Ozomatli
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Ozomatli

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According to guitarist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Raul Pacheco, speaking from his home in LA, that thirst for creating a wide variety of sounds, and being adventurous in drawing influence from musical styles from all over the world, are the major factors in keeping the band going and active for such a long time. As well as, of course, the sheer love of making music itself.

“You know, I think we just love to play music,” he emphasises. “We’re musicians and we love to play music. It’s always been a vehicle for us, and our group is a group that really allows room for individual taste. So if someone wants Mexican bamba music mixed with hip hop beats, it’s like, ‘Sure, let’s try it’. If someone wants to play a pop-reggae song, let’s try it. If someone wants to do a North African rock song, let’s try it. I think, as a musician, we need these opportunities to express ourselves, in this group. And I think this is one of the reasons why we’re still together.”

Ultimately, however, Raul tells us that it really doesn’t seem like such a long time that the band has been doing their thing. “It has been (almost 20 years), but it hasn’t felt like it’s been that long,” he says. “We’ve had such a great run, and we’ve had so many good moments together, and great memories together. Once you stop and realise it, then it’s like, ‘Oh wow, it’s been a really long time!’” he chuckles. “But we’re really excited about it, we’ve been talking about it, and we realise we’ve got something pretty special and it’s been 20 years.”

They’re far from done yet too, as Raul feels that the band are still very hungry to play music and explore new sounds and ideas, and he feels there is plenty of creative juice left in them. “We still love to play music, and as long as that is still happening, I really don’t see us not pushing ourselves,” he muses. “Pushing ourselves to do new things, pushing ourselves to be better. We still care enough about it to perform well, to record good songs, we do work hard at it when we’re doing it. It’s a fulfilling feeling to have that capacity and intention to get it done. So it’s still a big motivation for us.”

The band have been absolutely no stranger to our shores over the course of their career, Raul believes they have been here around ten times in the last 15 to 20 years. However, it has been a while since their last trip to Australia, so the band decided that early 2014 was a good time to come back to shake their arses Down Under again. And he couldn’t be happier about it.

“I feel great, we haven’t been there in a while, and we have this opportunity,” he enthuses. “We’re very happy to be going back, Australia means a lot to us, we’re going to catch up with some old friends and hopefully make some new ones, and just have a great time. We always have a great time when we go there.”

He has many memories of previous trips to Australia, however one in particular stands out above all others. “We’ve played so many places,” he begins his recollection, “but one of my greatest memories was, we played the Falls Festival once. It was happening on…what’s the island off of Australia that’s part of Australia? Tasmania!” he recalls, answering his own question. “It was there, and having never been there, and ending up in the countryside there, that was a beautiful thing. It was really cool and unique.”

What is also unique is the Ozomatli live show, and for those that haven’t experienced it before, Raul is very happy to describe the great times Aussie punters will get when they check out their shows across Australia in mid-to-late April. He is proud of the fact that his band can help people escape the daily grind of their lives for an evening.

“Yeah, I mean we’re a high energy dance band,” he illustrates. “We really get people moving, and if you’ve never seen it, I think that you’re just going to go for a ride for a couple of hours. We really try to connect with our audience in a way that makes them feel like they’re a part of the show. We just love to really connect with people in that way. For us, it’s a thing where people can get away from everything that’s going on in their lives, and we can have a moment together where we really celebrate.”

And for the old school fans, they do their best to cover as much of their back catalogue as they can, and even play some tunes that people have never heard before. “Yeah, we do,” he agrees. “We try to play songs from every record. We’ll play some songs off our new record called A Place in the Sun. So we’ll be playing songs from all our career.”

BY ROD WHITFIELD