Raul Malo and his ‘golden tenor’ coming to Second Street

review by Peter Lewis
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After cutting his teeth as the leader of the seminal alt-country band, The Mavericks, Raul Malo embarked on an acclaimed solo career. With a eclectic musical palate and a golden tenor, Malo continues to endear himself to fans. Now, 20 years into his career as a musician, Malo is set to perform in Fort Smith as a part of the Second Street Live! concert series.

The City Wire: You grew up in Miami, correct?

Raul Malo: Yeah.

TCW: Perhaps I have misconceptions about the place, but that’s not exactly a hot bed of country music. Yet, you got your start playing in a band, The Mavericks, that was obviously heavily influenced by classic country music. How did this affinity for country music arise?

Raul Malo: Well, honestly I think people definitely have a misconception about Miami. Aside from the beaches and all the vacation spots, especially at that time, that whole middle part of Florida is all farms and ranches. It looks like parts of Texas; it could be anywhere. I grew up with tons of friends who listened to country music. My dad listened to country music. My parents had a great record collection. My mom had all the rock and roll pop records and the occasional Johnny Cash and the Buck Owens stuff, so we had country music around. Of course it was blended in with what else was going on, because it’s an international city. We heard a lot of country music down there.

Once the Mavericks started, we were doing our own version of it. I don’t know if it was punk or rockabilly, I really don’t know what it was. We didn’t know what we were doing. We weren’t part of the establishment. I’d never seen a live country band. The only “live” country music I had seen was on television, on Hee-Haw or something. But in a way I think that either forces you or inspires you to do your own thing and really not follow anyone else in that regard. So while Miami isn’t a hotbed, more people appreciate it than you think. When we started out, every time the Mavericks played — and I’m talking about gigs with Marilyn Manson, because they’re from down there, so if you can imagine that, it gives you an insight into the South Florida music scene.

TCW: Speaking of The Mavericks, even though you were apart from the “establishment,” you were quite successful as a group. What brought about the dissolution of the band?

Raul Malo: First of all, it’s a minor technicality, I left the band. They could have gone on. I’ll tell you why I left the band. I wanted to do other things. Not only do solo stuff, but I also wanted the freedom to really do whatever I wanted. And it seemed like whenever the Mavericks were together, as much as we talked about doing other things, whenever that ball got rolling there was never any time or real effort to allow other things to happen.

TCW: Did your approach toward creating music change at all after you left?

Raul Malo: It did. The incredible irony in all of this, whatever musicians I have worked with in the studio, they’ve actually contributed more. … It’s all been more of a group effort than it ever was in the Mavericks. That’s not a criticism of the band in any way, and I don’t want it to sound like that, but that’s the ironic part of this.

In the Mavericks I felt like I was doing a lot of the heavy lifting, at least creatively, and for whatever reason it kept going that way, and it got to the point where it was like, “man this isn’t even a band anymore, it’s only a band in name.” And I thought that that was hypocritical too. And then plus all the inside personal stuff that goes on in an already tumultuous relationship. It just compounds the situation. So that’s pretty much it. It was musical stuff because we do get along, we’re friends, but when it came to music I wanted to do different things. And to me that’s really the bottom line is where the music is going and what you want to do and I didn’t want to do the Mavericks anymore. I thought we had done it all. I thought we had done what we were meant to do.

TCW: I’ve read that you said, “As a culture, we’ve lost our poetry, we’ve lost our nuance. There’s nothing subtle or implied about anything.” What do you think has caused this coarsening of society? Is music the path towards softening it, so to speak?

Raul Malo: Music is certainly a conduit to that. We continue as a society to just cut it out of our lives and out of our children’s lives, which I think is a big mistake. I travel quite a bit and I get to witness that theory come to life in every place, shape and form. And I think it’s a shame. We have a school in Nashville called the W.O. Smith School. The only qualification to enroll in this school is that your family has to be on welfare. If your family is above the welfare line, you don’t qualify. Well, this little music school has a 99% graduation rate that goes to college. And yet we continue to cut back on music and arts programs in our schools. It’s just getting worse and we wonder why things are the way they are. I think that’s a huge issue that doesn’t see enough light of day. I think it’s a shame we’re there. I went to a public junior high school in suburban Miami, not a wealthy school by any means, but we had a full orchestra with tympani, violins, and violas … the whole bit.

TCW: Did you play in the orchestra?

Raul Malo: I did, I did.

TCW: What did you play?

Raul Malo: I played bass. You can’t even imagine the impact that hearing those sounds has on a kid, it’s impressive. It made me appreciate classical music.

TCW: You’ve been known for tackling different genres and fusing that into your work. Do you think that experience led you to appreciate or seek out an eclectic sound?

Raul Malo: I think that all of that does come out in the music at some point. You can’t help it. It is all around you and it is part of you. So it will trickle its way into whatever your doing.

TCW: You have a new album coming out in August called “Sinners & Saints.” It was described to me as more “Texocentric” than past albums.

Raul Malo: I’ve been spending a lot of time over the last year or so down in Texas, just jamming with some of the guys down there from the Texas Tornadoes, Auggie Meyers, Ray Benson from Asleep at the Wheel. The record just kinda started taking on its own personality. I do a duet with Ray Benson. Auggie Meyers contributed his fabulous continental organ sound to (several) tracks. So it definitely has a Texas vibe to it sure.

TCW: You came out with “The Lucky One” with this past year. That was your first album of original material in several years. What spawned this songwriting resurgence?

Raul Malo: That’s not exactly true. It’s funny, I think someone wrote that once in a bio or an article, so it’s funny how it has stuck, but it’s not actually correct. There was a Mavericks album in 2003 or 2004 that was all of my stuff, but it wasn’t a Raul Malo solo album. So it’s not like I hadn’t been writing for seven years. After that Mavericks album, through a really strange set of circumstances I did three covers records in a row, so it seemed like I hadn’t been writing, but all the while I did those records and toured, I stockpiled original material. Out of that came “The Lucky One” and over the past year or so, been writing a lot and enough for another record. I am just grateful that the music is there.

TCW: Are there plans to do shows with the Tornadoes, Meyers, and Benson?

Raul Malo: Oh yeah, we’ll do some shows together. Auggie is having some health issues right now and had to take some time off, but I think that before the end of the year we’ll do some shows together. It will all depend on Auggie’s health.