Calexico's Joey Burns joins Mary Lucia to discuss house shoes, losing yourself in writing lyrics, and the influences that shaped their upcoming record, 'El Mirador,' due out April 8, 2022. Listen to the full conversation above, and check out a full transcription of the interview below.

Transcription

Edited for clarity and length.

MARY LUCIA: How are you?

JOEY BURNS: I'm good, thanks. How about you?

Well, you know, I'm white knuckling it.

It happens.

It's been kind of insane to walk into this dystopian dark studio with four people in it for the last two years.

Yeah.

It's always interesting to chat with anybody who's creative and and how they chose to use the time, whether it be to just settle into what's--I mean, since none of us had ever dealt with something like this before, and it's like, either you figure out your path through it and see what comes out of it, you know, a lot of bands, sat down and wrote a song called "Quarantine". And that's fine. I just don't know if in 25 years, it's gonna live on with the same meaning. But there's also great--obviously great music and great art can come out of just utter chaos.

For sure. We need chaos to a certain extent, don't we?

Of course.

I feel like with our band, I wanted to involve more of that chaos factor. I even use that term, you know, I love when things go unplanned, and something spontaneous happens. And so a lot of that happens when you get together in person. So we had to wait until we could actually get at least the drummer John convertino, keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist, Sergio Mendoza to get at least the three of us together to start some ideas flowing. We don't really write a lot of demos in advance of going to the studio. We use the studio as the window in which to start the creative process.

I remember you saying that in a previous interview, and I'm still always baffled by a band that has the confidence to walk into a studio, that you're paying $8 million for a day, and go, "Let's write some songs." How brutal does it get in this--where somebody's like, "Okay, great. We have 20 songs--seven of them, no."

Everybody has their favorites from time to time, and nobody knows what the things are going to sound like in the end, because I usually wait until the very end to add lyrics and vocals. I like to sing to a more realized track. And so it's harder for John on drums to play just rhythm and no real lyrics and content.

How much of this is being sung in Spanish?

Right, well, there's more Spanish on this record than other records. That's largely due to Sergio's influence, and me wanting him to be a bigger part of this. And to kind of highlight that beautiful aspect of where we come from.

Absolutely.

Which is Tucson, Arizona, and Southern Arizona and northern Mexico, Sergio has lived on both sides of Nogales, the Mexican side and the Arizona side. And so I wanted him to be more a part of this. And I think because of where we were coming from, I thought, you know what, this is what we need, we need more of this diversity in music in general. And we're going to be a part of that.

I love that. You can set out, Joey, to say, "Well, I want to write this record. And I want it to be filled with this positivity and this this good feeling." And that's all noble and everything. But I think then, when real authenticity comes in, from who you are, from life, what's around you, it's just natural that a little darkness is going to seep in, even if your initial intention was like, "No, this is like the feel good record of the year," it just somehow--I just think giving into the authenticity of going, "Well, no, we're not all feeling fabulous today, and this might creep in." And I think that just makes it more authentic.

Yeah, you know, it was somebody who we had met a long, long time ago, who was a friend of ours, who was a writer. His name is Lawrence Clark Powell. And he worked at UCLA, as the main librarian and was sort of the director there and fielded a lot of different writers of the 50s and 60s and then he wound up retiring in Tucson, Arizona, where we met him through friends. And we did some music for some of his books on tape. And, you know, he'd been around a while, right? He lived in Europe in probably the 20s before the wars, is my guess. Yeah, he'd been around for quite a while, he was young man when he was over there. And he wrote some stories about those experiences, and he told us, "You can't fake it. Whatever you're trying to do, whatever you're set foot, you know, on this path. You can't fake it." And I really appreciated those words, and they've resonated with me throughout, you know, my entire career or since I talked with him. He since now passed away, but just, him saying "Own it," and I think that's where at the end of the day, when I'm looking to write lyrics, I'm using the music as a way to kind of bring me into the muse, I'm looking to get lost and lose myself, but at the same time, find parts of myself need to be expressed, voices that need to be heard. Whether they're my own, or they're coming from my collective consciousness, I think it's all kind of related. We just had our first round of almost full band rehearsals, we have a trumpet player who's based in Germany, who couldn't make the rehearsals because he has some young kids at home are just about two years old. And also, just in regards to the COVID, what was happening, we just didn't feel safe and right. But I'm looking forward just to be together. And I think that getting back out there on tour is going to be a lot of fun. And it's gonna take a while to kind of find the rhythm and find the groove and stuff, but I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope it all goes well. And I feel so much more safer and just more down to earth now that my kids who are age 10 are vaccinated, I just feel like, "Okay, we're in a better place."

You know, one of the things I missed--I always enjoy talking to bands and having them in studio and being in the same room and all that. And I realized--I don't want to boil it down to something that's superficial, but I really miss seeing people's shoes.

Yeah!

I can always get a little taste of somebody's personality before they've even opened their mouth or played a note by looking at the footwear and I miss it. I miss it.

I do too. So I guess there'll be a big shoe revolution is what we're probably indicating here. You know, and then there's, there's two different kinds of people, right? There's those people who are like, forget it. I'm just gonna wear whatever the heck is comfortable. I love my Australian boots. I love my like RM Williams Chelsea boots. I love those. And so it's nice to get them back out again and wear them around.

I know. I know this laced up crap is really getting old. So what are on your feet right now?

Oh, you know what? I got these house slippers. They're these house slippers made by Queen City. And they're so awesome because we have wood floors, and we're trying to, you know, just kind of preserve them, and I got a pair of these. And I tell you, they are fantastic. They're leather. And I'm thinking about bringing them with me on tour so that when I'm on the bus, I just feel like I'm back home. You know?

Absolutely. So yeah. So tell me what is the--do you have the tentative sort of--the record doesn't come out until April?

That's right.

Okay. And then have you already been booked? I mean, I don't even know how tentative people feel about going. Should we just booked a couple of shows? You know, do you want to do a full tour?

No, I think that we're booking tours. I think that by April we're gonna look pretty good. And then again, of course you know, there could be something else that comes up but I feel in general I feel pretty optimistic. And as the seasons change, I think it will be also another good aspect to getting out and touring and playing whether indoors or outdoors, I don't know but we're booking tours for for the states on the west side of the states. There's like a June kind of month that we're looking at dates and then I think in fall we're going to be doing the East Coast and probably come visit you all.

I dig it. Thank you Joey so much for taking the time out and we cannot wait for the record and we of course cannot wait for the live experience with you when we're a little bit further on the other side of this plague.

I feel the same way. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk.

External Links

Calexico - official site

Credits

Guest - Joey Burns
Host - Mary Lucia
Producers - Jesse Wiza, Derrick Stevens
Technical Director - Erik Stromstad