Jarabe de Palo recently released their 9th album of their career under the name Somos and with this new album they also celebrate their 18th anniversary.
Throughout their long and successful career, Jarabe De Palo have been nominated for the Latin Grammy 13 times and have sold over 5 million albums around the world and have collaborated with some of the biggest starts in the Latin world and beyond like Celia Cruz, Compay Segundo, Chrissy Hynde (The Pretenders), Alanis Morrisette and others.
As it has become customary, with the release of this new album, Jarabe de Palo is in the midst of a U.S. tour that is taking the band through some of the most important cities in the U.S. and at a stop on the road, we had the chance to talk via phone with singer and band leader, Pau Dones and here are his thoughts on the new album and tour.
Tell us about the new album, Somos.
“I think this album is very much a rock album, with some funky songs and a couple of Jarabe de Palo type ballads. We also have some interesting collaborations with Gabylonia, a Venezuelan rapper and Ximena Sariñana from Mexico. With this new album we have started the new tour in New York and we will be visiting some of the most important cities in the U.S. and we are very happy because after all these years, I think we have earned ourselves a space in the musical landscape of the U.S. and now we are playing bigger and more recognized venues.”
After such a long career, how do you keep yourself and your music fresh sounding?
“We are musicians and we are creative people and perhaps, pre-established formulas do not work for us. If you listen to the radio, it is dominated by pop music and everything pretty much sounds the same, so we are always trying to evolve within our style, so we feel that evolution is important.”
You have had several collaborations on your records, how do these collaborations come about?
“First come the songs, sometimes we have 70 songs and from those we chose 12 and from those 12, we start looking at which ones would lend themselves to a collaboration and with whom. We have been very lucky to have worked with some really great people, but they are usually people that we are already friendly with and we admire like Celia Cruz, Julieta Venegas, Pavorotti and others.
Some of the videos you have made have been shot on location where you are touring, how do you decide where to shoot your videos?
“Let’s say it’s a mix of coincidences, scenery and the type of message the songs are trying to convey, in this case, for “Somos”, we wanted chaotic cities like the ones in Latin America and also Madrid and Barcelona and in the case of “Hoy No Soy Yo”, for a European in the middle of Tokyo is a little strange to be in that environment and it lend itself perfectly to the message of the song.”
Jarabe de Palo will be performing at the Fonda Theater this Friday April 4th and will continue the tour in San Diego and the rest of the Midwest and here are the rest of the tour dates:
April 5 – San Diego, CA
April 6 – Las Vegas, NV
April 9 – Phoenix, AZ
April 10 – Dallas, TX
April 11 – Houston, TX
April 12 – San Antonio, TX
