the guys growing up just thought it was a Rolling Stones/Beatles/Midniters kind of thing. They thought that they were all more or less equivalent somehow. So they were a big influence, and the fact that they were from the neighborhood was huge, so the guys grew up with the idea that you could make it out of here—you weren’t locked in. So on a lot of levels, it was a big deal, and Wilie G[arcia] the singer, became friends with us over the years, and he’s been on a couple of records of ours now. So Willie G’s still with us, and he’s pretty happy with this album, and we also had his son sing on it, as well. So it was kind of a big deal to us, to let those people know how much they meant to us. And then as far as the making of, we started in February of 2020, so we started it pre-pandemic, obviously not knowing a fucking thing about what was about to go down. Didn’t see that one coming, and we were very naively thinking it would be over in a couple of months, that somehow it would just stop. I’m sure everybody was that naive for a minute. So once the reality of it hit home, once it dawned on us that this wasn’t going to go away any time soon, it was like, “Alright. Well, what are we gonna do about this record?” And since I don’t live in L.A., the question and the issue more or less was, “How are we going to actually get together?” So we cut three or four songs in February, and then we shut it all down for three or four months, and then I think it was in June when we got back together again. The studio is big enough and it’s well-ventilated—it’s a pretty big space— so we were able to do it right. Like, we were able to distance ourselves, and we got a nurse to come test us before every session, which was… interesting. But basically, we just made it work. So we would do three or four days a month, work on a couple of songs, take a break for three weeks, do it again, take a break for three weeks. And, lo and behold! It was the long way around, but we actually got through it all and we woke up one day in September and added the songs up, and we had 14 songs, which I was shocked by. I wasn’t really keeping a running count—I was just letting stuff happen, and was happy that we were able to work, and somehow, we magically accumulated 14 songs.

Paste: Who sings on Jackson Browne’s “Jamaica Say You Will”? It actually almost sounds like Jackson Browne himself. And people forget the brilliance of his work in the Pretender era. Where does he fit into the Los Lobos pantheon?

Berlin: Ha! No, that’s Dave [Hidalgo, guitarist/vocalist)], and then Louie [Perez, drummer] sings one verse. I was actually just going to check out his new album today. But he was a huge influence on Louis, in terms of songwriting. That first album? I remember it affecting me, too, even though I wasn’t a songwriter. I remember thinking, “this is about as good as it gets.” Just the sense of economy, and just the directness of the language—it wasn’t Dylan-esque, and it wasn’t metaphorical. It was all just being able to tell a very deep and profound story with the absolute minimum of language, which is something I think Louis took to heart as a songwriter. So yeah, he was significant. And when the subject of that song came up, I thought, “Wow. That’s gonna be a challenge.” But to their credit, the guys really hung in there and pulled it off, I think. I’m really happy with the way that one came out.

Paste: Who originally did “Farmer John”?

Berlin: So with that one, we kind of killed two birds with one stone. It’s Don and Dewey—which is Don “Sugarcane” Harris—which I think was the original version is also because Thee Midniters also did that song, so our version is kind of like Thee Midniters’ version, or more Midniters than Don and Dewey, but we were looking for a Don and Dewey song, initially. We were trying to find one that would fit because they were also really big influences, especially on Dave.

Paste: Are you thinking about a possible Vol. 2 for this?

Berlin: I don’t think so. I’d be surprised if we did, actually. It’s kind of like, the whole rationale for this was trying to do something that we could do in pieces, because when we set out to do it, it was more because we had a busy touring schedule than what it turned out to be, because we were dealing with Covid. But if somebody asked us to do it? If somebody at the label said, “Hey, this is great! Let’s do a Vol. 2!” I would do it. But it’s been six years since our last non-covers record, so I kind of feel that clock ticking a little bit myself. So I would love to see us do another non-covers record, maybe for 2023, 2022. We’ll see. It generally takes us about 18 months between records. But I would do it again, because it was certainly fun. And the one thing we didn’t cover and we should’ve was a non-Blasters, L.A, punk-rock, early ‘80s thing. Something that pointed to how influential that moment was on us, because really is one of the biggest influences—those bands and those people, and the whole ethic of helping people along the way. If you get a a gig, you bring your buddy in on the gig. It’s like , we’ve always kept that kind of ethos in our hearts. That thing is still with us. If we’re going out on tour, we always try and take our friends with us or somebody that we think deserves it. So that’s my only current regret—not getting that early-L.A. punk scene song on there.

Paste: Dave Grohl and his daughter Violet just covered X’s “Nausea.” Which song would you pick?

Berlin: Well, the one that I wanted to do—which I couldn’t get anybody to go for—was a song by The Plugz called “El Clavo Y La Cruz”—it was on the second Plugz record that I was on, too, actually. It’s a really cool song, and I think that we could pull it off. But I couldn’t get anybody to go for it. And then I thought about the X song “The Have Nots”—I like that one a lot. So those are the two that were at the top of my list. And I was trying to find other stuff, even more obscure, but it was not to be. But the other thing, with more time and another volume to think about, would be that there’s a great scene happening in East L.A. right now that’s kind of where the Chicano Batman vibe came from. There are all these good, young Latin R&B bands happening now, which I would have loved to have highlighted, like The Sinseers. There are a couple of bands like that, doing really exciting cool stuff. But we go to those 14 songs without actually thinking about it too much, so if we do more, that’s where I would go.

Paste: And boomeranging back to what you said earlier, Tony Marsico and The Cruzados—formerly The Plugz—are also back with a new album this year called She’s Automatic.

Berlin: Yeah. I’m on it—I play the sax on two of the songs. And I’ve only heard the two songs that I worked on, but I would imagine it’s fantastic.

Paste: The last time we spoke, pre-pandemic, you had just finished producing The Greyhounds and The Suitcase Junket. What have you been working on since?

Berlin: Oh, I’ve done a bunch of records since then. So what’s coming out? There’s a band called Southern Avenue from Memphis, and I think that one comes out in a couple of weeks. There’s a guy named Taylor Scott that I just finished, but I’m not sure when it’s coming. And John Doe’s record, of course, but that won’t be out till January. A lot of people are waiting, because it seems like there’s gonna be a glut of stuff, with the hopeful end of the pandemic. And Fastball—I just finished that. They’re back, and I actually did their last record, too—this one they put out in 2019 that I think is really good.

Paste: The movie La Bamba that Los Lobos took part in has been popping up on TV recently. And I totally forgot that Marshall Crenshaw was cast as Buddy Holly.

Berlin: Yeah!A nd he did a great job! I thought everyone was good in that film, everyone did a great job. And the movie does hold up, it does indeed. But I have to say, going into it, when we were working on it, that was not the way I was feeling. I mean, it was pretty much a giant mess until the very end. It was a much longer movie, and we had actually scored an extra half hour of it that was completely superfluous—it was a whole dream sequence or some other weird thing, where Richie goes to Mexico and takes peyote and envisions his whole career. It was just really silly, inconsequential, it had nothing to do with anything. Just pointless. But as we were working on it, it got better and better. And the last cut of the movie I saw before it got released was literally the last thing I did before we took off for a European trip back then, And I remember thinking, “Wow! They’ve kinda pulled this together! It’s a shame nobody’s ever gonna see this thing!” Literally, that was going through my head as I was watching it.

Paste: What happened with this National Endowment for the Arts giving Los Lobos a Heritage Fellowship?

Berlin: That was kind of awesome. We were nominated by some friends of ours who had been doing some stuff for the NEA. And they were like, “Yeah—let’s get Lobos in here!” So it’s a really prestigious honor, and normally there’s a party at the White House that goes along with it—unfortunately, we had to miss that. But just to be considered among the pantheon of American artists? It’s a big deal. They don’t throw those honors around—it’s a long vetting process. But it was all done remotely this year, so we did it, and it’s cool. We get awards here and there, and it’s always lovely to receive them. But this one is kind of a big one, and that’s no joke.

Paste: Last time we spoke, too, you had created an inflatable sound baffling system called AirHush. How is that going? Build a better egg carton, and the world will beat a path to your door, right?

Berlin: It’s going. But it’s just a challenging time to be doing hardware stuff—a lot of companies can’t quite figure out what their offices are going to look like, or if they’re even going back. But we’re talking to some big names and hoping that everything will work out, and they’ll buy a bunch of panels and we’ll be fine. But it’s like with any other startup—you have good days and bad days, and there’s hopefulness. But you’ll get all excited about something and then it doesn’t happen. But any startup anywhere is going through what we’re going through right now.

Paste: You would think that a convenient, inflatable sound-muffling device would sell like hot cakes during a pandemic. Especially with apartment neighbors banging on your walls and yelling, “Keep it down with that damned guitar music in there!”

Berlin: You would think. But what we’re learning is, one of the things that’s not working in our favor is that it’s never existed before. So you have to sort of teach people what it is, how it works, why it works, because history is littered with failed firsts—the original inventor is rarely the guy that gets the glory. It’s usually the guy who makes it easier, cheaper, more portable, or whatever, all the way down to personal computers. Being first to market is not often the place you want to be. And we are the first and only ones on the market, so it’s a bit of an educational process, all told. A lot of times, there’s the guy who makes the original, and then another guy who comes along and says, “Oh, I can do it for half that price!” So it’s an interesting place to be in, I have to say, especially being a musician. But everybody who sees it and gets it says the same thing—“Oh my God—why aren’t there a billion of these out in the world already?”

Paste: In conclusion, looking back on that early’80s era of Los Angeles punk—combined with everything happening in San Francisco, like The Avengers—it’s hard to recall or even imagine a more magical era. Was there just something in the West Coast water?

Berlin: You know, it’s like critical mass. You get the right people in the right place, all of them trying to—not do the same thing—but do similar things, and things just ignite. And it’s just fun. So I’m really glad that I got to be a small part of it. I don’t know why it happened—nobody knows if there was a real reason why. And sadly—and why it’s hard to imagine any of it happening again—a lot of it was because the city was so cheap. It was cheap. Like, my rent was $160 a month, and it was great to be in this cauldron and be doing stuff and making art and trying to come up with really cool ideas about shit without having to dedicate 80% of your income to your rent. But that’s very much the case now. So that’s the real tragedy of our time— any place where artists would want to go is too expensive to live, like San Francisco, Seattle, and now Portland, sadly.