Escovedo finds inspiration in adulthood’s messiness
Mexican-American rocker reflects on sources of inspiration as he moves through his 60s
Long before Mexican-American rocker Alejandro Escovedo became a musician, he had other ambitions to be a filmmaker and storyteller.
“I was always reading and writing from a very early age and creating stories was a way to address what was happening in my imagination.”
The hot music scene where he lived in San Francisco’s Bay Area was a major inspiration.
“I got to see a lot of music and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
Back in the early 1970s, Escovedo and a friend were making an amateur movie about an aging rocker and his teenage band and they decided to play the band.
“I just knew a few chords but we thought we looked good. That band became The Nuns, and once we became a band we scrapped the movie and went with the band.”
They recorded an album but it didn’t go anywhere. It wasn’t until a decade later after Escovedo moved back to his home state of Texas that he took music further, first as a member of Rank And File, then finding critical success in True Believers, a band he formed with his brother Javier. After winning over the Austin scene and building on their reputation, he
went solo in the early 1990s.
Over the years he’s drawn a legion of fans, including friends and occasional collaborators like Ryan Adams, Peter Buck and Bruce Springsteen. When the singer fell prey to hepatitis C and couldn’t afford his medical bills, artists like Steve Earle, John Cale, Lucinda Williams and Son Volt stepped up to record a tribute album to raise funds for him. (He finally beat it a few years ago.)
Now 67, Escovedo is a revered veteran of American punk and roots-rock but in another way he hasn’t strayed far from his original interests, especially when you consider the idea behind his forthcoming album The Crossing, a collaboration recorded in Italy with his Italian touring band.
Due in September, The Crossing is a concept album about two young men, American immigrants, one from Mexico, the other from Italy, who meet up in a Texas cafe and find a free-spirited camaraderie in making rock ’n’ roll together. Set mostly in the 1980s, they idolize acts like the MC5, The Stooges, Velvet Underground, The Ramones and the whole counterculture that goes with it. You can hear part of that story in the album’s lively advance single, Sonica U.S.A.
“They go looking for this America, but what they find is very different,” Escovedo explains. “They find out that America has changed, that it’s no longer the free America they envisioned and read about. There’s a sense that the country that was the birthplace of so much great music is gone.”
It reflects certain auto-biographical aspects too, like the racism he’s faced in the music industry.
“It’s more about me than any record I’ve ever made in a way, seen through a character’s eyes.”
Given his Mexican lineage, you can guess how Escovedo feels about the state of politics.
“I’m very disappointed to the point that it causes anxiety. What really hurts me is that he (Donald Trump) has singled out Mexicans as the enemies. This constant toxic banter is really horrifying, and there’s a change in this country that wasn’t there before. It’s an embarrassment to democracy.”
Luckily for his fans Escovedo is trying not to be too distracted by what he calls “the playbook for tyranny,” staying busy making music and writing his own “mythical memoir.” He makes no apologies for finding the enthusiasm to rock into his senior years.
“Neil Young said something about how ‘the messiness of adulthood is just as important and profound as the messiness of adolescence.’ I’m just writing about what I’m experiencing as a man now, what I see in the world, what I’ve experienced, what I feel about what the world has become and what I hope for the future. I see people like Ian Hunter, John Cale and Iggy Pop as examples of how to grow up in rock ’n’ roll and still be graceful about it. I’m still curious. I don’t feel too old at all.”
To hear Escovedo recall his childhood in the 1950s, playing rock ’n’ roll was an irresistible urge.
“Growing up in San Antonio, Texas and hearing rock ’n’ roll on the radio in its earliest stages, it was pretty heady stuff. I had an older teenage cousin who was my babysitter and she loved Elvis (Presley), and Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. When I was five years old she took me out and we bought my first record, a rock ’n’ roll record. Like so many kids in America I wanted to sing and move and be like Elvis, and be attractive to beautiful girls.”
His parents were Mexican immigrants, a father into Mexican folk, his mother a fan of big band. Four of his brothers became expert musicians too, including percussionists Coke and Pete Escovedo (father of Sheila E.), and rockers Mario and Javier Escovedo.
“It was a house full of music and I got exposed to a lot of things very early. That’s how I started searching for records and looking into the history and legacy of certain artists.
“It happened organically but I didn’t start playing guitar until I was 24, after we moved to California, to the Bay Area, and I didn’t start writing songs until I was 30.”
He calls himself “a bit of a late bloomer” but recently married and living in Dallas for several years now, Escovedo shows no sign of packing it in.
The singer will be backed by a quartet of musical friends for his Sunday appearance here.