Stealing from many sounds
On the phone last week from his home in Russian Hill, Rob Garza is enjoying his Sunday afternoon during an unexpected heat wave.
The music of countries with similarly warm temperatures has influenced the Washington, D.C., native and his partner, Eric Hilton, who together make up the popular and influential globally oriented electronic music entity Thievery Corporation. The pair — who have had a 20-year career as producers, remixers, bandmates, DJs and curators — will play Oakland’s Fox Theater on Wednesday, Sept. 30.
“We’re working on a new album that we started recording in Jamaica,” he says. “We went to a studio called Geejam in Port Antonio, and it’s just such an ideal place to record. The studio overlooks the ocean, and it’s right outside of town.
‘Went to the beach’
“So we just kind of locked ourselves in the studio and recorded and went to the beach and drank Jamaican rum,” he continues. “It was such a fantastic experience.”
Lest one thinks that it was all about being in a resort-type setting, Garza quickly clarifies: “A big influence on our sound is reggae music, reggae and dub. So for us, just being down there in and around the people was very inspiring. It allowed us to have that connection to its culture.”
Released in April 2014, “Saudade” is Thievery Corporation’s eighth and latest studio of album of new material. It’s devoted to Garza and Hilton’s love of Brazilian musical traditions.
“We’re very passionate about Brazilian music,” he says. “Our first album that we made, ‘Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi’ (1997), was dedicated to the memory of Antonio Carlos Jobim.”
The duo have been exploring internationally throughout Thievery Corporation’s two decades.
The two were introduced in May 1995 and quickly bonded over their mutual love of “dub, jazz, soundtrack, Latin and Eastern music,” Garza wrote in the liner notes to the “Sounds from the Verve Hi-Fi” compilation from 2002 that he and Hilton compiled.
Brazilian musicians
The prospect of devoting an entire album to music based on and inspired by another country’s music therefore wasn’t at all intimidating. “If you go and look through our record collections, there’s so much Brazilian music,” he explains. “We feel that it’s a natural extension of what we do, really.”
Working with Brazilian musicians such as vocalists Bebel Gilberto (on her 2000 breakthrough “Tanto Tempo”) and Nouvelle Vague’s Karina Zeviani (on “Saudade”) has given them first-degree insight. And there’s also the continually flowing nature of musical language.
“When we first went down to Brazil, people were very excited, because they hadn’t really heard electronic music mixed with Brazilian music at that point,” Garza says. “They were excited when they heard sounds like ours and others from Germany, so it can go both ways in terms of influences.”
Though born out of the recording studio (and a shared admiration for one another’s musical libraries), Thievery Corporation has developed a reputation for its dynamic live shows. “I think that people come to our concerts sometimes, and if they haven’t seen the band they expect something very chill,” he says.
“But it’s very energetic and explosive. There’s a lot happening onstage with sitars and percussion and horns,” he says. “It’s very multicultural, too. There are people from all sorts of places like Iran or Jamaica or Argentina.”
But, Garza says, this wasn’t always the case.
“We had no idea what we
would do when we first started performing live,” he says with a chuckle. “Eric and I had a CD player and two chairs, and we’d have two singers sing over instrumentals while we played cards not pretending to do anything.
“From there, we just kept adding percussion. I started pulling out samplers and keyboards from the studio, and we just kind of kept acquiring these musicians and singers. Now there can be as many as 13 or 14 of us onstage.”
In addition to having a short commute, Garza is looking forward to playing in the East Bay for other reasons. Though Thievery Corporation got its start in the nation’s capital, its most dominant support has come from the Bay Area.
“This is probably been our biggest, strongest fan base in the country from when we started. We always had a connection with the audience here ever since our first show that we did here way back in the day,” at the DNA Lounge sometime around 1997, he recalls. “We feel the love of the fans from this whole area.
‘Bonus round’
“We have a great career behind us so far,” Garza says. “Right now, Eric and I kind of joke that we’re in the bonus round since we never expected to really make a living doing music.
“The fact that we’re here 20 years later gives both of us a tremendous amount of respect for the things that we’ve been able to create and the different musicians we’ve been able to work with.”