Gustavo Santaolalla
September 2004
Los Angeles

Over the two decades I’ve been listening to Gustavo Santaolalla’s work both as a musician and producer, there is one thing that strikes me about what he does despite the variety of artists, genres and styles in his repetoire : He always manages to pull off so much with so little. The simplicity of a record he produces or a film score he performs is inbued with layers upon layers of master instrumentation, experimentation, and dedication. He is a true magician.

The same is true of the interview we have conduct at his recording studio, set high up in the hills of Echo Park in a deceivingly residential neighborhood. I swore to him that I'd take no more of an hour of his precious time ­ for the man is known for his strict work regimen, not to mention the fact that he’s usually working on a half-dozen projects simultaneously.

Within that precious hour we have covered the scope of his life, his body of work, a lot of my life and why I identify so much with what he’s done. Plus, we’ve taken photographs, he’s signed autographs, and I’ve been introduced to his partners in Surco Records, the label he founded in 1997 as a joint venture with Universal: producer/musician Juan Campodonico, producer/engineer Anibal Kerpal, and label manager Adrian Sosa.

All this in sixty minutes sharp...

I wanted to start this off by saying I’ve been listening to your stuff for decades. I first heard your work with Café Tacuba at the heyday of rock-en-Español. I grew up in El Paso, Texas, which is right on the border of Ciudad Juarez ­

Yes, I know it. I did a record with some guys from El Paso. I produced and I played with The Plugz ­ Tito Larriva and Charlie Quintana, both from El Paso.

Oh, yes, very cool! So way back then, I was listening to your stuff and hearing this sound that really helped me reconcile my identity as a Mexican-American and crossing borders of music. I grew up with the Beatles and 60’s music and all of that anglophilia, but all around me was traditional Mexican music, and your work really joined the two and made me realize I could have both. I didn’t have to chose just one, which was huge for my identity. And I think a lot of the artists that you work with and the catalogue that you’ve amassed have spoken to that.

Yes, absolutely. That has to do with a vision that I’ve had since I was a kid. I did my first professional recording when I was 16 years old for RCA with a band that I had in Argentina called Arco Iris. And one of the premises of the band and that vision that I had at the time was that I wanted to be involved with music and with art that reflected who we are and where we come from, or where we’re coming from. I felt that the music that I wanted to be involved with had to have identity.

I also grew up with The Beatles ­ I grew up when they were really happening at that moment, and with all the 60’s and the revolution of that period in time, which was such an incredible period for everything because it was the moment of opening ourselves ­ the western world ­ to eastern philosophies, to the world of drugs, experimentation, the sentiments of anti-war, the ecology movement… The 60’s were incredible!

And it was all in Argentina at the same time as it was blowing up in the rest of the world?

Correct. It was worldwide, you know? Being in such a distant place we were part of that world, so to speak. I’ve always been interested in all sorts of music but obviously when the Beatles came, I wanted to…I had an electric guitar before because I was always interested in rock and roll and in music in general, but it was really through the Beatles that I decided that I wanted to do that with my life. I was 12 or 13 at the time and I was singing in English, kind of Beatles songs that I wrote ­ I started writing when I was 10.

Actually, my first group was a folkloric group, an Argentine folkloric group when I was 10. By the time I was 11 or 12 I started writing songs in English. And then after a while of writing these songs in English it came to me that there was no reason for me to sing in English because I lived in Argentina and also there was something important [about Spanish], so I started writing in Spanish.

And then I said, well, it’s not only important to sing in Spanish, but also to play in Spanish, to play somehow that the music will reflect also who I am, where I come from. That’s when I started using ethnic instruments and ethnic rhythms from Argentina and the rest of Latin America. So with the electric guitar and the bass and the drums and the keyboards I would mix a charango or a quena, and I would mix rhythms ­ samba, chacarera, Queca, some Jarocho, un Jaropo ­ all that type of stuff.

At the time there wasn’t even the phrase “world beat”. It didn’t exist, or even “alternative”. A big part of the rock intelligentsia in Argentina really disliked what I was doing because they told me, "How can you play rock with a chacarera?" They were really trying to imitate the outside bands. As far as I know, we were the first group that did this in Latin America. Then came Los Jaivas, but we were the first ones.

What I love and what has happened in my career is that with time, I saw my vision flourish because with all these bands ­ from Arco Iris to Café Tacuba, going through Bersuit or La Vida Puerca or even Juanes doing his kind of rock-pop songs with bayonato and stuff ­ that vision came to a reality and I am still in the same boat. I like the music that reflects who we are.

What does it mean to you to be Latin American? What is the Latin American identity?

Well, it obviously has to do with our Hispanic heritage, you know, our Latin heritage ­ Latin in a wider sense than when people here say “Latin”, they think congas or mariachi hats. (Laughs) But Romanians are Latins, too, you know? French are Latin, and Italians are Latin. A big, big portion of Argentineans ­ let’s say the majority ­ are a mixture of Spanish background and Italian background. My parents were Argentineans; they were kids from Italians or kids from Spanish.

I always had been very interested in the indigenous cultures of Latin America, pre-Hispanic cultures, since I was a kid and I got a chance to go to Peru and Machu Picchu. So I really always had a feeling for Latin America that actually encompasses both worlds, the indigenous world and the Hispanic world ­ well, the Latin world, because I feel like I have Italian also in me. But I think Latin America as a concept, in me, is what brings more my Hispanic side and the side of me that relates to the indigenous cultures. The merging of those two things, the bridge.

Yes. To me, the things that you’ve tried to do - especially when you say people were against it at first, constitute a type of activism ­

Absolutely!

You’re reacting to a need for change. And you’ve said that music was always there for you ­ first you heard it and then it was a form of expression born out of wanting to imitate. But then it went its own direction. When you formed Arco Iris as an adolescent, was it more activism for you or was it just that very pure kind of artistic compulsion? Were you making music with the point to change things?

Yes. I mean, again, I was of that particular generation in which we thought that we could change the world. I still think we can, you know what I mean? But at that point it was a sort of worldwide consensus about creating an alternative way of life ­ of everything, you know, from the way you dressed, the hair, everything! In all those early years of Arco Iris, I lived almost a monastic life. I lived in a commune in which we didn’t eat meat, we didn’t do drugs, we practiced celibate life ­ for years, between when I was 18 and 24 years old.

When I was a kid, I was gonna be a priest. Then I had a big spiritual crisis when I was 11 and so I split from the church. I came with these concepts and these ideas and went to the priest and they thought that I needed an exorcism or something like that! (Laughs) It was really funny. It’s funny to me that I came up with this stuff but basically, the thoughts were that if God is all mighty and all love, there couldn’t be such a thing as the eternal punishment, you know, like you go to hell and you’re punished for eternity. I mean, he wouldn’t allow something like that to happen. And if he’s all mighty, then why doesn’t he just get rid of that, get rid of hell and the devil? And if it’s not like that, it could be that maybe the devil is an employee of God, he works for God ­ he’s on his payroll.

To keep us in line. (Laughs)

Yeah! (Laughing) So I had my crisis but I always was very attracted to a spiritual life ­ being an artist I think it’s just a natural thing. So that was kind of an activism. For example, being vegetarian ­ which now is such a worldwide concept, but at that time in Argentina, which is you know, meat country ­

Yeah, it’s all about the barbecue down there.

(Laughing) People thought that I was crazy! There weren’t even vegetarian restaurants at the time. You had to go to a restaurant and ask for a salad or something like that.

The other activism that I ended up doing somehow by reaction was the fact that we were constantly pursued by the government and the authorities. I lived and I grew up through military junta after military junta after military junta, and I was in jail innumerable times between the age of 15 and the age of 27 when I moved here to the United States ­ so many times I don’t even remember, just for periods of 48 hours, 36 hours, 24 hours, even when I was already popular in Argentina, just to make my life miserable. They never beat me, but I’ve been present when they beat people up and I had friends disappear.

I lived in a constant state of paranoia; I was always waiting for somebody to knock on my door at any moment. You’d walk in the street and they had all these plain-clothes assassins, basically, and they had complete impunity. 30,000 people disappeared in Argentina! So it was really, really bad, and without belonging to any political party, my views on life, my views on being a musician or an artist for them counted as activism.

So it wasn’t like you were writing anti-military songs or anything, it was just your way of life.

Correct, correct. In ’78, that was the worst ­ after Lopez Vega came Videla and Masera, all those military juntas. I waited until the soccer World Cup finished in Argentina and I moved to the United States to start from zero.

Did you have any connections here at all?

No. I mean, I had friends where we stayed when we came, but no, I didn’t know anybody.

Nobody in the business or anything.

No.

How did you do it? What did you do?

Well, it took me like eight years. I mean, I had to change things inside of me, too. There was a moment there was a click, and that’s when everything started changing for me. I’ve always been quite dedicated to my art, but before let’s say these last 15 years, I just concentrated on my project in particular, whether it be Arco Iris or Soluna, which was my other band, or Wet Picnic, which was the band I had here in the States.

The first artist that I produced outside of myself was Leon Geico, a mixture of a Woodie Guthrie meets Bob Dylan. He’s an icon in Argentina, an incredible man and an incredible artist, and he’s a constant reference for people in Argentina ­ he’s a super activist without belonging to any political party, a folk hero. I produced that record when we were both 20 years old. I started as I said making records when I was 16 so I had already four years of experience ­ but just doing my records because there were not alternative producers at the time, so I had to do it myself.

Was this his first record?

It was his first, yes. That was the first artist actually that I discovered and produced. I didn’t have a label at the time so he got signed to another label, just like Café Tacuba ­ we discovered them outside of Mexico City and it took me more than a year and a half to get them signed, nobody wanted to sign them and I didn’t have a label at the time. But Leon was the first one.

I continued always doing my projects and every now and then doing something with Leon. When I was already living here I did [solo album] Pensar En Nada, which was a huge hit in Argentina. Then several years later, in 1984, he was doing a tour through Argentina that was called De Ushuaia a La Quiaca. Ushuaia is in Tierra del Fuego and La Quiaca is on the limit with Bolivia, so basically it was like you would say from Los Angeles to New York, so in Argentina it’s like this [gestures from south to north]. He wanted to make a record and at my guidance he went from being like an anglo folk musician to writing folkloric songs and playing with folkoric musicians and stuff.

So the idea was to make two records: one that was going to be more electric and stuff and one with real folklorists. And then I came up with this idea of, instead of bringing these people to us, why don’t we go through Argentina and record these people where this music comes from? It was very much a project very similar to Buena Vista Social Club ­ but 15 years before ­ in the sense that we went to the place, like going to Habana, but going to Santiago del Estero where the chacadera is born, you know? And meeting with the elders ­ because they’re all like [legendary Cuban musician] Compay Segundo ­ and having somebody acting as a bridge between the audience and those people, because as you know, Compay Segundo had existed forever, but people got to know him through Ry Cooder, and Ry was like that bridge. For us, Leon was that bridge.

So we filmed this. Actually, this year it’s going to be 20 years since and there are all these big activities that we’re doing in Argentina. I met my wife during the project ­ she was the photographer and we took 9,000 photos of that trip. So we’re having a photo show, we’re publishing a book, we’re re-doing the CDs and a DVD.

After that project, which was ’84-’85, I got the chance to work with so many artists. I really felt that it was a moment for me that I wanted to explore more producing. I came back because I was living here in the States and I got to know through a friend that there was this movement brewing in Mexico. So I went there and tapped into it and connected immediately with everybody that was in the movement. It was the beginning of Caifanes, after Insolitas, and the beginning of Maldita Vencidad. Even pre-Café Tacuba ­ like nine months or a year later, Café Tacuba came.

But that particular moment was a great moment in Mexican history also. It was the fracture of el PRI [Institutional Revolutionary Party] and the creation of the PRD [Party of the Democratic Revolution] with [Mexican president] Cuauhtemoc Cardenas… It was the beginning of TV Azteca taking out the monopoly of Televisa and it was the moment when the ban on rock concerts got lifted, because after ’68 rock music was forbidden in Mexico City. When Santana and Rod Stewart went to play Mexico, they played Guadalajara but they couldn’t play Mexico City. So it reminded me a lot of the rock movement in Argentina when I started ­ it had that vibe, that smell. It reminded me a lot of that innocence and that freshness.

That feeling of “we could change the world’, yeah.

I tapped into that and I worked with Maldita ­ I did their first record and El Circo, which again are records that represent their identity. And one thing led to another, Maldita to Impresionaros de Chile; I did El Divididos in Argentina and I started sort of creating this map of alternative music in Latin America and was very successful with all these records ­ very, very successful.

  SURCO partners: Juan Campodonico, Anibal Kerpal, Santaolalla, and Adrian Sosa

The next step then was having a label because we used to do a band and then didn't see them anymore or would leave them at BMG or at Warner or at EMI. So we said why not have a label? And then we were approached by different companies saying, "Okay, let’s do a joint venture." At the beginning it was Warner but that never came to fruition and I finally settled with Universal. I’ve been with Universal for…this is gonna be my eighth year. We did a three-year run and then five so I’m entering my last year. Hopefully we’ll continue for another few years.

With the monopolies in music and the way the conglomerates just keep getting bigger and keep buying and buying and buying, I don’t even know if it’s a question whether to renew or not ­ maybe it’s going so well you don’t even think about it. But about the business side of things, you seem to be somebody who is capable of paying attention to everything and that’s probably why you’re such a good producer, but does it bother you to have to think about all the business?

Yes! (Laughs)

And all the greed and whatnot?

Well, yes, and no. I think a contemporary artist has to at least have certain minimum skills to deal with the system in which we live. That’s why I loved the Beatles and Lennon and Andy Warhol, because they had a sense not only about the art that they were producing but the way they presented and the way they marketed. They were absolutely aware and conscious of everything that they were doing. It’s like when [Lennon] came out with “Give Peace a Chance” and all that, he said it was his advertising campaign for peace. These are people that knew those concepts.

I think that there are parts of that that really attract me, like using communication ­ I love to communicate things ­ but there’s a whole other side of the business that, yes, is boring and is not what I like to do, and that’s why I have partners where the accent for those things is more put on them than on me. But you know, you still have to do some of that, too.

The industry has changed so much now that there are less companies. BMG and Sony merged and eventually Warner is going to merge with EMI and it’s going to be three, and then probably it’s going to be two. For me, it’s no good, but it’s the reality. And that also creates a reaction ­ there’s going to be more and more independent labels that are going to grab a piece of the market, because when corporations tend to become so big, they lose lots of things. Also, they have to keep delivering a certain amount of numbers to keep those companies running and there’s a lot of music that they miss.

That’s very true. What about the Internet, the digital revolution for distribution?

I think it’s fantastic!

So how come Surco doesn’t have a website?

(Laughs) That’s a good question. We had two intentions of putting the website. The first time, we got the disaster of the dot-coms, and then this year we were about to do something that maybe we’ll do next year, which was a Surco collection ­ a release of our videos and a compilation ­ so the idea was to do everything at the same time. We’ll probably do it next year, hopefully.

Yeah, I hope so, too! (Laughs) I love the idea of a compilation. How do you pick the artists that you decide to work with? I imagine it’s a combination of people you’re going out and discovering, with more established names who just want to work with you because of what you’ve done.

Yes. The problem with more established names for me is now my label absorbs so much of my time ­ it’s basically like my house, it’s what I like to build better and bigger. Obviously there are things that I can do for my label in particular because I don’t have all the acts that I’d like to work with signed also. But I also try to keep my partner, Universal, happy, and not go and do records for Sony or something like that. But my record Ronroco was with Nonesuch, for example; I’ve produced the Kronos Quartet, who are with Nonesuch, too, and that’s Warner. So I have that freedom. Now I’m doing a record with a soprano, Dawn Upshaw, but that’s for Deutsche Gramophone, which is inside the Universal family, so they don’t get that upset. [Grins] They’re good with me ­ I can’t complain.

But the way I pick the artists: any artist that I like to work with has to have certain things. One is they have to have an artistic vision, an artistic weight. They have to have an aesthetic statement about what they’re doing that has to do with not only the aesthetics but also with the concept that is behind what they’re doing. It can be Molotov or Café Tacuba or Bersuit or Julieta Venegas or Los Prisioneros or Kronos, but all these are artists with a very strong artistic vision. These are not “yes” people, you know?

Well, they’re mirrors of you!

Yeah! (Laughs) It’s interesting, the process of working with such a diverse group of people, because people are so opinionated and they have these structures and strong voices. To do what I do, you really need to show them that you understand their universe, and that means knowing exactly where they’re coming from to sharing a sense of humor, which is so important… And a sense of humor is a sense of humor but the sense of humor of Molotov and the sense of humor of Kronos Quartet are different. They both have their own vision of life and things.

So…[He counts off on his fingers] An artist has to have a very strong artistic vision and a statement, has to have a certain sense of discipline ­ because I’m very disciplined ­ and there has to be a chemistry to it, too, something else that is hard to explain.

Yeah, it has to click.

Yeah, something that has to happen or doesn’t happen. But basically I only work with people and artists that I admire, that I love what they do. My job is not to change what people do. My job is to amplify what they do, to try to take it to a next level. And sometimes that means intervening and saying, “We should take this out,” “We should make this longer,” “We should create more tension,” “We should create more release,” you know? And sometimes it means not do anything, because if it’s okay you shouldn’t touch it!

So you have to work with all those things. I do a lot of work that can be articulated in words, but there’s other work that I cannot say what it is. It’s different and you can hear it in a record that we do. Then that artist does a record with somebody else and it’s really different.

You’re right ­ there this sound you have, despite the fact that all these artists come from such different places geographically and are varying ages… There’s just something about the things that you do.

Great! And I think also ­ I hope! ­ that the common denominator of the records is not the music, because the music is so diverse, or even the sound, because I especially try to get the sounds that will marry well with the particular project or artist. I hope that the common denominator is the quality ­ the quality of the music, the quality of the performances, the quality of the whole album as a story. And that’s what I would hope.

It’s absolutely true. The same goes for the music that you’ve done for movies. These films that you’ve scored have received such acclaim, but I hardly ever hear it for the soundtrack ­ except maybe for Amores Perros, which got the acclaim for the movie and the soundtrack simultaneously. But who knows what’ll happen with Motorcycle Diaries.

I got a great compliment with Motorcycle Diaries in Brasil, which is where [director] Walter Salles is from. When they reviewed the movie ­ which is fantastic, the movie is really, really beautiful ­ the comment that they made was that this was the best of Walter’s movies where the marriage between the music and the film worked. “Fue la mejor pelicula en que la musica y su pelicula engancharon.” That’s always nice.

It’s true, and I think in the cases of these films there’s no way they would’ve been as good if the soundtrack hadn’t been also so good.

Well, it’s easier when you have a good movie. (Laughs)

Of course! But I can’t imagine you choosing a bad movie to work on.

No, no.

I’ve been telling everybody about Motorcycle Diaries because I’ve seen and written about it, and one of the reasons why I was so adamant about talking to you is because the music is just perfect for it. I mean, everything in the movie is perfect to the extent that artists can be perfect ­ and even the imperfections help it as well. And the music is just breathtaking; I can’t wait for the soundtrack to come out. And I’m so glad that the Jorge Drexler song is on there because that was a great discovery for me!

You’ve never heard Jorge? You have to hear Frontera ­ that’s the album. It's his third, then he did two more after that, and they’re very good too, but that is the record.

Okay. I’m so glad you said that because I didn’t know where do I start! (Laughs) Tell me about Brokeback Mountain ­ are you working on it right now?

Yes, I’m working on it. Well, what I did with Motorcycle Diaries and 21 Grams and what I’m doing with Brokeback Mountain is slightly different from what usually film composers do. One of the reasons why that I think I get called more often now to do film music is because I’m not a film composer and I have a different approach, you know? Usually the way this business works is that they do a first cut, then they send you the cut and then you start scoring. The way I did these last three films is that I read the script, I had a meeting with the director, we talked about it, and then I started composing, writing and recording stuff. And it has been great because it has been very useful for the creative relationship with the director.

For example, [director] Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu for 21 Grams shot the scenes in the hospital with Sean Penn with my demo in the background. He took the music on the set and they were shooting with that in the back. One day he got his cast together and played all my demos for them so they’d get into sort of the musical space of this film. So with Brokeback Mountain, I started recording stuff here and [director] Ang Lee loved it. One thing led to another and I ended up writing songs, so now I’m not only doing the scoring but I’m writing songs for the movie, too. It’s a really nice experience, this one in particular, because it’s a story about cowboys ­

It’s a very special story about cowboys! (Laughs)

The gay cowboy movie with Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal! (Laughs) I think it’s great because for me it takes me to another level on which I have to be true. For example, I had to write some songs for the movie that are actually in the movie, two bar scenes where there’s a band playing.

Okay, so the music has to be right for the times.

For the times, it has to be right on, and they came out fantastic! It was a big challenge and I love challenges.

Bringing an Argentinean in who’s done all this “world music” to write Wyoming cowboy music seems like a challenge! (Laughs) How did you get attached to do this project?

This project is produced Focus [Features], and Focus did 21 Grams and also bought distribution for Motorcycle Diaries. So there was already a relationship with them. And Ang had a big problem with Hulk ­ not his best film, you know. But Ice Storm and his other movies ­

Yes, he’s got great films!

But he did Hulk and whatever the reason, some of those movies have a tendency or karma to always come out bad because there’s so many people involved and so much money it usually destroys whatever magic you could have in a movie like that. He had that movie totally scored, and like a month and a half before the opening the studio saw the movie and said, “This music is not going.” He had to re-score the whole picture with Danny Elfman in a month!

So, since he’d already had a bad experience with music, the subject was even touchier [for Brokeback Mountain]. He was ready to go back to the composer that he had used before in his previous films and somebody that works with Universal and Focus said to Ang, “There’s only one guy that I want you to meet…” That was me, and it worked out.

I thought maybe Rodrigo Prieto [cinematographer on 21 Grams and Brokeback Mountain] had something to do with it.

No, but you know…(Laughs)

You guys are destined to work together a lot, I guess.

With Gael [Garcia Bernal, actor], too! It’s my second film with Gael ­ Amores Perros and now Motorcycle Diaries.

Back to Motorcycle Diaries: As a native of Argentina, given the fact that the movie is about [native Argetinean and Communmist revolutionary] Ernesto Guevara, did you have any hesitance over doing it? You mentioned you had read the script first, so knew that it was going to stay away from the Che thing. But what does the legend of Che mean to you, having been alive during the time that all of this is going on?

Well, I think more and more with time his character gets valorized but also goes away, you know? Yet he’s like a guiding light in every sense ­ of integrity, vision, standing up against the abuse of power, corruption, all those things. He’s a symbol of all of that and a symbol of not staying, not institutionalizing the revolution. That’s why he ended up where he ended up, because he couldn’t be president of the bank [in Cuba], which he was for a while.

Yes, but it wasn’t what he was about.

Exactly. So I love the film because the character has now been so iconized without lots of people really knowing too much about him. [The film] is interesting because it somehow sets you up to know more about the guy. It really shows how he’s thinking, what developed, and I love it for that reason.

I think it’s amazing because it shows how anybody grows up. That’s what hit me the hardest ­ he could’ve been anybody then, he could be anybody now. It could be about any 20-year-old kid watching the movie.

Absolutely, and the other thing that is amazing is you see all those things that he goes through ­ the mine in the north and the people who are abused by this and that ­ and you think, well that was 1951…But it hasn’t changed that much! If anything, it’s worse! The movie’s fantastic because without being political it really sets your mind to try to think about why things are happening.

It did that for many I know and I hope it does a lot for more people. Are you working on anything else now besides Brokeback Mountain?

Do we have a couple of more hours? [Laughs]

I’m sure that you’re always working on 80 things at once, right?

Yeah! This year has been the worst, and the best. I’ve done approximately 11 or 12 albums, I’ve toured with Bajofondo [Tango Club], and I’m doing the music for the films. The process is not just making the records but then releasing them, you know? So we are now in the middle of tons of releases that coming out...

We have a young kid that sings tango that is incredible. He’s like Carlos Varela or Ernesto Jose…. Cristobal Repetto ­ he’s gonna be huge worldwide because his voice is amazing. He channels this sound like a 78 record! It’s incredible.

So, we have Cristobal’s album; the solo album for the violinist from Bajofondo; we have the keyboard player and DJ from Bajofondo’s solo album now out; and we have a record called Café de Los Maestros, which is continuation of De Usuahia a la Quiaca, but of just tango. We have all the old guys ­ it’s very much like Buena Vista, too, and they’re between 70 and 93 years old ­ singers, pianists, conductors, male and female. I’m finishing the first installment, because there are going to be several records of those.

I’m doing the Dawn Upshaw ­ Oswaldo Golijov record, which is this classical record. I’m working on the Bajofondo Tango Club’s second record. I’m doing the movie. And maybe I’m going to be doing a recording with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Then I have to go Buenos Aires, Venezuela, and Columbia to play shows with Bajofondo. It’s been two years with no vacation.

But you probably wouldn’t have it any other way, right?

[Laughs] No, I love it! But next year, there’s gonna be a vacation.

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Motorcycle Diaries intro

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