Joey Burns talks with LMC about the collaborative nature of Calexico, his formative years, influences, Austin and Barack Obama before their 11.7.08 show at Antone’s, reviewed below. Scroll down for the interview…

Calexico | Live at Antone’s

By Andy Gately | Photos by Kari Mulhern

After a Brian Jonestown Massacre show in London, a guy I met there asks me, “Have you heard Calexico? They’re from America.” I said I hadn’t, and asked what they sound like. “Like the soundtrack to a Quentin Tarantino movie,” he said. A few months later, I’m seeing them at Antone’s for the first show of their North American tour.

As the California border town that the band’s name comes from would suggest, Calexico indeed blends Southwestern and Mexican sounds from the last century. Their influences, however, are far too diverse to be so easily quantified, or limited to one continent, for that matter.

For the opening song at Antone’s last Friday, lead singer Joey Burns and percussionist John Convertino open with a killer guitar and drum surf jam that hearkens to the duo’s L.A. roots, when they used to play together in the group Giant Sand. After this tone-setter, the rest of the band take their places and together they proceed to paint increasingly complex sonic portraits of lands familiar and exotic, spiriting you off to Madrid, Monterrey, Memphis. There seems to be no limit to their reach: one minute their lush instrumentation is evoking an Italian villa, and the next is a jazzy piece that unspools from the speakers, to lift a line from Self, like algorithms of emotion.

Whether they’re “Goin’ to Acapulco,” a Dylan cover sung with Jim James on the I’m Not There soundtrack, or crossing the “Crystal Frontier,” a rousing horn-punctuated number that’ll give ya the hot foot, you’ll soon be willing to follow into whatever musical territory they venture.

Their live show is distinguished by a tasteful restraint when it comes to levels, rarely done this well since The Pixies, and to powerfully hypnotic effect. Each member seems to intuit when to bring it up or down to achieve maximum emotional impact: a little less of Valenzuela’s keyboard here, a little more of Volker Zander thumping that doghouse there, and another gorgeous landscape of human experience is charted before your ears.

Joey Burns’ dexterity as a frontman is demonstrated over and again, whether he’s channeling Lou Reed on “Writer’s Minor Holiday,” or joining in with Jairo’s horn and traditional Mariachi vocals, and he’s the rare singer/songwriter with the pen of a poet and the vocal range to match, injecting just the right amount of gravitas that his often-haunting lyrics require. He’s no slouch on the axe either, from Duane Eddy-esque flourishes to the distorted vibrance of the “Man Made Lake” solo. To his left, Martin Wenk changes from trumpet to accordion to vibraphone like they were tools from the box and he the master craftsman who knows the right one for every job, while across the stage Paul Niehaus hunches over the lap steel like a monk, fingers playing upon the frets with Zen-like concentration, as if transcribing sacred texts to preserve for the younger generation. The spokes of the Calexico wagon train are Convertino’s sticks, of course, which he deploys in deft and nuanced strokes.

By the time they blaze into the feedback-scorched strains of their closer, “Red Blooms” (from their sixth and newest studio album, Carried to Dust, recorded right here in Austin’s Top Hat Studio), Antone’s is electric. An encore heightened by the vocals of Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam, who joins Calexico on stage to harmonize with Joey for “He Lays in the Reins” and “Burn that Broken Bed,” from their chart breaking In The Reigns EP, sends the show straight into the sublime.

Catch them live if their current tour hits your town. The next best way to experience them is over the crackling radio of a convertible muscle car roadtripping through one of the square states, the soundtrack to your own Tarantino scene.

Joey Burns | INTERVIEW

By Rob Fitzpatrick

Joey Burns was kind enough to answer a few questions for Live Music Capitol on Thursday 11.6.08 before heading to Austin for the show at Antone’s.

LMC | Calexico just got done with a European tour and now you’re on your way to Austin to start a US tour… On the road here, what do you look forward to about Austin?

JOEY |Well, let’s see. We’ve got a lot of friends there , and we have always done really well playing in Austin. There is always kind of this connection between where we come from in Tuscon, or some of us come from, and it represents kind of its connection musically, similar in some ways in mindset and just the kind of background I guess. Austin is such a musical town and has such a wealth of diversity and that diversity really kind of comes out in our band. First thing we do though is get out to Las Manitas for breakfast. That’s always the most important, and then the rest follows. (I couldn’t be the one to break the news to him that Las Manitas has closed it’s doors
-R.F.)

LMC | Nice… You guys recorded mixed albums in studios from Brooklyn to California and how did you arrive at your decision to mix the latest album, Carried to Dust, here in Austin at Top Hat Studios?

JOEY | The studio is run by some of the most down to earth and knowledgeable people… John and Mary and Craig Schumacher, who have a studio here in Tuscon called Wavelab Studio. Sometimes it’s nice to get a different perspective. Austin is just close enough and just far enough so that you can avoid distraction , I think you have to get out of town which I think is important to get that set of fresh ears and… it’s a very comfortable studio, with great sounding equipment and gear, a great Espresso machine, walking distance to South Congress. So, you know, it had all of the right pieces there for us. John and I get to share a bunk bed there, (laughs), how often are you able to do that? It’s really comfortable for us there. Austin is very similar to Tuscon, very laid back, just the town in general. It always feels good returning to Austin and the studio has a fantastic rate for what you’re getting. Yeah, we could mixed it here in Tucson, but John and I and Craig Schumacher, we all agreed that it would be best to get outside of town. That’s why we would go either to California or somewhere else. Instead of going to California this time, we decided to go to Texas.

LMC | Well, we appreciate it. You guys have toured and recorded with just a really wide range of musicians. The band has really grown in size and scope. In what ways do all these different backgrounds , cultures and stories influence the songs and the songwriting process?

JOEY | Well it helps a lot. Everyone we work with, whether their in the band, like Volker or Martin, who are from Germany, their newspapers have different headlines. They focus on different aspects of what’s going on, not only around the world, but here in the United States… For example, during the past 8 or so years We have been in a band together through all that. I remember distinctly being on tour in America and the Iraq war started and there was a sense of dread…. especially coming from Martin and Volker, they brought their perspective into the situation. So, everybody kind of brings their own influences and I think that’s what’s so exciting for me in the songwriting, you know, you just get a slightly different perspective whether it be through conversation or to e-mails or just hearing their translations from the newspapers. On this last one Carried to Dust, we kind of opened that envelope and we invited people like Sam Beam, Pieta Brown, Doug McCombs and Mickey Raphael from the States as well as friends of ours from overseas like Amparo Sanchez, Jairo Zavala from Spain and many others…

LMC | Yeah, Calexico fans are really seeing a lot more collaboration and kind of guest musicians. It’s really cool to see…

JOEY | Yeah, we really like it and that’s part of what we do, that… and it sparks a lot of interesting ideas and it most certainly is happening live for many years; on a record it is not as much I would say, but to a small degree. And very naturally we found ourselves opening the door for quite a few people, and a lot of people that we had just recently worked with or had wanted to work with for a while.

Jairo Zavala had come to Tucson to record a record of his own under his project Depedro and knew from the way we worked together in the studio that I would love to have his influence on some of the song writing and some of the tracks of the new record. He grew up playing the same kind of classic rock songs, but he has this whole other background that extends through you know, Latin and African rhythms and melodies and music. His comprehension and his knowledge really added a lot to new songs that I was writing that were very linear and focus more on not so much kind of like the classic western chord changes, but more on that kind of contemporary or very rudimentary kind of rhythmic element. His guitar playing and the way he is able to just kind of interweave a very simple kind of melodic, arpegiating line, like in “House Of Valparaiso” or his bassline on “Fractured Air”. This draws on all these different influences. The guys in the band from Europe or the States never had that as an influence growing up.

Then talking about people and places and characters and songs, Jairo definitely added a lot to the the song “Victor Jaro’s Hands”. We had made a record called Feast of Wire, and wrote a song dealing with the US-Mexican border, but I hadn’t really thought of it in terms of Chile and South America or those borders and the immigration problems in the rest of the world. So, he kind of added a whole new insight and so in writing that song, I stressed to him that I didn’t want to necessarily write about Victor Jaro but more about the spirit of what his life represented for so many people. So that song really is more about that spirit and the individual that decides that they have to cross over and leave everything in their homeland behind in order to provide for their family or their loved ones. Then focusing on Victor Jaro’s hands, his hands were cut off and then the guards, they had imprisoned him in this stadium in Santiago, Chile, and they then forced him to play of his songs and were ridiculing him while they were mutilating his arms.

LMC | Oh, wow.

JOEY | …. and he kept on singing, so the report goes. There are people that were in captivity with him that witnessed it. It’s an atrocious crime against somebody who is so positive and represented so much hope. It is like what we have seen here in the States, you know people speaking up and protesting, but you know, here you don’t kill people for protesting, (lately), but this happens sometimes out in the world and oddly enough it has happened in 1973 on September 11th. So, it resonates on a special level for us I think and so I wanted to write a song dedicated to him because of what his passion and his spirit represented.

LMC | I think myself and our readers are going to have to check out the history behind that, I think it’s going to add a lot to the song. Not only are you taking in all these different influences, but also on your recent albums in live performances we’re seeing the band use more diverse instrumentation. Joey, you’re known to experiment with somewhat exotic instruments… what’s your favorite instrument to play?

JOEY | My favorite instrument is still is the nylon string guitar, anything kind of relative to that instrument. I love string guitars, you know whether banjo, mandolin, the chello may fall somewhere in between there. I love string instruments, so that’s kind of my main thing and especially the ones with character. I’ve been playing the Venezuelan Quattro for a while now. A friend of mine who I met in Austin, Abel Rocha from the band Correo Aereo, he gave me a spare Quattro he had. One instrument I’ve been looking to find, is a huapanguera, it’s a guitar from Mexico. A friend had one of these instruments …. I was blown away. It’s a pretty thick… it looks similar to the Bajo Sexto though there is not as many strings and it is not so dense on the fret board, it’s more splayed out, so you play more open chords. You play it like an Irish bouzouki. That’s the most similar I think and speaking about bouzouki, I just bought a Greek bouzouki and so… string instruments really are my main thing.

LMC | You’ve got quite a collection of strings in the studio I’m sure.

JOEY | Oh yeah you have no idea, but beyond that, I love bringing in different textures and tones of instruments whether it be you know brass of course, or strings or you name it, woodwinds…. we haven’t done much with the woodwinds, that’s the next record. I love variety and the voices and character. They all come and help add to creating a descriptive and colorful story.

LMC | So, growing up, did you play an instrument, were you pretty heavily involved in music at a young age?

JOEY | Yeah. I got to playing piano growing up and drums and then switched to bass, playing some guitar. I had two older brothers, my mom sings and plays piano, that’s always been big influence, having a family of musicians.

LMC | And did you grow up exposed to a lot of international music and I guess lot of south western and Mexican music?

JOEY | You know, not a whole lot, but … when you hear your mom singing you know some classic Mexican folk songs like Cielito Lindo or Guadalahara or hearing her play you know from the Scott Joplin Song Book of Ragtime or playing classical pieces… Once I learned bass, I would sit down in the family room and I would play along with her, either with the cello or the bass, playing everything from classical, Bach Beethoven to Beatles or popular songs from ’50s all the way to the 80s. There was always a lot of variety in the house, everything from show tunes to classical to you know kind of early rock, jazz, to contemporary stuff. My parents had, not a massive collection, but a decent enough one where there was a lot of variety there. I think that was my first kind of venture into the music world. and then I loved all the records with travel themes: a record about going to Tahiti or Jamaica…going to the Far East or something or you know. I remember an album based on French films. I loved that my parents had all these different records and I spent a lot of time listening and going through. and then of course, and you go to the library and we could rent vinyl back then.

Having two older brothers, they bought a lot of records and we listened to a lot of music. I remember hanging out with my oldest brother John, who I have done a lot of collaborating with in the past couple of years on lyrics, listening to the eight track player and you know falling asleep on the floor or the beanbag listening to music. It brings up a lot of positive memories. growing up I remember being really curious about jazz and classical and ended up playing both, Then in Los Angeles, I wound up in a lot of different bands or experimental projects, I was also doing work for Thomas Newman the soundtrack composer. There was a lot of variety there in the city.

I didn’t really get into some of the folkloric aspects to Mexican music until I moved to Tucson and found myself in the Barrio here, Barrio Viejo where Lalo Guerrero, one of the most important singer song writers that our country has produced…. You know I lived in the same neighborhood that he grew up in, down the street actually and so, I loved you know diving into this history of the region and the fact that the Southwest especially kind of hold the very special place in the development of the land, from Native American culture all the way up to Spanish Colonial times and missionaries. Growing up in California I had traveled many times up and down the Camino Real. Well, it turns out that I wind up buying a home here in Tucson on that very same street. It used to be the Calle Real and probably turn of century they changed the name to Main Avenue. So, I thought it was ironic. So, I love the historical aspect and what these crossroads have represented. Contemporary society and how much the Hispanic and Latino influence is having on not only elections, but just culture in general here in the United States is fantastic. I love the culture… the music as a means of just showing my appreciation.

I think after a certain time playing rock music year after year you know, I mean there are certain elements to it that I love, but there has also been a lot of other elements missing, that don’t touch on other aspects of life, things that are just as electrifying, dynamic and vital to a whole life experience. So, looking at music whether it be jazz or classical. I mean you take your favorite elements and you bring them into a project and then you have your own kind of aesthetics and your own direction and I think both John Convertino and myself have done that.

We’ve drawn on lot of great experiences playing with people like Giant Sand or Victoria Williams, Vic Chestnut all the way to Neko Case, Sam Beam, Willie Nelson, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Working with Phil and having done the Friends of Dean Martinez stuff, these projects bring out some of the the hidden gems of arrangement that John and I have been able to develop. You kind of draw on all these experiences and then you push it around… and I was very surprised come 1998 that people were into that. And that kept us going. Europe has been a great place too, traveling in these places where we have been drawing influences from… anything from you know Italian and Mediterranean style funeral marches or the use of mandolin, accordian, banjo. Street musicians from Romania and Europe. That direct contact wound up influencing lot of our music and so, it keeps going you know.

LMC | Calexico’s music sometimes has a very cinematic feel. There is kind of a touch of spaghetti western and other genre film scores in this eclectic mix. Are there any specific films that have had an influence on your work?

JOEY | There are, everything from Neil Young’s Dead Man soundtrack to Dia Rosa’s work. I love the Twilight Zone, the old television series, it kind of, you know, 12 tone modern harmony and instrumentation, that’s one of my favorites as far as soundtrack work. There’s some of that Big Band influence with Charles Mangus, Duke Ellington in the early ’60s, Crime Jazz; I love some of that stuff. Erik Satie the turn of century French composer, I think his work is fantastic. Big fan of Beethoven. Of course I grew up on a lot of surf music music, being raised on the on the west coast. I was hearing hearing more influences everywhere I looked. Al Caiola from the ’50s, ’60s, he played with Frank Sinatra and he did some of his own kind of instrumental records. So I kind of bridged all these different musical styles that weren’t necessarily cinematic or soundtrack work, but could be, and just kind of lumped them all in together.

LMC | Well, I know you are a busy man. I won’t take up too much of your time, but I have one more question for you today: So, how did it feel to wake up today to Barack Obama as our new president?

JOEY | Oh, it’s fantastic. Are you kidding? I have gotten tons of e-mails and text messages over the night and through the night. So, everybody that I know is really excited. I haven’t spoken to my parents yet. I know that they were voting for McCain… but I thought that John McCain’s acceptance speech was inspiring and very important too. I think that regardless… we need to really work together, the whole country, we will have to come up with some alternatives here. This economy that is completely broken and shattered and it is not going to be an easy job for Barack Obama and his administration. I like the fact that Barack Obama is willing to listen to the other side or to other people’s complaints or fears or ideas. That shows a lot of respect and I think we are going to need that in order to help each other out.

LMC | Well, I just want to thank you for your time. It has been an honor talking with you Joey. Really looking forward to Antone’s on Friday.

JOEY | Me too. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be a great way to start the tour. It’s one of my favorite clubs in Austin and we got a lot of incredible shows there over the years, South by Southwestand it has been a while since we played there, so… and the fact that we are coming off of this European tour, we’re in a good place with these new songs, it’s kind of like the perfect point to come in to the States and play them as we’ve adapted them to the live setting.

LMC | Well, I can’t wait man. I really can’t.

JOEY | Yeah it’s gonna be good. Well, I’ve got to do some packing…

Thanks to Joey Burns and Marah from Touch and Go Records.