Chicano Batman’s latest album is called “Freedom is Free” (ATO), which may seem redundant or obvious, but in the eyes of this quartet of first-generation Latin-Americans, the expression is anything but simplistic.
“There is an innate freedom we are entitled to, but we have to stand up against anybody trying to market it, sell it, own it,” says bassist Eduardo Arenas, who co-founded the soul-funk band from East Los Angeles in 2008. “Freedom of expression and thinking without fear should be free, but it’s not. We are reminded daily by our country, our government, even our families in the way we are brought up, that we have to be scared of something. We can’t express our free will because that is the system we are born into.”
Yet the title song from the quartet’s fourth studio album is delivered with an upbeat sense of resilience, anchored by Arenas’ rubbery bass line and Bardo Martinez’s subtly insistent vocals: “You got your guns up on display/ But you can’t control how I feel no way.”
Many of the songs were written before Donald Trump was elected president last year after promising to build a wall on the Mexican border. But Arenas and two of his bandmates are of Mexican heritage, and he doesn’t deny the album’s more political and socially conscious themes. He was made to feel like an outsider in America since childhood, so Trump’s promised “wall” is hardly the first obstacle he, his bandmates and his community have had to face.
“The only conscious decision we made about this record was that it would be more soul-based musically,” he says. ” ‘Freedom is Free’ started out as a silly idea, a dance track, a disco song, and Bardo had that phrase, ‘freedom is free.’ It was catchy and then it grew into something else. We play these songs on tour and we sense that the audiences are responding and ready to hear something different, a new idea, a challenge to the status quo. When artists lead the conversation, people can finish it in whatever context they are living in.”
The band plants seeds for many conversations in “The Taker Story,” which suggests the philosophical soul testifying of Gil Scott-Heron. Arenas’ “La Jura,” a mournful ballad sung in Spanish, memorializes a teenager who died in a police shooting in the bassist’s old neighborhood.
“He was a 19-year-old kid shot in the back, laid out in front of his home with his wife and child there,” Arenas says. “We see the same things happening now 15 years later. Nothing has changed. There are Rodney King incidents happening every week, all of them filmed, and there are no consequences. Here we are still building a bigger, better police state, spending more on the militarization of the country, instead of building up our youth through schools and arts programs.”
That the band is writing about such issues now is a product of their common experience as men of color, sons of immigrants, who didn’t meet until they were in their 20s. Arenas, Martinez and guitarist Carlos Arevalo began playing as a trio in East Los Angeles a decade ago after growing up in Latino neighborhoods steeped in old-school soul and low-rider funk with a strong grounding in Brazil’s ultra-political Tropicalia music of the ’60s and Mexican folk music. Drummer Gabriel Villa later brought a feel for cumbia that reflected his Colombian heritage. The quartet was invited to play major festivals such as Coachella and Bumbershoot, and toured with Jack White in 2015.
“From the very first show we had it dialed in — it started with that Casio keyboard tone,” Arenas says. “We had pedals linked to that organ to produce delay and distortion, to get everything psychedelic. We hit it overly hard at first, because we were lacking confidence. We’d go for broke, but we were hungry and eager to communicate. We’re four Latinos on stage at these big festivals, and you see these Latino kids out there and we give them an understanding they can do something. We try to bring it full circle. We all are first-generation American. There is a struggle associated with that, and people can identify with us.”
In recent years the band’s following has crossed racial lines. Even as the band retained its ethnic roots, it was always willing to experiment, often mixing several genres at once. “I began listening to Miles Davis when I was 20, and it totally took apart any genres, barriers or borders to what something is,” Arenas says. “It opens up a discussion about how we categorize and judge people: Are you African-American or white or mixed? Are you vegan? And if you are why did I see you eat fish three weeks ago? What about letting everyone breathe, instead of judging them? What if we refuse to judge and instead see where the path of not judging someone takes us? Music does that — it knocks down barriers, so we can be less scared about things we don’t know. It teaches you to open up your heart.”
Greg Kot co-hosts “Sound Opinions” at 8 p.m. Friday and 2 and 11 p.m. Saturday on WBEZ-FM 91.5.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St.
Tickets: $22, $25, $30; www.thaliahallchicago.com
Greg Kot is a Tribune critic.
greg@gregkot.com
Twitter @gregkot
.galleries:after {
content: ”;
display: block;
background-color: #144A7C;
margin: 16px auto 0;
height: 5px;
width: 100px;
}
.galleries:before {
content: “Entertainment Photos and Video”;
display: block;
font: 700 20px Georgia,serif;
text-align: center;
color: #1e1e1e;
var playlist = ‘chi_ent_movie_trailers’,
layout = ‘autoblurb’,
iu = ‘%2F4011%2Ftrb.chicagotribune%2Fent’;
Watch the latest movie trailers.