Chicano Batman: 'Were four Latinos breaking into rock music and succeeding' | Music

Chicano Batman: 'We’re four Latinos breaking into rock music and succeeding'

‘LA’s house band’ have gone from the city’s best-kept secret to leaders of the Latin soul revival, but in the age of Trump can they avoid being political?

“The first time people come out to see us, they just stare the whole time,” says Chicano Batman’s bass player, Eduardo Arenas, as he sits in the band’s practice space on the outskirts of Los Angeles. “The same people come back a second time to try to understand what they just saw. Some places we go people have never seen this shit before.”

You may be forgiven for cutting confused Chicano Batman first-timers a bit of slack. Chicano Batman aren’t your typical rock band. Four Latinos from the LA area and beyond (drummer Gabriel Villa is from Cali, Colombia), they’ve developed a cult following in the city with their “LA Tropicalia” blend of soulful music lifted from all over Central and South America. It’s a tradition that beyond a few choice compilations is far less explored than its North American equivalent. That’s something they want to change.

“We’re trying to bring something that’s from our heritage,” says singer Bardo Martínez. “Everyone knows that black people have the funk and soul, but we’ve got that too. In the 70s in Latin America people were getting funky and getting down. We’re showing people that that exists.”

Dubbed “LA’s house band”, the group have been well-respected locally for the best part of a decade, but they gained national attention after a support slot for Jack White, which led to them being signed by ATO Records – home to the Alabama Shakes. Their 2016 album Freedom Is Free saw them team up with producer Leon Michels, who has worked with everyone from the Arcs to Lee Fields and been sampled by Jay-Z. His recording approach – analog equipment, recording to tape – gave the group the feel of the classic groups they were inspired by.

They have a revivalist feel, but instead of classic R&B and blues they take their cues from Latino groups as well. Aesthetically, they look like the Peruvian pop group Los Pasteles Verdes or Los Angeles Negros, the 70s Chilean band who made their name with lovelorn ballads – all ruffled shirts and pastel-coloured three-piece suits.

Their name came from Martínez and is a reference to a certain comic book character, but was also inspired by the bat-like symbol of Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers movement, which fought for labourers’ rights in California.

“It’s not our intention to be political, it’s just where we’re at,” says Arenas. “Creating a song that talks about your environment that’s just as timeless as any love song,” adds Martínez. “For this particular record the intention wasn’t to have a ‘political record’, the intention was to have truthful songs.”

But the band have become de facto spokesmen for Latinos in rock in LA, a city that they say doesn’t always recognise its Latino population despite it accounting for around half its citizens. “It really upsets me when I watch Judd Apatow movies – they are really funny movies – they all take place in LA but you don’t see Latinos in them,” says guitarist Carlos Arévalo.

“It’s a fictional LA. It’s the LA that you see in all movies with only white people in it or maybe a few black characters, but you never see Latinos and we’re such a big part of the city. We’re everywhere in the city and part of being in this band is about raising our identity.”

“We’re four Latinos breaking through in a market of rock music and succeeding,” adds Arenas. “That’s the face of immigration or migration or however you want to call it. That shifts a lot of people’s preconceived notion of the status quo and that feels good.”

Being accepted in the indie rock world and becoming visible in it is something the group value. They may shy away from overt politics but being visible and showing other Latinos that they can succeed in what is still a very white world inspires them.

“I grew in the Inland Empire and I would always go to LA to see shows,” says Arévalo. “No matter what band I was seeing I’d say around 40% of the crowd was Latino. I’ve seen so many groups and I’ve seen us in the crowd but I wasn’t seeing us on the stage. When people see us on stage it’s something really meaningful.”

“I felt the same way when I first saw the Mars Volta,” he continues. “They were the first guys I saw on the stage who looked like me and they were making really cool music. It wasn’t some pop Latin stuff, it was something I could identify with and I feel that people are having that same reaction with us. It means a lot.”

“I remember being young and being into metal, and I’d go to Hollywood to check out metal bands,” adds Arenas. “There’s a band called God Forbid and half of them were black and from New Jersey, and I was like ‘whaaaaat, this is insane’. Sepultura – when I found out they were Brazilian and not white – I was like ‘we can do this shit too’.”

That pan-Latino approach, political edge and reverence for forgotten sounds has given them a cross-generational appeal. Martínez recently told an anecdote about being stopped while crossing the street in east LA dressed in his full-ruffled regalia by an older Latino gentleman who simply nodded in approval. “We’re not only reaching out to the older people who have this nostalgic value about what they hear, but we’re also reaching out to their children and grandchildren,” says Arenas.

“I would love to hear young Latinos playing the music we’re playing,” adds Martínez. “It has the dynamics for creating music and songs which touch people.”

Freedom is Free is out now on ATO Records; the band begin an extensive US tour this week

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