![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/ALEJANDRO-ESCOVEDO-June-2012.jpg\" "\\"ALEJANDRO-ESCOVEDO-June-2012\\"")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nExploring the world around him, from the streets of Mexico to the sky \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Austin-based singer and\u00a0songwriter Alejandro Escovedo often finds himself pigeonholed as an alt-country act. But the man who\u2014lest we forget\u2014was a founding member of pioneering punk band the Nuns and roots-rockers\u00a0Rank and File and True Believers, is a rocker at heart. \u201cIf you look at my solo records and the bands I\u2019ve been in, at the core of it all is rock \u2019n\u2019 roll,\u201d says Escovedo, one of several prominent musicians in a family that also includes percussionists Coke and\u00a0Pete Escovedo, members of the Zeros and singer-percussionist Sheila \u201cE.\u201d Escovedo. \u201cI love being in a band with electric guitar, bass and drums. From there I work outward into the other sounds that interest me. I\u2019ve always said that my music represents having\u00a0a vast record collection.\u201d<\/p>\n Big Station<\/em> is his 10th solo album in 20 years, and his third working with veteran producer Tony Visconti (David Bowie,\u00a0T. Rex). The album draws upon musical styles from punk to early rock to Chicano pop\u2014for the first time, Escovedo has introduced a Spanish-language standard to his repertoire (\u201cSabor a Mi,\u201d penned in 1969 by the late Mexican composer Alvaro Carillo). We caught up with the native Texan, 61, on the eve of a tour that will keep him and his band, the Sensitive Boys, on the road for the foreseeable future. \u201cI want to play as\u00a0much as possible,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n What inspired the album?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n [Co-writer] Chuck Prophet and I had talked a lot about how we wanted the characters to experience the world as observers. We went to Mexico a couple of summers ago and saw firsthand how the intimidation tactics of the drug cartels had affected the community there. That led to some of the first songs, like \u201cSan Antonio Rain,\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBottom of the World\u201d and \u201cSally Was a Cop.\u201d It was very much about these characters that were part of a community and found themselves in situations that led them to parts of themselves they hadn\u2019t known about before.<\/p>\n How did you choose the songs?<\/strong><\/p>\n It was a simple elimination process, and it happened naturally. You lose interest in some songs for whatever reason. Some sounded great with Chuck and me but didn\u2019t sound right with the band. Sometimes we\u2019d go through the process of working with Tony on the arrangements and they still wouldn\u2019t translate too well to the recording. Usually we\u2019ll make a decision about which songs to do just before we go in to record.<\/p>\n What does Tony bring?<\/strong><\/p>\n He brings vast musical knowledge and a great history. He\u2019s a very compassionate man and a master at what he does. I think his sense of arrangement and vocal harmonies is unequaled. He brings out the best in us as a band\u2014which is a key element of being a producer, and one you don\u2019t always find.<\/p>\n How was recording?<\/strong><\/p>\n We cut all the basic tracks live in about a week and were pretty much done in about 11 days. Many songs were recorded on the first take. We\u2019re pretty well primed by the time we get into the studio. There are some overdubs\u2014the backup vocalists came in after we had recorded the basics and guitar overdubs. The horn players came in and laid down their parts afterward, too. We worked on \u201cBig Station\u201d a lot, trying different arrangements. It changed quite a bit from the origin to the final result. But another song, \u201cSan Antonio Rain,\u201d was magical\u00a0from the very beginning.<\/p>\n Why include \u201cSabor a Mi\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n It was one of my parents\u2019 favorites. My father sang it all the time. It\u2019s a standard for a lot of Chicanos who grew up in the Southwest. You heard it at weddings, funerals, first communions\u2014whatever occasion there might be, that song seemed to fit. It\u2019s got a beautiful melody and the words are very romantic. It reminds me very much of my family, so it meant a lot to do this song\u2014and to do it in a way that wasn\u2019t straying too far from the essence of the original.<\/p>\n Did your family influence the album in other ways?<\/strong><\/p>\n My niece, Sheila E., helped me a lot in the beginning with writing. I wrote with her in L.A., and even though none of those tunes made it on the record, it really propelled my imagination as to what we could do rhythmically. She was very influential. I\u2019m hoping that there will be an opportunity for the two of us to do an album<\/p>\n together in the future.<\/p>\n Why the album title?<\/strong><\/p>\n Big Station<\/em> struck me as a place where we all come from and where we all end up. It\u2019s a powerful image because it can be many things. We played a gig in Pittsburgh about a year ago, and were running through the Carnegie Mellon University campus. There was an art installation called Walking to the Sky<\/em> by Jonathan Borofsky. It\u2019s this long pole several stories tall that goes off into the sky, and on it are people from all walks of life\u2014a black man, a white man, a Chicano, a laborer, a student, a mother with her children\u2014and at the bottom of the pole on the ground are people waiting to walk up into the sky. Where they\u2019re going is unexplained. That\u2019s what struck me as the Big Station.<\/p>\n Does the alt-country tag bug you?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s very frustrating. I\u2019ve never felt I was alt-country or country at all. I have too much respect for the form of country music to ever think that I was a country artist. I\u2019ve always loved Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, Marty Robbins, Hank Thompson and Waylon Jennings. These elements have always been there, but I\u2019ve never felt like it was just who I am. If you look at my albums, you could never say that\u00a0Real Animal<\/em> [2008] or even Street Songs of Love<\/em> [2010] was an alt-country album. I don\u2019t know if that label even exists anymore.\u00a0What does it mean, really?<\/p>\n How have you evolved?<\/strong><\/p>\n I keep moving forward and keep being curious and adventurous while trying to find new sounds. You don\u2019t want to be afraid to fall and get up again. It requires a lot of determination and will to create. Everything in the music industry has changed over those 20 years, but at the heart of it we\u2019re still a rock band on the road playing every night and trying to create something that helps people. We give them a couple of hours of fun and dancing, maybe some romance, maybe some drinking songs. It\u2019s entertainment. If we can do that we\u2019re very happy. That\u2019s never changed, and to me that\u2019s the essence of it. Why do it at all if you\u2019re not doing it for that reason?<\/p>\n \u2013Juli Thanki<\/p>\n ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO Exploring the world around him, from the streets of Mexico to the sky \u00a0\u00a0 Austin-based singer and\u00a0songwriter Alejandro Escovedo often finds himself pigeonholed as an alt-country act. But the man who\u2014lest we forget\u2014was a founding member of pioneering punk band the Nuns and roots-rockers\u00a0Rank and File and True Believers, is a rocker at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[2291,4332,4328,4333,4325,206,4340,4342,4338,4337,4300,4339,4341,4322,4326,970,4323,4343,4331,4334,4335,4327,4344,4330,4329,4324,4336,1550],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6909,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907\/revisions\/6909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"