Bands
break up all the time. But it's pretty rare that they get
back together and have the guts to record their very first time playing
together in eight years for their comeback CD. But then,
most bands aren't the Mavericks. True to their name, the
Mavericks found
their way to Nashville from Miami in the early '90s and busted onto the
scene with their refreshing brand of genre-mashing,
jalapeño-tinged country, blowing fans away with their incredible
live shows. Powered
by lead singer Raul Malo's rich, voluminous voice and an incredibly
talented
group of musicians, the band released six albums from 1992-2003.
Though radically different from the sounds that Garth Brooks and other
traditional country artists were topping the
charts with at the time, they still found success with tunes such as
'Here Comes The Rain' (which won a
Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group,) and 'All You
Ever Do Is Bring Me Down'.
After a decade on the road, the group disbanded, with the five members,
including drummer Paul Deakin, guitarist Eddie Perez, keyboard player
Jerry Dale McFadden, and bassist Robert Reynolds all going their
separate ways. The Boot recently sat down with the guys to chat
about their recording-session reunion, how second chances in life can
sometimes provide the best surprises, and why their children's musical
talents are both a blessing and a curse.
You
had all gone separate directions for eight years before
reuniting. Did
you entertain thoughts of doing this through the years, or were you
just burned out from the first go-round?
Raul:
I think burnout was
probably the correct
phrase for that. We were
all feeling varying degrees of it, and that was a big part of what led
to everybody going their separate ways. Plus, at the time,
some of us
were starting families and the thought of the endless grind of the road
just started to take its toll. Creatively, we wanted to do
other things
as well. Then as time went on, I found myself on more than
one occasion
really missing playing with the band. I would just keep
that to myself,
but almost like a perfect-storm scenario happened. Two
years ago, there
was talk of getting together and doing a tour and I thought that was
interesting. But just to go back and do a summer reunion
tour wasn't
reason enough to get the band back together. I thought, if we're
gonna
do this, it would be great to have new music out. That's
when it
changed it from just a thought to a reality. I happened to have
a batch
of songs that were sounding like it could be a Mavericks record.
So
once Big Machine signed off on it, that sealed the deal.
The x-factor
was our fans stayed loyal through all that time.
Paul: Relentless is the
word!
Raul: Everywhere we went,
no matter where we
went, people asked, and I
always took it with a grain of salt. I thought it would die
down, I
didn't really think it would continue, but no matter what language I
sang in, or what part of the world, it was always, 'When are the
Mavericks getting back together? What are the Mavericks doing?'
Now
we've been out and the fans have been amazing. So we really
owe a lot
of this to them and their love of the band.
Did the
ways your lives changed during those years
inform or influence the new music?
Raul: All our lives definitely changed... we've
all spawned offspring
since then, so that's one thing that's different! [laughs]
It
gives you a whole different reason for working.
Jerry Dale: I feel like there's so many
different things
we've all done
that it's hard to pin it down. It felt like that chapter of
our lives
was done, but obviously it wasn't.
Eddie: For me, the first
couple of years it was
same thing - no way
we'll go back. But it always felt like unfinished
business. We had a
lot of frustrations, a lot of things didn't happen our way the last
time we were there. I don't feel like we were in a place
then where we
were really ready to come together as brothers in this
band. Being in a
band is a relationship, if you can equate it to that, it's almost like
everybody needed to go out and date other people to realize how special
it was.
What were some of the different paths you each
pursued?
Raul: I made albums and
was out touring for
years, and there have been
so many fun musical moments. I got to work with [famed producer] Peter
Asher, which was a fun
learning experience. I
got to make a symphony record live with Northern Symphonia, a symphony
out of Newcastle that was really a beautiful record. I hope
we as a
band get to do that someday, because that really was special.
Paul: Jerry Dale had moved
to Chattanooga and
was curator of an art
museum, Eddie was out with Dwight Yoakam, Robert was
working at a digital company, and I was home raising my kids and being
a carpenter. So to sum it up, the beauty of it had a lot to
do with why
I believe the band has come back together and made a record that was
this strong... it had a lot to do with going and getting away from
this thing. We were all in the right place mentally and
emotionally to
get together and do this.
How was that first time playing together again after
eight years?
Paul: Interestingly
enough, the first time we
got back together was
making this record. We hadn't played live. When
Raul brought up the
idea of making a record it happened really quickly. We
talked in
November, and were in the studio in January. I love that we did
that,
because you're in an environment that's performance-oriented and also
creative. So you're not just running old tunes, you're
really
super-fresh going in.
Eddie: It was such a
great feeling just to see
everybody in the room
for the first time, and the fact we were getting ready to cut something
and Jerry Dale was driving in, that was the first time I'd seen him in
eight years. We hadn't rehearsed, we didn't know the songs,
and I drove
in from Jacksonville and an hour out Robert calls and says, 'How far
are you, we're ready to start, as soon as you get here we're gonna
throw on some headphones and start recording.' That was
'Back In Your
Arms Again', the first song we recorded! I hadn't been in the
studio
ten minutes, and we're already recording the first song.
Now it's the
single on the new album!
Eddie: That moment JD got
there and we started
rolling, it was like,
click, here it is! It was as if those years had not even
gone by.
Robert: In a weird way, it was like
the music was a
non-verbal
communication and that was our greeting to each other, playing that
music. The real communication happened during those first days
recording. Raul sort of said, 'I'm handing you my songs,
trusting you
with these.' In a way, he was for the first time saying, 'Let me
see
what you do with these things.'
Raul: It was certainly a
test in my head,
because I thought, 'Well,
here we go, if we're gonna play as a band, play as a band.' I
just told
everybody 'There's no pressure, we can get into the studio and we don't
have to have all the songs done, we have the studio for this week.'
By
the second day, we had recorded nine songs!
Paul: I thought we were
done, and then Raul says
'There's one more we're
gonna do and it's kinda like this, follow me'! The map for
this record
was 'follow me'. [laughs]
Were you surprised at how quickly you gelled again,
musically?
Paul: I personally hadn't
played as much.
I'd go out some with some
songwriter friends, but my tour pass was kind of cut off by my wife...
we had young kids and she said, 'No, you're home.' So I did the
carpentry. One nice compliment I got was one of the guys in
the studio
said, 'Paul, you sound better than you did from the old period of the
Mavericks. What have you been doing?' I said, 'I guess seven
years of
carpentry makes you a better drummer!' [laughs]
With the
music business being so different today, is it easier to mix genres and
blur the musical lines?
Robert: We're just getting
a feel or taste for
it, but we didn't have
an Internet presence because that period in '03 when we were working,
it was brief. Back then, the way the music flowed on the
Internet was
still choppy, so we didn't engage heavily in that, and back in the
'90s, I found letters where we were hand-writing to the fans -- there
was no email, no quick response. So it's a new world for
us. I was
watching the Grammys and that unique thing Bruno Mars did with Sting,
and Mumford and Sons and the Lumineers - that stuff challenges any format
that's known to
exist, yet it's rising to the very top of our musical
pyramid. I hope
that this record we've made can be seen and heard as purely music,
forget the category.
Eddie, your
time out on the road with Dwight must've been inspiring musically as
well.
Eddie: The great thing about
that whole tenure for me
was I got to meet
a lot of fans at the shows and Dwight has a similar fan base in the
sense that they are loyal - they're with him for the whole
artistic
ride - and a lot of that stuff is what this band does as well.
Robert: I've been digging up some old
Mavericks history and
found some
amazing things, and there was only a handful of artists at the time
that were a signpost or signal to us that we could aspire to something
and it might be achievable. I remember a couple of conversations
we
had, and Dwight was one of the artists Raul referenced. It
really did
give us a sense that there was a neo-honky-tonk thing about to
explode. Rodney Crowell, Kentucky Headhunters, k d lang, these were the
bands that said to us it
might be able
to happen, you're on the right track. It kind of gave us a
green light,
and the fact that we might work with some of them today and they're
still around, that's amazing.
You guys have always had a Latin influence to your
music. Will that open up a new audience for you now as well?
Paul: We hope so.
It's something that is
being explored for the first
time and being the new age that it is, it's a lot easier to get music
out to different places.
Raul: For the first time
ever, our songs are
being serviced to radio
stations in Mexico. We were band of the week on one of the
big pop
stations down there.
Robert: I think that's
bando of the
week! Says the gringo in the group!
[laughs]
Most of you have kids now. Are they following in your
musical footsteps?
Raul: My sons were born a
year apart, and my
oldest is quite the little
drummer. They all study. It's funny, Eddie's kid was
over here not too
long ago. He's 5, and he got on the percussion and he was
playing a
groove. Eddie said, 'He's never seen it', and I'm going,
'Eddie, he's
playing a beat!' It was kind of freaking me out, honestly.
Eddie: Raul was doing something with
the maracas and he went
up there
and started drumming with him, and he was right there jamming with
them! He can already carry pitch and he remembers
everything. He's got
a natural sense of rhythm already. But how can he not, he's
surrounded
by it all the time.
Jerry Dale: I have two
teenage daughters and my
17-yr-old plays circles
around me, she's unbelievable. It blows my mind, especially for
that
age, I couldn't play what she plays. She's amazing.
Raul: It's cool and
gut-wrenching all at the
same time. [laughs]
Robert: It's tough to watch a young
child go to pot just like
that.
[laughs]
Jerry Dale: Luckily,
she's really good at
science!
Raul: There you go!
There you
go! We're totally unimpressed by their
musical skills! Get out of it, kid! [laughs]
Paul: My grandmother's
thing was our rent was
you had to play an
instrument when you came to her house. I think everybody to
whatever
degree should have that experience, because it's pretty
amazing. My
12-year-old is a great clarinet player, he's all-state and it blows my
mind because it's an instrument that I don't understand how you get a
sound out of it. So, yeah, everyone has to play a little
bit of
something, and are discouraged not to go into the business!
[laughs]
You're
getting back on the road in March. Do you have any fear
about returning
to that grind?
Paul: There is a little bit
with getting back together
of
20/20-hindsight that you use and hopefully apply to how we do things.
It wasn't just the fatigue of travel and play. Certain
aspects of the
business can beat you down just as much as the road. We're
aware of how
we got to the place that eventually imploded us, and I think we're
aware of how to keep ourselves happy.
Raul: And, we have better
weed now! [laughs]
Lorie Hollabaugh
