Fit for a proper Friday night party, Chicano Batman hit the stage at The Paradise Rock Club this evening (May 10), with a little help from Colombian-Canadian rising star Lido Pimienta. The Los Angeles band is in the midst of a tour supporting their fifth studio album, Notebook Fantasy, which dropped March 29 via ATO records after its lead single “Fly” first suggested this is a record worth checking out.
Ahead of the show, Chicano Batman bassist Eduardo Arenas connected with Vanyaland from the great outdoors in Brooklyn to talk tour, recording live-to-tape, and how Chicano Batman are finally in their Fleetwood Mac era after 16 years of honing their craft. (Note: the following interview has been edited for length, flow, and clarity.)
Vanyaland: How’s tour?
Eduardo Arenas: Oh, it’s amazing. We’re on the front end of our album cycle and we’re essentially three weeks in, and the rooms have been packed. The energy’s alive. It’s like… today, I was thinking how much this is the kind of Chicano Batman new-gen fan base and that’s rewarding. It’s new growth, you know what I’m saying? […] New people that are going to grow with us for the next five years. And that’s a blessing, honestly.
So you put out an album at the start of the pandemic. This is your first full album cycle and tour since that all happened.
You know, ironically, we released Invisible People in 2020, still in May, we kept with our plan, and the music scene was shut down for a solid year. And the following fall, 2021, we went back on the road. It’s crazy, it’s like you put all your resources and your energy into an album, and we had it mixed by Shawn Everett, and he’s like the Picasso of mixing. Then we had it produced by Leon Michels, who’s our friend, who works at Big Crown, and he’s got the soul thing on lock. […] It was a great experience, and one year and a half later, you’re releasing it, and then [there’s] this pandemic and everybody’s preoccupied with other things.
It makes you just really question how much weight we really put on releasing material, and how fucking cool it is for some artists to just put a song out on SoundCloud and live another day, whereas we have to build up the motherfucking fort every three, four years. The resources, the music videos, the content. It’s extremely exhausting for anybody that’s not in the music business and is reading this. Creating the music is like 30 percent. Creating the content is like 60 percent. I’m in this business of music to create content and sell t-shirts. How did this happen?
But it’s the reality of making a living, and trying to find partners to subsidize some of these touring ventures, because touring is extremely expensive. Everything’s gone up and we’re in a situation right now where we’re hitting bigger rooms, but costs are bigger.
So there’s a big reality on the floor, but we haven’t stopped dreaming. And I think that’s the big takeaway: You can’t stop dreaming. The willpower has to be beyond your expectations. Like, “we can never do this.” Great! Hold that statement! And keep that shit as your ethos, as your mission statement. And you will be so far ahead of that, that you forget that at one time you even wanted this low-level hanging fruit. It’s something that I’ve seen repeat itself in cycles as I’ve lived my 41 years where I’m like, no bullshit, that’s the way it works. It’s that leap of faith.
Some people have a religion. I don’t practice any kind of organized religion. But I’m very spiritual and I feel like willpower gets us to the next place. And I think Chicano Batman’s on that level.
So I want to hear more about that 30 percent that is the album creation. You guys put out an album, Notebook Fantasy, back in March. It’s a much more hi-fi sound than some of your previous releases, and you guys record live. What was that whole process like?
We recorded at Sunset Sound with John Congleton, an acclaimed producer who’s done, notably, a lot of St Vincent records and Explosions in the Sky. He worked with Erykah Badu. He’s been doing this for 27 years, so when we were in the recording session, I asked him, “you could record with anybody. Why did you decide to record with us?” Because he could’ve said no!
He said “one, I’ve never worked with a band like you guys before, and I also wanted to learn from you guys. And two, I thought you guys were a good band. You should stop hiding it. What are we doing if we’re not trying to do the best thing?” And he was so nonchalant about it.
We finally [were] ready to accept that high end. Before, we were not, we were all anti-establishment. We want to be funky, we want to sound nasty, you know? And we made a career like that. With this one, we’re like “let be hi-fi. Let’s have simple songs, where you could play the songs on an acoustic guitar. Let’s be authentic, let’s be sincere.” All that stuff just also comes from where we’re at in life. It was time to think a little different.
In this world, especially post-pandemic, where everyone can do their own thing, [it’s like] ‘I don’t need anybody.’ What’s crazy is that mentality is too prevalent. It’s too out there right now. I feel like with communities, it’s really hard to build them and keep them, which is what’s cool about seeing student protests all across the United States. [It’s] the rebuilding of communities behind trauma and some terrible things. At least it’s waking us all up that we can still build coalitions.
But yeah, we do track everything live — that’s where the magic happens. This Notebook Fantasy album, it’s like our Fleetwood Mac album, that kind of album, less production and more transparency. It’s one of my favorite albums to date, probably my favorite album from Chicano Batman. And every song has so many different directions, there’s something for everybody.
The three of us are shining right now, and we let ourselves shine with each other so there’s no egos involved in this thing. We’ve made it a purpose to shine. And when you listen to this record, you see three Latinos putting this music together at this level. Fuck this “this is good enough for being music latina” context that we’ve been fighting our whole life. This album has more to do with offense than defense. I don’t have to defend myself against nobody. No system, no government, no opinion. This album is bullshit proof.
How would you say that the experience translates for you, from recording live and playing communally to playing these larger rooms and interfacing with crowds?
We’ve been so lucky that we released the album in March, and so many people are singing the news songs. That’s a great sign for us, because when we were in the studio, one of my contributions to the album was [this idea of] “hey, guys, if we have fun making this record, I bet you that people will have fun listening to it. It will translate.”
We love these songs. We’re playing like five of them [from Notebook Fantasy] in our live shows, and everyone’s singing them, and it’s great. We’re having fun playing them.
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But the inception of recording is different from playing, because there’s magic happening in the moments where you’re creating. There’s something in the room, there’s this magnetism to each other where you’re discovering new things, your ability to do new things. Sometimes we’d track a song a day, other times two songs a day. It requires so much will and attention. You have to be super present in the moment.
And then playing it live, it’s like we’re just lighting the candles on the birthday cake. We want everybody to be involved, and we’re like, “yo, there’s cake for everybody.” It’s a celebration, you know? It’s not only a celebration, but personally, I get to tap into a very spiritual place, this place of magic.
We did this collaboration, a song for the Talking Heads tribute album, “Crosseyed and Painless.” And I remember David Byrne had an effect on me when I was younger, watching Stop Making Sense. The amount of energy kept going up and up and up, and the music kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So even yesterday, we were in DC, Bardo [Martinez, lead vocalist and guitarist] was jumping through the song, and I was like, “hell yeah, let’s all jump.” I was like, dude, I can do this, I love this, this is next level. I always want to take it to the next level. So when fans have seen this music played for the first time, we’re on the next level shit.
What can fans expect from the show in Boston?
So some of the facts are that every musician in this band is at their peak. But that’s not what you’re going to see. We’re playing old songs, new songs, songs from Invisible People, we’re playing all that stuff.
But those are just facts. I think what we’re doing is making a statement with our art. We have so many songs. We’re five albums deep, 16 years into this. We are now better at creating moods with a collection of songs. The vibe is just thick. And I’m having the best time of my life. I’ve never had such an amazing time playing music, and I feel right now it’s an important time to be playing music out in the world. These vibrations will resonate more than politics will. The biggest politic of Chicano Batman, the biggest statement is love.
Boston, if you don’t bring it, we’re not going to either. It’s a symbiotic thing. It’s not going to happen, though [that Boston won’t bring the energy]. Everybody comes to life, and even some crowds that are generally a little stiff, Bardo goes out there and he goes and gets them. Sometimes people just need permission to shake, to wake up. We can’t do it ourselves, and that’s fine. Everyone’s different, every city’s different. But we wake them all up. No city has been quiet, and we expect to do the same thing in Boston.
Yesterday I was walking back to the venue, and I saw this long line going in. We’d almost sold out this spot in DC, 1,100 people. It was like, man, when I was 19, I never imagined that I’d be selling this product, this music that people would be making lines to see. It’s a very unique place to be in our lives, and it’s very special. I don’t take it for granted, especially now that we have families.
This music, it’s super precious. It’s super super precious. And these moments could be very finite. All we have is the present. So Boston, come out [tonight], be present with us, because we are going to be so present with you.
CHICANO BATMAN + LIDO PIMIENTA :: Friday, May 10, at Paradise Rock Club, 967 Commonwealth Ave, Boston :: 8 p.m., 18-plus, $29.50 :: Event Info :: Advance Tickets