Calexico: 'That Spirit Of Openness Will Hopefully Shine A Light' In Trump's America

"I have twin daughters who are six years old and my wife keeps telling me that this record is all about home, and I believe her,” smiles Calexico frontman Joey Burns of the band’s powerful ninth album The Thread That Keeps Us.

But while the album was recorded in 2017 on the Northern California coast – far away from their loved ones back in Tuscon, Arizona – it was getting back on the road rather than getting back home that spurred them in the studio.

“Sometimes those [albums recorded away from home] are the ones that are best, when you’re thinking about your loved ones and thinking about what it is that you’re doing and why you have to get up at 6am every day and stay up until 4am every night,” Burns chuckles softly. “It’s an interesting process and in a way our focus was just on getting it done quickly, trying to get as much work done so we could get back out on the road as soon as possible.

“I think that was one main driving feelings, that, ‘Holy shit, what the fuck just happened with our US Presidential election? What are we going to do now? We’re fucked! So let’s get out there as soon as we can and start spreading a more positive message out there into the world’.”

Given that the band take their name from the Californian border town of Calexico, and their distinctive brand of indie-rock is heavily infused with the exotic sounds found south of the Mexican border, it’s natural that politics was going to enter the fray in the States’ current climate.

“Especially because our part of the country – the Southwest and that region known as the [Arizona] borderlands – is portrayed as being something a bit over-the-top and too much Hollywood,” Burns continues. “There’s still talk of raising money to build a border wall, which Trump has been saying Mexico is going to pay for, and it’s so frustrating and surprising that so many people have bought into that, including some of my family.

"Holy shit, what the fuck just happened with our US Presidential election? What are we going to do now? We’re fucked!"

“So I think that’s one of the things that we really wanted to do was get out there and give our perspective on where we think life is at.”

Fatherhood has naturally magnified Burns’ anxiety about the future, but also amplified his natural desire to spread a message of tolerance and acceptance. “When I sit back and reflect each record seems to be sort of a reaction to the last record in a way,” he offers. “For the most part in the albums I can feel and hear a connection, I can feel the continuity and recognise that it’s roughly the same people and the same instrumentation.

“I can also hear – especially in the vocals – that it’s changed a lot. I’ve gone from being very shy and hushed vocalist to actually trying to sing and belt it out at times, which is really fun – it’s great to feel and know that there’s progress being made and that I’m going somewhere with it. But the next record, I have a feeling – just because of the sheer economics of trying to maintain a large seven-piece touring band with crew, it’s really challenging – that the next project will be something different in a way.

“Maybe it will be a collaboration with various bands coming together to form a touring and recording collective. Which is pretty much what we have already!” he laughs. “But that’s what I really enjoy about what we do, that it really does reiterate the importance of community and coming together, and music is that bond. It builds us and bridges us and helps fill in those gaps where we can’t really place words in and describe feelings of things, so having a song like Flores y Tamales on an album really to me opens me up to some of those things that I love about travelling or being in the Southwest where we are immersed in a multicultural community.

“I have an affinity with those things that I’m not fluent in or I’m not brought into but I still want to embrace them, and that spirit of openness will hopefully shine a light for others to find that own path within themself in their life regardless of where they come from. That’s something I definitely think about with the kids.”