Live For Live Music presents a brand new episode of our Inside Out with Turner and Seth podcast featuring an in-depth conversation with Steve Berlin, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and long-time member of Los Lobos. Berlin reveals that he first got a taste for producing during his early days in Philadelphia, and how it stemmed in part from his interest in architecture. Next, his story moves to Los Angeles where he was a member of The Blasters, but would play with Los Lobos any chance he could get. The interview moves from the early days right up to today as he announces a forthcoming reunion of his punk band, The Flesh Eaters (they will do a two-week tour in January) – and the fact that he will co-produce the next Blind Boys of Alabama record.
You can listen to the new episode of Live For Live Music Presents: Inside Out with Turner and Seth below:
Steve talks about meeting T-Bone Burnett and working on Los Lobos projects with him – even revealing how Los Lobos found out from a muted tv that “Anselma,”a song from one of these projects, had won a Grammy – while they were hanging at a bar in New Orleans.
He also talks about hearing their breakthrough single “Will The Wolf Survive” for the first time, and how it was the first step toward the band developing its own sound, “Our (musical) vocabulary hadn’t really broadened up to that moment,” he says about the time guitarist/vocalist David Hidalgo brought the song to the band, “I just remember the light when on it my head…ok….everything is gonna be different from now on,” and it was.
He also talks about how around the same time, the band used to borrow Prince’s equipment from a neighboring studio while he was away. “We would get the 20 minute call, and no matter what we were in the middle of…” they had to return the equipment, “there were a couple of times we missed him by a minute, he was coming in the front door and we were going out the back door just having put the shit back.” We learn of the unlikely success of “La Bamba,” having Carlos Santana and Jerry Garcia share a guitar to sit in with Los Lobos, how the band had to stop taking advice at a certain point, and why their experience recording “The Neighborhood” record paved the way for their crowning jewel, “Kiko.” Perhaps best of all, he tells the story of the time Los Lobos played a show while all members were high on mushrooms, and John Doe of X joined while drunk on alcohol.
Steve also talks about how he met John Joseph McCauley of Deer Tick in the most unlikely of places and how McCauley’s prediction that they would make a record together would prove to be doubly true. We also get a window into how his world of producing, and how the artist/producer relationship has changed over the years and how much work the band Faith No More put into the process of making their records.
Live For Live Music Presents: The Inside Out With Turner And Seth podcast is slowly but surely earning a reputation for delivering some of the most unique and in-depth music interviews in cyber-land. The program serves up behind-the-scenes “industry” perspectives mixed with journalistic points of view and fan input to thoroughly tackle the vast world of organic music–with a pile of laughs mixed in for good measure.
**For more Inside Out With Turner And Seth episodes, head to their SoundCloud, iTunes, or Stitcher page. You can also email the podcast producers here to submit feedback which may be incorporated into future episodes!**