Alejandro Escovedo

32:56Were you going out and seeing them at night? Did you know them? Oh, you could see them in a backyard, towns at a barbecue, you know. It was that kind of place, you know. And I just soaked it in. I just really loved it, you know. I was home. I was back in Texas. I was surrounded by these incredible genius songwriters, and they took to me, and, you know, my first solo tours with joey lee around texas in oklahoma and i watched him every night because solo he was one of the greatest performers i've ever seen what what made him so great just his delivery the way he you know he rocked and yet he could play the most tender ballad and he sang so beautifully he was just such a great presence you know he's he's like bruce he's like a cowboy version of bruce you know he was our bruce you know yeah and for the kids at home that's bruce springsteen a big fan of yours yeah yeah uh you've been on stage with him quite a few times i think yeah yeah yeah we saw little steven last night that was cool oh is that right yeah yeah he was at jesse's uh tribute yeah so yeah yeah and uh you know and uh so being in austin And having my daughter, I remember when Maya turned one, I turned 31.

34:25And I decided at that point, I remember it was kind of a traumatic birthday for me. I smoked too much pot and kind of wandered off. And it's kind of like, you know, left the party and kind of, you know, walking down the street wondering what the fuck, you know, what's going on, you know. But I decided that at that point that I was going to get serious about writing songs. Because I had always written short stories and screenplays and treatments. And so I'd always written. And I always had this idea that songs should be like mini movies. And so that's what I set out to do. How did you do that? Well, maybe you didn't sit down.

35:07How did you say one day, I'm going to write different kinds of songs? What happened? I wasn't being included in the band I was in at the time was Rank and File. Right. There were two brothers, very talented songwriters and great artists. But I wasn't being encouraged to do anything other than to be in the band as a rhythm guitar player. That's probably my fault. Old Austin City Limits clip. Yeah, yeah. You see the brothers and then there's this very, very handsome guy with a guitar. And so I wasn't, but I was never, we were never encouraged as like a band. Like, let's work on this song as a band, you know, let's be a band.

35:50And yet we had always kind of promised ourselves that that's what we were going to be. You know, it was a band. and so at a certain point when um the brothers uh we were playing with lone justice in california and lone justice was starting to blow up and we hadn't made our second record yet and it did fairly well but it wasn't blowing up like lone justice was you know yeah they had that first album really yeah and uh so the brothers kind of started to look at pinpoint reasons why this wasn't happening and i was the most obvious choice so they got i wasn't good enough as a guitar player i wasn't playing country guitar i was playing a les fall jr and a marshall house tech you know and so like they're going you know it doesn't fit and so i just said well i'm not that and i don't want to be that and so i went off and i remember all the way back from california um i drank a bottle of whiskey and i listened to foggy notion by the velvet underground over and over and over and over that's the only song i listened to the whole way home for about 20 hours you know and i said this is what i want my band to sound like and i got home and i called my brother javier and i and javier at the time was working in a restaurant washing dishes.

37:20I said, let's do a band, you know, let's make a band. We were going to ask Nicky Bede of the Weirdos to be our drummer, and we had all these plans. It took Javier a year to get to Austin, but when he did, we started The True Believers. And that began, Javier had all the songs, but I started to write, you know. First song I wrote was this, I was like already 32, maybe, and the first song I wrote was The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over. And then I wrote Five Hearts Breaking and all those other songs that ended up on my solo record. How did, were you the kind of person you just made yourself sit down every day and I'm going to write or?

38:03No. When it was when the spirit moved you? I'm way too lazy for that. No. I wait, you know, it's funny because when i did start to write they just flowed out like a waterfall man it was crazy you know it was like a tidal wave of songs i could sit anywhere we'd be late night just hanging out after hours and i'd pick up a guitar and the song would come out yeah would you immediately write it down did you know from chords i lost a lot of songs oh yeah but you know a lot of them did stick with me and they became those albums you know well those are some pretty good songs to start with they're not bad no some of them okay not at all uh the first song you put on this album on your new album yeah of songs is john conquest so i wanted you to talk a bit about that well john conquest was the song i do with my band buick mccain we were out of austin and we were just a very loud kind of southern version of uh the dolls or something and uh there was a critic there a rock a music critic, I should say, a journalist by the name of John Conquist.

39:15He's from England, but he only loved country music and stuff. And he loved, prior to me making my first solo record, I had a big band, 15 pieces. It was the Alejandro Escovella Orchestra, you know. So I had backup singers, keyboardists, horn section, two drummers. How did you make that work as a working musician? Well, you know what I would do, man? I would set up a gig and I'd say then just send out call up my friends we're going to play at the hole in the wall 10 I got a gig come you know it's no rehearsal we're all going to improvise when we get on stage these players were amazing they were the best the best jazz players in town the best Latin percussionist in town you know best guitar players I had all kinds of really wonderful musicians and these cats would show up sometimes 15 sometimes five whatever you know and i would just start playing little riffs and you know like gravity falling down again that song was totally improvised as a song really yeah i mean you've always got good riffs in your songs i don't think of you as like a jazz guy particularly no i'm not but you know you can you can kick it off Yeah.

40:34Yeah. Yeah, just simple. It was all very simple. Those songs were like, you know, like I always thought of them like nursery rhymes, you know. I thought that was really important to kind of get these like, you know, like Eno, Put a Straw Under Baby, you know, that song of Eno's, you know. I just love it because it is a nursery rhyme, you know. I think it's an old Welsh or something nursery rhyme. But I just loved it. And that's kind of like what I wanted to do with my songs. I just wanted to tell stories. And then as I started to write more, I realized this was a way for me to really kind of make that movie, but with music.

41:13And your songs are very, very visual. Yeah. I mean, I think one of my favorites of yours is, of course, Swallows of San Juan. Yeah. Can you tell me a bit about that song? I wrote that with Chuck Prophet, and we were making Real Animal. Yeah. And I told him a story. When I was a kid, the school trip was always to San Juan Capistrano, you know, to watch the swallows return to San Juan. Right. And so we were talking about it, and I told him that I had once drawn the fountain where all the swallows would come to, and it won an award at some little art show on Indian Beach. And so we took it from there.

41:58And he had to roll in the mud and the clay, which I loved. It's such a, I mean, people know the story because it's an old expression, return like the swells to San Juan Capistrano. But it's such a different song. It's such a, like a lot of your songs, it's about, a lot of your songs, It's about departure and trying to come back and wondering whether you can come back. That song was about trying to get back to the roots of what we loved, you know, guitars and rock and roll, you know, that seemed to be somewhat fading at the time, you know, at least in our eyes, you know. It hasn't picked up much since, I would say that.

42:44I'm sorry? Rock and roll hasn't picked up too much since either. there there's a lot of young bands out there that are great okay starcrawler i love they're amazing henry cash and and uh the his his group is just incredible arrow you know the singer and they're just amazing i love their energy there's a man a band and i'm gonna d spitz i think they're called they're from austin and they're also managed by my manager but they're young girls who just I mean they're vicious they're so good and they've got the energy and the spirit do you think that radio or broader culture is going to come around to that music no I don't believe so I think that now we have become so

43:37separated from humanity it seems like the beautiful parts of humanity the expression that music gave us at one point, I don't hear anymore. Maybe it's because I don't have those ears anymore. I'm not 20, I'm not 15, 16 listening to Dylan records and Tim Harden records and Tim Buckley records and that kind of stuff. But I just, I don't know. I just don't feel it like I used to. Your career really went through the 90s up to Man Under the Influence, which was just a great, great album. And you do a few songs from that on this record. Can you tell me about the making of that record? Because that was just before you got sick.

44:26Right. That was the last record I made before I became ill. Now, had you known you had hepatitis C at that point? No, not at that point.

44:39oh maybe you know it's maybe i did because um the way what happened was i was touring extensively and um i suddenly came home was very very tired just exhausted and nauseous i couldn't i were touring with jimmy dale gilmore on the west coast and one night after we had been in boulder colorado we saw uh paul westerberg and patty smith at some radio conference in boulder and then drove all the way to banff in alberta and uh i was sick all the way and when i got to uh banff i couldn't play the gig and i never not you know i was not that kind of guy we played no matter what and then we got to Vancouver and I tried to play and I only lasted a few songs and I went to a friend a friend took me to his doctor and at that time they didn't really know what FC was you know they called it non-a non-b but he didn't even say that at that point he just thought that I was exhausted and took so I canceled the next gig we made it all the way down to the down to San Diego down the coast.

45:53And when I got home, I was very ill. And my friends told me I should go see a friend of his who he thinks could help me. And he told me that he thought I had something wrong with my liver. And I went to this old Mexican doctor on the east side who told me, you're just getting old, he said. But they did blood tests. And I remember it was like the next day after the blood test I said, the nurse called me and said, the doctor really needs to speak to you now. And he's the one that told me I had non-A and non-B. You said, at least I'm not getting old. But no cure. Yeah, at least. Not like now. Now you'd be taking drugs and you'd be fine.

46:36Yeah, I'm good now. So, but you were on, so you got on the list for a new liver? I never did. You never, really? I did not want to go to that route. Oh. So how did. I thought there was alternatives. And what I did was I found Tibetan medicine. I found a group of monks that were traveling through Houston. And I went to see them. They had a doctor with them. And right away, you know, Tibetan doctors, they take your pulse, they read your tongue, and they read your urine. And he told me, because you don't have cancer, and don't be afraid, you're going to make this. You're going to make it through this.

47:14But I was very weak, man. I got really sick, you know. and then when i went to my uh and then he introduced me to another uh tibetan doctor dr dikey and she kept me alive for years through tibetan medicine i couldn't take the interferon anymore it was killing me yeah it's a tough and uh and tibetan medicine kept me alive what was the treatment it's uh it's a very you know various like these little brown medicine balls kind of like that look like mud dirt they got a little straw they got they have minerals and uh even some precious stone in them sometimes you know and stuff and i would take those and meditate and it was a practice i did the medicine buddha practice you know and then how long did that take for you to feel better um i'd say it took it took a little while because Because when you take herbs, they don't work like Western medicine.

48:17It's not immediate. It takes a while to build up in your system. And it did eventually. And I was able to go back on the road and just keep myself alive, but not drinking, not trying to take care of myself. And your Western doctors at that point, were they opposed to this? No. They were fine as long as I was getting better. my doctor was a wonderful doctor who has supported me ever since i met him because of hep c but comes to all my shows you know buys all my records he's a great guy that's what you want out of a doctor uh so what's how's your liver now is it okay it's fine wow i mean it's not a brand new liver it's not a young man's liver but it's yeah but it's it keeps me upright you know After this last break, we'll be back with the rest of Bruce Hedlum's conversation with Alejandro Escovito.

49:39Thank you.

50:07constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business, Supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com. Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S. where you can see the sky. Best network based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025. This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Everybody loves to travel, right? We can getaways, a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, all of it. And no matter where you're going, Chase Sapphire Reserve is your gateway to the world's most captivating destinations.

50:48Travel is its own reward, you know. You're out there having experiences you can't have any other way, and with your Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you're also being rewarded. You earn eight times points on all purchases through Chase Travel. So let's say you book a trip to Hawaii. You go surfing at Sunset Beach. you go hiking on a volcano, and you go out to dinner. With the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you're actually earning points for going on a grand adventure anywhere you go, any trip you take. And that's not even mentioning how the card gets you into the Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide and access to one-of-a-kind experiences like music festivals and sports events.

51:26Whether you're booking your next big trip or a weekend escape, Chase Sapphire Reserve makes travel more rewarding. Discover more with Chase Sapphire Reserve at chase.com slash sapphire reserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval. Terms apply. As a small business owner, you don't have the luxury of clocking out early. Your business is on your mind 24-7. So when you're hiring, you need a partner that grinds just as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share it with your network, and get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place.

52:11Here's how it works. First, post your job. LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights. Second, either post your job for free or pay to promote it. Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. Then, get qualified candidates. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your small business is the quality of the candidates you attract. And with LinkedIn, you can feel confident that you're getting the best. Then, data. Based on LinkedIn data, 72 % of SMBs using LinkedIn say that LinkedIn helps them find high-quality candidates.

52:54And last, share with your network. You can let your network know you're hiring. You can even add a hashtag hiring frame to your profile picture and get two times more qualified candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash gladwell-fake. That's linkedin.com slash gladwell-fake to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. We're back with the rest of the conversation. After you got sick and you came back, you started making albums with, you know, some of the people who really influenced you.

53:41You did an album in 2006 with John Kale. Yeah. Who you loved, probably first from, what, the Velvet Underground. Yeah. What was that like? You know, I still get kind of giddy thinking about it because it was John sent in one of the first songs on the tribute record, the poor view of the record. He sent in a song called She Doesn't Live Here Anymore. A beautiful song. Oh, my God, what a version he did. And so we were doing a tribute to Sterling Morrison, who I also knew from Austin. And Sterling had passed away, and we were doing like a memorial for him at one of the South by Southwest conferences.

54:25And John came, and I got the string section together for him, and we did Paris 1919, we did Sister Ray, and we did all these cool songs, you know. And when we were doing a soundcheck for that gig, I said, I heard you have a studio at your home. He goes, no, I got rid of the studio. And I said, well, why'd you get rid of your studio? He goes, I hate musicians, he said. i go that's cool you know and i said well listen i would you help me make a record and right away he said yes and i had known john from playing with judy nylon here in new york you know because we were managed by jane friedman like john was you know and uh we would play a lot of gigs together but at that time john was a very different person you know um and he was kind Well, he was intimidating to me.

55:21He was just this big man with a big voice, drinking brandy, and just being kind of wild. I didn't really get close to him in those days. We'd go over his place and stuff, but I was always just kind of fly on the wall kind of kid. And then when I asked him, we had a gig in L.A., and I went to L.A. He had said yes, and we had a meeting. And he told me, I want three things from you. I want you to sound strong, as inspired as you've ever been, and I want you to go as deeper than you've ever been about this record. And so the first song I wrote was that song, Avita's Lullaby, about my mom and dad. My dad died during that course of COVID.

56:06And even though I had been studying Buddhist script and preparing myself for a lot of things, when my father passed away, it was devastating. you know and so i wrote that song about them because they always dance as i told you earlier and so evita's lullaby is about him dancing with her somewhere else you know some other place was your mother dead she was still alive she was still alive okay but my dad was you know a huge influence on me so um that was the first time i wrote and then the other songs were all followed suit you know they were all kind of about that experience yeah and what did did he he liked the songs he thought he liked the songs he thought you'd gone deeper i think that uh at the time it seemed like it you know at the time it seemed like it it surprises me he said that because i think of him as such a not a songwriter about feelings he's such a intellectually intimidating figure who john yes yeah absolutely so it surprises me that you'd say no you need to go deeper and you know what was funny is that you know i told you i had been kind of intimidated by him right but when we made the record he was like an older brother it's like I always felt like he had his arm around my shoulder going, are you cool?

57:33Is this what you want? Give me more of that. And the record began very differently for us because where you are was a piano, and I was sitting here with my acoustic. And I'd just start playing, and he would respond to whatever I was playing. He's such a great improviser. We wrote like that. And the record was recorded like that. At first it was just piano and acoustic guitar and my voice. And then we built the album all around that, which is kind of backwards for making records. Usually it's like you get the rhythm section down and you get the band down and then the singer goes in and re-records his vocals a lot of times, whatever, and you put everything else on top of that.

58:19But this was different. And it was a really interesting way to work. And I loved it because it was so, I needed that kind of support system. Because I was still very, very shy. And I still had a lot of fear, you know, from the hepatitis C. Because you were 15 years into your solo career at this point. What was the fear? um i still had the feeling that uh you know bobby new earth once told me he says as artists we're all just afraid that someone's going to suss us out to be hacks you know and i think i'm still living with that you know i'd grown up in an environment which was never very uh uh

59:10you know the confirmation wasn't there when i was a kid you know i was never told uh i could do anything you know and um the school system was such in those days that uh you know they even changed my name they wouldn't pronounce my name i was alex for many years oh really and i hated it just because the teacher refused to, you know, even try to pronounce my name, Alondro, you know. And to me, it represented everything that was wrong with society and, you know, the racial thing. Were there a lot of Mexican kids in your class? Not a lot, but some, yeah. Yeah, and so, you know, Mexican kids were always, and black kids and poor white kids were always just kind of led to the machine shop, the wood shop.

1:00:02you know, just to be worker aunts, you know. And so we were never encouraged to be lawyers, doctors, and such. So, you know, it was like... Or filmmakers. Yeah, or filmmakers, and that's why these dreams were so important, you know. Were those dreams your parents supported? No. No, why was that? Because your parents sound like, you know, your father sounds like such a romantic figure. I think because my older brothers had been musicians and they saw what, you know, they would go to their shows. But my brothers played in supper clubs, you know. It was that time, you know, 60s, early 60s, late 50s.

1:00:49So they loved, you know, of course they adored my older brothers, you know. And I was the seventh kid out of 13. So I was kind of lost in the shuffle. I was kind of an invisible kid. and just never seemed to be able to do anything that impressed my parents. Did that change? You mentioned your father died. No, it never really changed. Really? When he died, was he? He was supportive. When I played him the record, I did this record, we made this play called By the Hand of the Father, which was a story of five different men born in the turn of the century in Mexico and chronicles their journey across the border.

1:01:31all the things they did to work and support their families and such. When the album was finally finished and I had my brother Pete, I wrote a song for him to sing on the record. And when I finally played the album, my dad had this little boombox he would always listen to. And he would kind of put it in the corner and he just turned the chair around from all of us and he just listened to the album. And he played it all the way through, turned around and I was watching him, checking him out. He turned around and just kind of smiled and then he hit play again and listened to it one more time, all the way through.

1:02:06And then he turned around and told me, he says, you finally got the beat right, he said. So, that was a big compliment for him. So, yeah, you know, it wasn't like, I think my mom only saw me play maybe once or twice, you know. Did they? But they supported us, I mean. They didn't disapprove. They helped the true believers get their first van, you know, to tour and stuff. But I didn't have that, like, you know, that push or that kind of reckoning that you're an artist and, you know, you're free to move on and do what you want to do, you know. It was always a struggle. Which is interesting because you've done just so many interesting things in your career.

1:02:53A couple of years ago, you revisited the idea of crossing the border with... The crossing. Yeah, with The Crossing, and then released a Spanish version, and there's Italian songs on it. You've done, you seem quite fearless.

1:03:11And I would have guessed you'd have had parents saying the whole time, you can do anything, you can do anything. Where does that come from? Defiance, I think, more than anything. You know, there was always a sense that I wasn't going to be told what to do. and that I wasn't going to be pigeonholed into any sort of box. I wasn't just a Chicano. I wasn't just a Mexican-American. I didn't want to be defined by race and culture. I wanted to be my own person. And I think that the fearlessness just comes from, which is a wonderful little gadget to have in your toolbox if you're a musician, you know.

1:03:57Just came from wanting to, I heard it all. Like, you know, it was a broad spectrum of things that I drew from, you know, from Mexican music to the Velvet Underground to, you know, Coltrane to Smokey Robinson to, it was all there, you know. And I ate it all up and I wanted it. And how can I make this work? And I wasn't like, you know, because I started so late, I wasn't like a musician's musician or anything, you know. I could barely play guitar. I learned to write songs by basically taking apart Dylan songs and Ian Hunter songs and John Kale songs and just kind of reconstructing them, you know.

1:04:42But all those guys that I admired were fearless in my eyes. Lou Reed, John Kale, Judy Nylon, you know. from judy i learned so much about just being able to stand up and say this is me and this is what i do and i'm proud of what i do and you know take it or leave it you know can you do that now yeah yeah i'm not afraid anymore no when did that i don't have that fear was there a time that changed

1:05:16it took a long time man you know it's funny to say that now because like i just told you i'm gonna be 74 but i was maybe 50 or so when i finally learned how to say no to people oh really you know i always wanted to kind of like you know you know i had this therapist who told me uh his his his thing was based on l ron early l ron hubbard and buddhism he was a buddhist right but it was truth seeking right and he says you know i feel like taking you by the collar and just throwing you up against the wall right now I said why he goes because you lie you won't tell me the truth I said I don't lie he goes why are you lying I go I don't lie he goes why are you lying I go well you know it's something I started to break down you're like well am I paying for this and it came down to like I don't want to hurt other people's feelings.

1:06:22Right. And he goes, well, you know, the responsibility is not yours, you know. It's theirs. The truth is there for them to digest in whatever way they're going to. They could be hurt. They could be pissed off. They could be angry at you, but that's not your problem. Yeah. And I took those words to heart. Hmm. You know, you grow up number seven in a family of 13, you probably learned to get along. You have to. There's no other way. My brother lived, we were in bunk beds and sleeping on the floor and wherever. In the car, if your brother was bugging you, I'd go out and sleep in the backyard or whatever.

1:07:10So yeah, it was a tight fit, 13 kids. We didn't all live together at one time, but there was always a lot of kids you know sure and my dad and mom were did their best well you know my mom and dad because of their interest in culture and music they they love bars and they love to go out dancing so like growing up we spent a lot of nights out in the car locked up with our pajamas on while they went into these dance halls in texas and people fighting and making love and you know whatever against the car the kids wake up I was the oldest usually and trying to calm down my brothers and sisters you know until they came yeah so it was an odd childhood yeah you then worked with Tony Visconti who of course did a lot of those T-Rex Bowie all those albums what did you get from him I'll tell you the story so initially I was supposed to work with Glyn Johns and Chuck and I Chuck Buffett and I went out to he lived in Aix-de-Provence and we went out and visited him in his villa that he lives in and we spent some time with him but we didn't see eye to eye on what the record should be and so uh we decided not to work with glenn and i called up being ralphini who was the head of uh emi and blue note at the time and told him you know i don't think this is going to work and so uh you know it's funny because then the record company was telling me that we didn't have the songs but we had written every song that was on the album we had that album intact we thought we were ready and so they told me that no we don't hear it and you need to go back and write so i called up ian hunter and ian hunter said well come on out show me your songs you know so i came out here and was that the first time you'd ever met him or had you known him before i met him before yeah because he was also on that portville record the tribute record right so and we listened all the songs and it was amazing you know we'd go down in the basement and and i would play him the songs and he would he would just basically say these are great songs and so the only lesson that he said i need to tell you is that just don't let the record company fuck with you you know and he taught me this other trick about when to record like how to hold the mic and really perform thing and uh and so then uh in said well what about tony i said oh man that would be amazing so tony flew out to chicago and saw a sound check and uh didn't realize that we were kind of rocked more than we you know was on records you know so he loved that yeah says we want to make we should make a rock and roll record you know and we had the songs and we went out recorded the studio in Lexington, Kentucky.

1:10:30And I just loved it, man. And it was great. So we made three records together. We made Real Animals, Street Songs, and Big Station together. And, you know, like Street Songs of Love was written in front of an audience, you know, in Austin. We took on a residency of two months so we'd play like every tuesday night i'd call the band in i'd have a verse or chorus titles sometimes and we we took austin motel was our green room across the street we went back over and i'd come out and play what little i had to the audience first acoustically and then david my guitar david pokenham and my guitar player would come out we do it together then the band would come and we'd jam on it a little bit and then play the rest of our set songs we knew and stuff but we'd always kind of do like two or three ideas a week right and so then the audience began to build and south austin was really hip at that time it's really cool so i started to kind of take characters that were happening things situations that were happening around me those became the songs and by the end of it we had a full album tony came we did pre-production for a week then tony played with us on the last of those tuesday nights we got in the van went on a month-long tour ended up at the door of the studio in lexington and i swear we were so tight man we just played that album just like that well this is what i mean by fearless you you get up in front of an austin crowd and just say, here's a fragment and you're going to watch, they watch you build.

1:12:10Yeah. Is it important to have an audience that will, that will join you in something like that? Could you have done that in New York or a different place or was that Austin? I think that's an Austin thing. People always told me that the kind of things that happen in Austin don't happen anywhere else, you know, in those days, especially. so I think part of it was that Austin was always such a community that supported its artists in whatever fashion I mean Joe Ely made one of the first kind of techno country records ever and people loved it, High Res I think it was called but they've always been accepting of every transformation that I went through That's amazing I do want to come back to one thing you mentioned which is you didn't want to just be known as a Chicano, a Mexican songwriter.

1:13:05And it is true in the music business, certainly I think of Los Lobos, which is a band that can do almost anything, but they're always called the Chicano band from East LA. Do you think it is limiting in this business if people that when people see you they go oh well we know where the what this is when my album with these hands came out on ricoh disc you know they were pushing all the the radio promoters uh were permission pushing for my record to be played on the radio right the response from most of the radio people was uh we already have one mexican band we don't need another which was los lobos we can't pronounce his name how do you expect us to play his music you know so yeah you know and i didn't want to change my name you know right as i told you you know in my songs there's a lot of reference to my name it's weird but not my name but some you know the name you know yeah especially on the crossing it's there was that scene with the texas ranger where the ranger says what kind of wetback name is that what kind of spick name is And that really happened to me in Eagle Pass, Texas, you know, where I was introduced to a gentleman who was an ex-Texas Ranger.

1:14:26And I said, my friend said, Uncle John, this is Alejandro. So what kind of spick name is that? How old were you when that happened? I was in the True Believers. Huh? Yeah. so those kind of things have always haunted me you know and i didn't want to change my name i'm proud of my culture proud of my race i'm proud of my lineage i'm proud of my you know my family you know but my family has you know if you were to do documentary on the escovello family man it's all over the place you know and uh i think we owe that to my mom and dad really the the music and my mom was so into movies and films she would take me to see films all the time since i was a toddler you know so i was constantly being dragged to films you know she loved marlon brando she loved james dean and she loved montgomery cliff so we would go see all those movies all the time and she loved books and you know we were reading you know hemingway and steinbeck she loved those guys so we read those very early on and it was because of her you know so so as difficult as my relationship with my mother was i owe her the world probably but i certainly wasn't going to be defined by uh because i'll be honest with you i'm not really in in in the Chicano world, I'm not except, you know, they don't buy my records.

1:16:05They don't come to see me play. And yet, in my eyes, I have spoken as much about the Chicano experience as anybody has, you know? But yet, because I don't sing in Spanish, and I love the Stooges as much as I love... You do very eclectic tastes. So, you know, we got asked to play a salsa festival because of my name in San Jose, California. And the first song we did, because we knew that we weren't there. We knew they had made a mistake. We played I Want to Be Your Dog for about 15 minutes. That'll show them. Yeah, that'll show. Of course, it'll also, you'll never get asked about it. Yeah, they're going to make the check out to Alex.

1:16:50That's what they're going to do. All right, this was just such a treat and such an honor. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. Everybody should listen to this album. And it's a great primer on your early days, and it'll drive all people back to those great albums. So thank you so much. Well, I appreciate you having me. Thank you. No, no, no. An absolute joy. It's a cool space you got. I wish it were mine. I would live in here if I could. Thank you so much. And you successfully resisted playing the guitar the whole time. But thank you, though. See, that's power. All right. Thank you again. Thank you to Alejandro Escovito for talking about his career and a bit about the making of his new album, Echo Dancing.

1:17:33You can hear all of our favorite tracks from Alejandro Escovito on a playlist in the show notes for this episode. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at The Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Toleroy. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for$4.99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions.

1:18:11And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.

1:18:22This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Traveling is one of life's greatest joys. Honestly, can anything be more exhilarating? Well, actually, yeah, with Chase Sapphire Reserve. It's your gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. First, you will earn eight times points on all purchases through Chase Travel. And the card gets you into Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide and access to one-of-a-kind experiences. Whether you are booking a once-in-a-lifetime trip or your next week in escape, discover more with Chase Sapphire Reserve at chase.com slash sapphire reserve.

1:19:00Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval, terms apply. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. I'm Glenn Washington, the host of KQED's Snap Judgment podcast, And at Snap, we don't just tell stories.

1:19:44We live them. Every week, a different journey, like on a plane with Rihanna. A racetrack in Tijuana. A year inside an Oakland homeless encampment. Real people, real voices with original music and cinematic sound. Snap Judgment from KQED. New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you.