Wake the Dead and Stir the Soul | The Sharp Notes Interview with Chuck Prophet

The Songwriter's Cumbia Revival and the Redemptive Power of Musical Discovery

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When Chuck Prophet found himself lingering around after a gig in San Francisco, his band still buzzing from a sold-out set, he wasn’t expecting to stumble into a musical revelation. But as the club's DJ cued up a needle-drop on a weathered vinyl slab of cumbia, and the bass notes spilled through the subs, Prophet experienced something rare and electric. It was an atmosphere alive with rhythm, with movement, with the kind of communal joy that doesn’t require translation. That night planted a musical seed. As the patrons of the Mission District took to the floor, so too did Chuck to find his footing, not just musically, but spiritually and emotionally. The music called to him and he smartly answered.

His new album Wake the Dead, recorded live in-studio with members of both his longtime band The Mission Express and the Salinas-based cumbia group ¿Qiensave?, isn’t just an artistic pivot, it’s a personal renaissance. In the throes of cancer treatment, Prophet dove deep into cumbia’s vinyl history, crate-digging and DJ’ing his discoveries. He wasn’t just collecting records. He was collecting meaning. And through this rhythmic, border-crossing genre - music born of migration and resilience - he found a new sense of vitality. Wake the Dead is the sound of a man surfacing again: joyous, vulnerable, and utterly alive.

Critics have praised the new record and they are right to do so. But the true magic of Wake the Dead is how clearly it reflects an artist who’s gotten his groove back, through dance, through friends, through the dusty grooves of Latin America. It’s an album born not of calculation, but of a compulsion of healing and exploration and as Prophet leans into this bright new chapter - fronting the dance band that no one saw coming - it’s a reminder that healing, like music, often comes from sources that are most unexpected.

Evan Toth: A long-time listener, first-time caller on my end. It's been a pleasure to follow your career over these years. I used to be a DJ at WFDU, 89.1 FM here in northern New Jersey, and your records used to come in, your CDs, I should say, and I played them over there. So it's been a long time, it's nice to meet you.

Chuck Prophet: Well, it's nice to be among the (vinyl) brotherhood. I don't know if you can see. This is not the whole thing. This is just this one room, you know. There you go. But I've got a whole other Ikea one completely packed and crawling out onto the floor and you know, whatever.

ezt: You know, we're just talking about vinyl a little bit there. And it sounds like this album has an interesting connection with records and your record collecting. And maybe that's a good segue for us to begin with the Cumbia Shoes and your new album with ¿Qiensave?, Wake the Dead, here on the show.

cp: Sure. What would you like to know?

ezt: Well, I was intrigued in some of the information about your album, just this thought about how you got interested in this particular style of music and how some of it was connected with record buying and learning about it yourself, I suppose, through purchasing records. And I guess it led you to sort of finding the sound for this recent album.

cp: Yeah, I mean, it kind of found me. You know, I've told this a number of ways, but myself and my band, we often play at a club here in San Francisco in the Mission District called the Makeout Room and we do kind of low-key gigs there, and we always sell it out, you know. But one of the things is that over the years there's this pattern where they're always trying to get us out of there. We might play a sold-out show, and we're hanging out, and it's sort of been a triumphant gig, and I'm hanging out, and they're like, hey, you guys really got to get your equipment off the stage. And, so one night, we had finished a gig, and we neatly stacked our stuff in the corner, and we were sitting in this booth, and just kind of—I was having a Coke or whatever, but the thing is that the reason that they give us the bum's rush is that Saturday night is cumbia night at this club, and it's been cumbia night for like 20 years. And so that night, you know, we kind of stuck around, and, you know, the DJ showed up, and he set his turntables up on the stage. Eventually, he dropped a needle on this record, and the place started filling up. It was still kind of early in the evening.

But I started hearing this music coming out of the PA, and I could hear the bass lines coming through the subs, you know, those three notes. And dancers, people started dancing maybe by themselves or just in the shadows, you know. And next thing I know, my drummer, Vicente, who's from San Antonio and knows a lot about Latin music, he was dancing with my wife. She's in my band and everything and I just thought, wow, this is—I don't know what this is, but this music is just really enchanting. And this is such a beautiful night, I hardly want it to—I don't want it to end. And so that was when I really became exposed to cumbia music. And then from there, I developed a heightened awareness. So I might hear music spilling out of a taqueria on Mission Street or Valencia Street, and I'm thinking, oh, that's that cumbia music and from there I bought some records. And also during the pandemic, I really was afforded the time to just listen. And that was a really kind of a great time for me. I had a record that was in the can, and I wasn't really writing. And I spent a lot of time listening. I kept returning to this cumbia music.

And there's chicha music, which is the roots of cumbia, which some come from the jungles of Peru or Colombia, depending on who you talk to. It made its way to Mexico City, and it really tends to light up the dance floors. And so yeah, I bought records, and a lot of stuff I got on YouTube, really. You could see bands like in the 60s, like playing in the dirt, making it happen, you know. And it's phenomenal. I mean, imagine if you could see Robert Johnson, and you could see his hands. And that's kind of what it's like. So I became obsessed with it. And then I met a band called ¿Qiensave?, and they're a group of brothers, like five brothers, from Salinas, California, which is about three miles, rather three hours south of San Francisco here, in the farming community of Salinas.

ezt: How did you meet them? Where did you connect with them?

cp: They were playing up in the city, and I went to see them, and I became kind of infatuated with them. My manager was the first person who kind of discovered them and told me: you might want to check these guys out, they play that kind of music that you like to listen to. And so, I started following those guys around. I also followed a band around called Valley Wolf from Modesto. And I was driving back from Texas one Sunday with all the equipment in the van, and I pulled into Modesto, and they were playing like outdoors in a gravel, you know, driveway of a brewery or something. And it was just phenomenal. So I really became pretty obsessed. And these guys in ¿Qiensave?, they're warm guys, and they're like, "well, gee, Chuck, you know, you seem pretty interested". You know, if you wanted to come down to Salinas and jam, we've got a house in the woods, and there's nobody around. It's one of those dome houses. And they said, you could bring your amp and turn up as loud as you want to. And so, I said, I'll be there. And we became, you know, friends, and it probably took about a year, really, and started writing songs that I thought would translate well. And they also taught me a lot about the music. And we played a couple gigs and got a feel. And, you know, we played a gig in a hippie festival in Big Sur. And halfway through the second song, it was just like people were dancing. People had moved forward. And I thought, you know, this is really what it reminds me of. The dancing was so expressive.

It reminded me of punk rock in the sense that, as my friend Alejandro Escovedo has said: punk rock, if anything, what it achieved is that it erased the line between the stage and the audience.

You know, and I felt that way when people were dancing. And I thought, like, this is cool. I'm like, I'm fronting a dance band, you know.

This is like, I mean, as far as the world of singer-songwriters go, this might as well be on the other side of the moon. So, it's another world. And that really excited me. And when I get excited, then I can write songs, you know. Otherwise, if I'm not excited about what I'm doing, like, why bother? It's kind of a chore.

Photo by Kory Thibeault

ezt: I had a lot of these thoughts that you're kind of describing. And it's true, there's such a danceability there. And it's great because and your music's really cool and as I said, I think before the interview officially started, I've been following your career a long time and listening to whatever key tracks have been coming around over the last 10, 20 years. But that danceable, fun factor is really infectious. I don't know why it struck me as being so surprising. I don't know. Does that make any sense to you? I just felt like really, it was different than something I was expecting.

cp: Well, yeah. I mean, try being in Sheffield or Manchester or, you know, Glasgow or, you know, Southampton. I mean, we just finished a pretty wild British tour. And yeah, I mean, here's six guys on stage, you know, five of them are Mexican American and Hispanic or whatever. And it's different, you know?

ezt: How cool is that for you, too, at this stage in your career to be like, involved in something that's totally different than, you know, at least groove-wise? I mean, the songwriting is there, the songwriting is the same. It still sounds like you, but groove-wise, it must be a really exciting groove to be on stage and just doing something, having a much different sound behind you.

cp: Yeah, I mean, all my records are, they all kind of happen the same way. Generally, there's two or three songs that get me excited, especially if they go somewhere I feel I haven't been before. And then it's like an infection and I can picture the whole record: you've got your fast songs, your slow songs, minor key songs, major key; and I can start to do it. But in this case, yeah, I mean, I really tapped into something. And it's been fun.

ezt: You're talking about punk rock, and there was a little note in the information about this album with The Clash and reggae. And I remember when I was getting into The Clash as a kid, expecting punk rock. And I'd be like: what's with all these reggae songs? I mean, I didn't know how to get it then. Now I understand, oh, that was their thing.

cp: Yeah, I mean, for me, The Clash are definitely my teachers, in the sense that, you know, punk rock came along and empowered people to pick up a guitar and start a band. But it was really around the time of The Clash's London Calling that they began to show what it is you can do in a band. And London Calling itself, it has like, rockabilly and ska and reggae and some, I don't know, maybe borderline glam rock, you know, Mott the Hoople kind of stuff. And that record's like a bible. It's all in there. So people have asked me about, oh, are you worried that people would think of cultural appropriation? Or that, you know, you wouldn't be playing the music? And I said, hey, if I can get as close to playing cumbia as The Clash did to playing reggae, you know, I'll be fine.

ezt: It's funny that you bring up that cultural appropriation thought, because it occurred to me too. But the reason I wasn't even going to bring it up was because, and I'm here in New Jersey, right? So if I'm walking down the street, I'm exposed to all those kinds of things. And I grew up, obviously, you know, I am who I am. But I grew up in a place where I was exposed to a city. And so those sounds of the landscape for me are, well, they're not something that I had at home all the time, but they were definitely a part of my world growing up. And, you know, I think that makes this a really American album. Because just as The Clash kind of listened to the reggae that was happening, that was something that they were hearing in the 70s in England. This is something that's around for all of us that are in neighborhoods, at least, maybe if you're in the Midwest, you're not as exposed to it. But you're there on the West Coast, and I'm here on the East Coast. So we get a lot of that stuff. But, you know, it's a melting pot.

cp: Well, early on, I had recorded some demos, and I had a meeting with Adrian Quesada of the Black Pumas. He was a great guy, great producer. And I went to visit him in his studio in Austin. And we talked about maybe working together, we listened to some songs, you know, he listened to some of my songs, and he was pretty supportive. But one of the things, we didn't end up really connecting on that level. But he did give me some advice. He said, look, my best advice I could give you is that, you know, pay no attention to the "clave police." In other words, you know, don't let anybody tell you you're not doing it correctly. But he said it tends to be a thing in Latin music.

ezt: Interesting.

cp: I took that to heart. And, you know, if it felt good, then I knew I was going somewhere.

ezt: Yeah. As long as you were accurate with the clave.

cp: That's right. Yeah. And, you know, people feel compelled to talk about cultural...but you know, where does it stop? And where does it start? You know, "sir, put down that burrito," you know, right? I don't know where it stops and starts. And the guys that I'm playing with are sure enjoying it, you know?

ezt: I'm sure they enjoyed that tour of England. And, you know, again, hearing that sound, you know, in different places of America may be somewhat natural, but as globalized as we are now, I'm sure there were still some people surprised at what you brought to the stage in the UK.

cp: Yeah, it was wonderful, but they turned out and the word of mouth, you know, it was probably 13 or 14 dates, the word of mouth on the tour really built. And so we started selling out shows left and right. And that's just been a great shot in the arm for everybody I'm playing with.

ezt: So it sounds like you connected with these guys, you started playing together. Were most of the songs written with them in mind? Or did you bring some that you had kind of kicking around?

cp: I wrote some, of course, with my long time writing on and off, on and off again, writing partner. I also wrote with my guitar player, James. I don't recall, I remember there were two or three songs that I thought were pretty good. And then I went to Austin, to my friend's garage studio and made some demos. We dragged in a couple local guys to play accordion. And it just kind of grew from there. Until I just felt like I had a substantial number of what I like to call "go to the head of the class" songs: you may go to the head of the class. So yeah, I mean, it happened in bursts, you know? And it's happening right now. I mean, I have some time off from the road and I find myself enjoying the downtime and writing and just seeing what floats in the window, you know?

ezt: So you were pretty involved in this before you really got to the studio. It sounds like this was a process. And of course, during that time, you had your own health battles that you were, or you'd kind of, I'm just trying to get the timeline together, you'd sort of doing that simultaneously? Or were you, was that past you at this point?

cp: Well, I was diagnosed with stage four lymphoma. And the kind that I have is pretty treatable. So I started six months of immunotherapy with a chemo and Rituxan cocktail. And I felt pretty crummy. But I would still get maybe 10 days or a couple weeks out of the month where I felt pretty good. So I would go down to Salinas and jam with those guys, you know? And sometimes record what we were doing on my phone or whatever. But yeah, I think it took like a year. I mean, I'm fuzzy on the timeline.

Photo by Kory Thibeault

ezt: And not to be corny, but do you think this sort of influx of new music and a new groove, you think that helped you in your recovery? Just spiritually or artistically, something new to focus on and a new hook to sort of find musically?

cp: Well, you know, one of my oncologists said, "I think you're doing well and a lot of it's going to be your attitude." Right. And I said, well, I got attitude. So we've got that covered over here. And yeah, I do believe that it helped me. Yeah, you have to believe.

ezt: So bring us to the studio. How was it? What was it like getting all these guys? I understand, you know, you guys were in the same room a lot. And tell me a little bit about the recording process. You got the songs, you got the guys. And how did you get everything on tape once you had the songs in mind?

cp: Well, we did it like a blended family. We blended James DePrato, who plays guitar in my band, and Vicente Rodriguez, who plays drums. We blended the three of us with three or four members of ¿Qiensave?. So we had like a seven piece band. And sometimes as many as eight, if we had somebody playing Farfisa, or something. And when you've got eight people tracking at the same time, there's really not even very many studios that can accommodate that anymore, because everything is so project oriented, you know.

But we worked at a studio in the East Bay in Oakland called 25th Street. And they were able to accommodate us, you know, there was enough iso booths, and we could isolate people and we could also see each other. And that was the big part of it. I had recorded a lot of demos and done a lot of experimenting with Matt Winegar, who's an old friend of mine, a producer, a musician. He's produced things like Primus and, you know, the Fantastic Negrito. And he and I were sort of the architects, in many ways, in getting the sound together. And so he came out from Austin, and Brad Jones, my longtime producer, who is an incredibly capable, cool headed guy, he came out as well. And we hit the ground running, you know, we had like one rehearsal the night before, kind of an acoustic living room rehearsal. And eventually, we just hit the ground running. And, you know, we didn't get every song to behave. Some songs were more stubborn than others. But some, of course, were pretty effortless. Yeah, it comes across listening,

ezt: It comes across as a really clear vision, though. I mean, it sounds like there was a lot more thought put into it than one rehearsal before the recording began. Maybe you did some overdubs and stuff, or maybe not, because a lot of guitar parts are great.

cp: There's, you know, we try to have a guitar figure that gives the song its identity. And, you know, like an intro or whatever. And beyond that, there is a sort of a rhythmic network to the way the music works with the bass line and with the skanks. And so, if people that play the music like ¿Qiensave?, it's very natural for them. And it really did fall into place. And although, you know, we overdubbed here and there, because of the way that it grooved, and because of the personality of the guys playing, there really wasn't this compulsion to overdub. You know, oftentimes, people just can't wait to get in there and overdub. But, if you just sit back and listen to the tracks coming out of the big speakers and listen to what the song, what its needs are, that it's trying to talk to you, oftentimes, it didn't need much. And, I was singing live, and I went back and I didn't get every song live, of course. But one of the things that was a challenge for me was that, although they had a very good headphone system at the studio and I could get a stereo mix and get the percussion on one side sort of mix. I mean, we're talking about eight people. So in many ways, I just had to trust, because this was well out of my two-guitar/bass/drum comfort zone.

And when we're talking about two-guitar bass drums, you know, we're talking about the Velvet Underground, we're talking about the Beatles, talking about whatever. I'm pretty confident I can sing and play and close my eyes, and I can see what everybody's doing. Oh, that guy's doing this. Oh, he's probably going to go to the ride cymbal there. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, at any given time, I know what, oh, the bass, oh, he's going up to the third there. He's not playing the root. Okay. You know, I understand that world.

ezt: You get that.

cp: Yeah, I understand it. I know the landscape. I've, you know, I majored in that stuff. But when there's eight guys playing, you know, at a certain point, I just lean into it and lean back on the groove and sing the song, you know. Well, it's a different job as a vocalist or a guitarist. Your job description is a little different. And a lot of that has to do with the arrangement.

ezt: So you would bring these songs to the guys, and then they're there trying to find the groove. And was there a particular song or two that maybe it was difficult to be like, wait a minute, how do we fit this thing into that thing?

cp: It's difficult, because those probably got discarded along the way. Interesting. But I think about things like a song like "Betty's Song", you know, it has the figure. I think I wrote that figure with James DePrato, and it had that And, you know, when Jandro from ¿Qiensave?picked up on it, for some reason he just started harmonizing it. You know, it just made sense to him. I didn't say anything. I just thought it sounded good. So there's a lot of those things that happen when you just throw the song out there, and everybody jumps in. I don't know if that answers your question or not, but my mind's going back.

ezt: Like you said if something wasn't working, you probably just said, this tune isn't the right tune for this project, maybe. We put it on the shelf for next time. But it's just curious to me, because I'm a musician too. So I'm thinking about this journey that you're on, and I would just kind of use the word, like, kind of brave. You know, you just took yourself out of your comfort zone. You found these guys that had their own thing going on. You had to have a lot of confidence to do this, and it's really refreshing. Is this something you might recommend to another musician or songwriter friend of yours, and say, hey, you know, why don't you try something different to get you out of the usual kind of thing?

cp: Well, it's difficult to tell people that, because they're focused on what they're doing. And, you know, to ask somebody to pivot in such a way, you got to feel it. Americana music, there's a reason why it's popular, is because, you know, the reason why country rock has always kind of been out there, it's because it's just really easy to play. And to encourage people to get out of their comfort zone, sure, I mean, it's easy to say, but you got to feel it. I mean, you got to be excited about it. And I was excited about it. I thought, this is exciting. You know, this is really great. You know, we've got like three songs now, and if we get another one tomorrow... Yeah, and I knew it was a leap of faith. And I do have this pretty strong faith in the process. And I trust the process, actually, and I have faith in the people around me. So, those are the things that gave me the confidence, which I needed.

Not that it didn't have moments of doubt...

ezt: Did you have a few moments where you were like, what are we doing?

cp: Oh, yeah, completely, you know. Everybody just dived in, and I was like, okay, we might need to just, we might need to return to this one. Everybody's a little happy right now. Sure, you know...

ezt: So, your next album will be a polka fusion.

cp: I'm still writing songs, you know, that are kind of southwestern, and that I can imagine this band playing. I mean, one of the things is that when I'm out touring with my normal band, The Mission Express, we've got like 14 albums. So, that gives us a lot to pull from. And when I'm out there with what I call the Cumbia Shoes, we're like a one-album band. We're like a new band.

So, I would like to get in the studio sooner rather than later, so that we can expand our repertoire on stage, because it's really not going to change much.

ezt: Unless you build the catalog up a little bit there...

cp: Yeah, exactly. So, the next record, you know, maybe we'll hit the sophomore slump. I don't know. Maybe not.

Photo by Kory Thibeault

ezt: Well, keep the Cumbia Shoes going. So, you finished this UK tour, and what else are you planning to do with this record before the cycle for this album is over?

cp: Well, my goal was always to get out there and do the hand-to-hand combat. And so, the record came out in October, in the fall. And we're here in San Francisco, of course. We immediately went up into the Northwest and taped a session at the KEXP, which...they're just gods over there. They're doing God's work. And that really helped us when that came out. And we continued the tour. We went over to the European continent. And then from there, we went to the East Coast, up and down the East Coast, and through the Midwest and everything. Then we went back into the UK, and that was our last big tour. And now, I mean, my plan initially was that: well, we'll do all these gigs, and we'll get out there, we'll do the hand-to-hand combat, we'll take it to the people. And then maybe in the summer, you know, we can do some fly-in dates with festivals and things like that, and have it be somewhat less of a grind. And that's the way it's turned out. So, I'm pleased with that. And all the guys are still, you know, enjoying it. And so, we'll be going to Tampa next weekend for a one-off date for a festival there, presented by the great WMNF, which is a fantastic radio station that really covers the Tampa community. And they've always been a great supporter of mine.

ezt: And you've always got stuff kicking around. You've got little side projects and stuff once in a while. Are you working on anything that you'd be comfortable sharing with everybody?

cp: Well, I've been working on a Temple Beautiful musical for over 10 years. And, you know, every once in a while, we pull it down off the shelf and kick it around. And that's where we're at right now. We're kicking around Act One. And we've got some investors, and we're going to ramp up to a pretty elaborate stage reading in the next few months, hopefully.

ezt: That's exciting stuff. And what are you listening to? Are you, I know you're a collector, you're a buyer. I wonder, do you have any recommendations that you're really enjoying now, or anything that you've purchased recently that you would share?

cp: Well, I worked a lot with a group called The Rubinoos.

ezt: Oh, that's funny. I just got, hold on, don't go anywhere. I never had one of their records. I just bought this last weekend. This is their first album. It's a promo copy with a timing strip here. So I was, I'm excited that you said that, because it's a great record.

cp: That's a fantastic record. And, you know, one of the problems with that, in many ways, from one of the ways that I can, the shorthand way I can describe The Rubinoos is that in many ways, I consider them sort of like a West Coast Big Star.

And although they're not quite as, they don't lean on the British Invasion side of things quite as much. They made that record in like 1976 or something. And it was a pop record, guitar band, with a lot of Beach Boys singing and they're sort of like a cross between the Beach Boys, the Jackson 5, a lot of 60s kind of like soundtrack music.

ezt: But no cumbia.

cp: But no cumbia. But they did a lot of cool kind of Jackson 5 stuff. There's a, I think there's a song on that record called "Hard to Get" and it's incredible, you know, and they were, they're really good at that. So I write with Tommy and we just put out a record a couple years ago, a Rubinoos record that I co-wrote the record with the founding Rubinoos, Tommy Dunbar and he and I are getting together to write this week and we are particular fans of what he calls Bubblegum R&B, which is, you know, Archie Bell and the OJs and, the Spinners and a lot of, Thom Bell was the great producer arranger...and the Jackson 5 and that's some kind of music that we agree on. And we've written some songs in that vein. And so that's what I've been listening to.

ezt: Well, that's funny. That's funny that I just bought that.

cp: Yeah, the Rubinoos were a band that had a massive influence on me as a teenager. I went to high school here in the East Bay in San Francisco, and they played in my high school, actually. And I saw them like, maybe 25, 30 times, maybe more. My high school band opened for them a bunch. And they were pretty big influence on me. I guess in many ways, you might consider them like pub rock in a way that they, you know, they would do Motown stuff, they would do Tommy James, they would do Motown stuff, they would do Tommy James and the Shondells kind of stuff, they would do that Jackson 5 stuff, they would cover a lot of doo-wop things with four-part harmony. But they were also like characters, very funny. And much like the Beatles or something in that respect, because they were a gang of like, ninth grade dropouts that started this band. And even when I was in high school, even when I was like 16, and I would see them they'd already been to England. And they had a hit record there, they'd been on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and they'd done some television and things. And they recorded their second album in London. And I think, was it RAK Studios were the Who recorded.

ezt: That's where a lot of that pub rock was. Dave Edmunds used to do a lot of things at RAK.

cp: Exactly. And so, you know, they had a lot of experience, even though they may not be like that much older than me. They were very experienced, you know, and they had a huge influence on me. And they also, a lot of people don't realize, but they are also the Modern Lovers.

ezt: I didn't realize that.

cp: So you've got songs that are billed as the Modern Lovers, like "Government Center", which is one of my favorite Jonathan Richman songs. And "New Teller", another really great Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers song. But that's actually Jonathan Richman and the Rubinoos. And there's also, I think, a separate "Roadrunner" that gets mixed in there, from the 70s. And yeah, and Jonathan and the Rubinoos to this day are all really tight. And Jonathan Richman, of course, really loomed large over things for me and back in the day for me and my friends. And well, he still does, actually. I probably see him at least once a year.

ezt: Yeah, really amazing stuff he's made.

cp: Yeah, I mean, just an artist and something to strive for. And Jonathan has always been able to pull a song out of the air, I think. It's interesting, because the other day I heard that song. He's got a song called "Velvet Underground", you know. And I love that he has these songs like "Fender Stratocaster" is another one of his songs, and "Velvet Underground". And I like people that write songs where no one ever asks you, like, what's the song about?

ezt: Right, right, right.

cp: And I mean, he must have been a direct influence on me, because I have a song called "Ford Econoline" that is about, you guessed it, the Ford Econoline. And I think Jonathan had a big influence on me, and the Rubinoos did. And so, I ended up producing a record for them and brought them over to Yep Roc. And it's an album called From Home, and I'm quite proud of it. The way I really went about it was that I got to know the band, and I just kind of grilled them on how they made their first two records and I said, I think everything that we need to know in terms of how to make a great Rubinoos record, I think it's embedded in those first two records.

ezt: And what were some of the secrets?

cp: Well, the music they listened to. Like, when we started rehearsing, you know, I didn't always have a lot to contribute, especially when they were doing the harmonies, you know. That's really Tommy's territory. But I always kept a yellow legal pad, and I would sit there in this chair in Al Chan's living room, and they would work out their parts. And what I did was, every time they mentioned a record or a group, I would write it down. And I would say, you know, I might say something like, oh, John, you got to play those guitar, the rhythm part, like with the upbeats, you know. And they all would say to each other, you know, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, "My Boy Lollipop."

And I go, okay, "My Boy Lollipop", you know, Millie Smalls. And then, you know, they would say, oh, like that part on Charles Wright and the 103rd Street Watts Band, or whatever. I'd write it down, and then, you know, that became the music that I listened to. So they taught me that, and that was part of what informs their music, you know, the things that they grew up on, that they listened to, and they obsessed on. They were also obsessed with those Cruisin' compilations that you may be aware of, that have a lot of cruising music, which can be, you know, it can be Mary Wells singing "Two Lovers".

Photo by Kory Thibeault

ezt: Yeah, it's great stuff.

cp: It can be "Sleepwalk", you know, it's not any one thing. It's just these lowrider anthems. And they're really into those records. They grew up on that stuff. And they can recite all the, like, comedy bits in between. They're into that as well. So, definitely characters and the other thing we learned was that they practiced a lot. And so, rather than have a more drawn-out recording process, we had a more drawn-out rehearsal process. You're gonna spend the same amount of time either way. And so, when we did get into the studio, we went into the same studio where they may have cut their first single. They're pretty sure. And we hit the ground running. And everybody was playing and Jon Rubin, who doesn't always play rhythm guitar on their records, played guitar, you know, because it's a different set of hands. And he may not be the best guitar player, but he's the best rhythm guitar player for the Rubin's at that moment.

So, a lot of that went into it. And I just really enjoyed the whole process. Learned a lot.

ezt: Well, Chuck, I really appreciate spending time with you today. And the new record's really great. As I said, I used the word fresh before, and it feels that way. And I really thank you for spending some time with me today.

cp: Well, I appreciate all the attention. And it's hard to get the music out there. So, I appreciate what you're doing.