More than three decades have passed since Los Lobos released their debut album, Just Another Band from East L.A. For Tin Can Trust – Los Lobos’ first first collection of new original material in four years – the venerable quintet reconnected directly with those roots by returning to East L.A. and recording at Manny’s Estudio.
The band is touring in support of their latest, critically acclaimed album Tin Can Trust released August 3. Their first new album in four years, goes back to bluesy basics and folksy lyricism with to push themselves to new creative places out of the ‘comfort zone’.
More than three decades have passed since Los Lobos released their debut album, Just Another Band from East L.A. Since then they’ve repeatedly disproven that title – Los Lobos isn’t “just another” anything, but rather a band that has consistently evolved artistically while never losing sight of their humble roots.
For Tin Can Trust – Los Lobos’ first release for Shout! Factory (released on August 3) and first collection of new original material in four years – the venerable quintet reconnected directly with those roots by returning to East L.A. and recording at Manny’s Estudio, “in a rundown neighborhood,” says Los Lobos songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Louie Pérez. “That took us out of our comfort zone and allowed us to do what we hadn’t done in quite some time: to play together in the same room, as one. This was not about putting your feet up; this was about working.”
“We went into that studio and the first day everyone was asking, ‘Does anyone have any material?’” recalls guitarist/vocalist Cesar Rosas. “So I said, ‘Well, I have a couple of songs.’ Then Dave started hitting the keys and he came up with something, and then Louie followed. That’s the way everything worked out; that’s the way we made this record.”
“It felt more like a group effort,” agrees bassist/vocalist Conrad Lozano. “We went into the studio with no ideas and worked some out. Before, everybody would come in with a finished product.”
That unified vision and strong work ethic are evident in each of the 11 tracks comprising the self-produced Tin Can Trust, but so is something even greater, “an intuitiveness,” says Pérez, “that happens only from being in a band for so long.”
“What I liked about making this album,” says Hidalgo, “was the spirit of it: nobody said no to anything. If you had an idea, OK, try it. Just go for it and see where we end up.”
Tin Can Trust, like so much of Los Lobos’ previous work, is an album that speaks to the time and place in which it was conceived. But it wasn’t until the songwriting and recording process was well under way that it occurred to the band that an underlying theme was trying to make itself heard. The phrase that ultimately became the album’s title can be traced back more than a century, but for the band it’s apt for the rickety state in which so many of us find ourselves – and our world – today.
The characters that populate Tin Can Trust are often anxious and hurting yet they remain resilient and proud. The scenarios in which they find themselves and the emotions they are experiencing are all familiar. It wasn’t until Pérez and his songwriting partner Hidalgo had crafted the title track and another highlight of the album, “On Main Street,” that the album’s focus started to come into view. Says Pérez, “I usually have to find the direction everything wants to go. I try not to resist because as soon as you start fighting and move it in another direction, it just doesn’t work.”
A number of tracks on Tin Can Trust are Hidalgo-Pérez collaborations, including the album’s opener “I’ll Burn It Down,” with blues-rocker Susan Tedeschi offering a guest vocal harmony, and “Jupiter Or the Moon” – both of which feature Lozano on the upright acoustic bass. Hidalgo and Pérez are also behind “Lady and the Rose,” which Berlin calls “incredible, one of my favorite songs on the record, with great lyrics”; the dance instrumental “Do the Murray,” whose curious title is a tribute to Hidalgo’s recently deceased dog; and the album-closing “Twenty Seven Spanishes,” which attempts to encapsulate in one song nothing less than the entire tale of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, “blow by blow,” as Pérez says.
Of the remaining four tracks, three were written in whole or in part by Rosas, and the other is a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “West L.A. Fadeaway.” Lobos and the Dead have a shared history that extends back into the 1980s when the Angelenos befriended and opened shows for their northern peers. Los Lobos previously covered the Dead’s “Bertha” for a tribute album, and as Tin Can Trust took shape it occurred to the band to tuck “West L.A. Fadeaway,” which originally appeared on the Dead’s most successful album, 1987’s In the Dark, into their own new project.
Rosas supplied the two Spanish-language numbers on Tin Can Trust, the cumbia “Yo Canto” and the norteño “Mujer Ingrata,” both of which forge a connection to the Mexican folk songs played by Los Lobos in their formative years and on their classic 1988 album La Pistola y El Corazón. “‘Mujer Ingrata,’” says Rosas, “has to do with a relationship gone bad. The title means ungrateful woman. And ‘Yo Canto’ is about seeing different people and looking at some nice chicks! These aren’t social comments about anything,” he adds with a laugh. “I write the plain songs and the traditional songs.”
“There’s this thing that still happens, this musical thing,” says Pérez. “But if you took everything away, even the music, you’d still end up with four guys who were friends and hung out and grew up in the same neighborhood. And you can’t take that friendship away from us.”
“We’re brothers and we all equally recognize that,” says Rosas. “That’s what keeps us going, knowing that we need to help each other and we need to get through this and we work well together. And we keep it real.”
Los Lobos are playing September 28th at the Gibson Amphitheater in Hollywood.
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