A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH OZOMATLI


FRED JUNG: What is an ozomatli?

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: Ozomatli is an icon of this monkey. He’s a god of the new harvest and passion. He is kind of the orchestrater of the jungle. It’s a monkey. It is from the Aztec culture, ozomatli.


FJ: Once celebrated in the L.A. underground, has the mainstream embraced Ozomatli?

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: It is not like we walk down the street and people scream at us. We’re not NSYNC.


FJ: Ozomatli is inherently L.A. and with that comes all the baggage the City of Angels comes with.

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: This Hollywood thing. One thing I noticed is, “Oh, you’re from Hollywood.” It’s not really like that. It is a really big city and there is a very big mix of people and cultures. There is more to life than just Hollywood.


FJ: What happened with the Interscope deal?

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: The Interscope deal, well, our album (Embrace the Chaos) came out September 11, 2001. Who are they going to pay attention to at a time of crisis? Their Eminems, their Eves, their Dr. Dres, their No Doubts, the ones that actually secure their pocketbooks, rather than the ones that they are putting a little risk into. Let me put it to you this way. We won a Grammy that year too and they didn’t service our album.


FJ: And you just inked the deal with Concord, a jazz label.

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: So was Blue Note and that is the label that Norah Jones is on. I think it is a matter of how much heart you put into it, rather than how much bling. It is a matter of heart. We are coming full circle. We are doing stuff with the producer that did our first album. Concord is a label that I have records of. I really like them, all the jazz, all the Latin jazz. Cal Tjader started it. So for someone like me, to think about how it goes and having Norman Lear, the guy who did Chico and the Man, he was a cutting edge kind of guy for things like this and he actually encourages us to push our political issues. He has always been that kind of guy. I have never been on a label that actually encourages you to speak for humanity.


FJ: As much as you are a “rock” band, there are plenty of audible jazz influences in your playing.

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: Oh, yeah. I listen to a lot of jazz, played a lot of jazz, and went to school for jazz. I listened to, of course, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, the Jazz Messengers, Monk. I like Sun Ra, Mingus.


FJ: How much of the playing is improvising?

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: For example, me, I do a lot of vocal improvising in Spanish. Salsa had influences from all over and one of them was jazz, so when it came to the vocals, I had to come up with improvisations that are word plus melody. As far as instruments, I play horn too, so we got some jazz in our band. The horn section has always studied jazz and grew up playing jazz.


FJ: When can we expect the new album?

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: We’re pretty much in the middle of pre-production and recording right now. We’re recording things as we go. We’re hoping to turn it in this summer and hopefully, it will be out September, October, somewhere around there.


FJ: Ozo appeared in and participated in the soundtrack of the Drew Barrymore film, Never Been Kissed. We were on the set the whole day, from sunrise to sunset. It was hot in there too with the lights and everything.

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: That was fun. That was a lot of fun. That was back in ’98.


FJ: Did thought of, “That kid from E.T. filled out,” creep in?

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: I loved that movie.


FJ: If MTV’s Cribs were to come to your pad, what would they find?

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: I don’t think Cribs would want to see my place. I live in an apartment. You will find our Grammy and the place is full of toys.


FJ: You aren’t using the Grammy as a doorstop or anything?

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: No, actually, I went to a high school that was a music academy, Hamilton Academy of Music, and every year they had the Grammy in the schools and that is kind of what gave me the drive to be a musician. I got to perform with Henry Mancini and Lalo Schifrin, people that won a gang of Grammys. Out of respect, I can’t believe I have one in my house. Like Quincy Jones, I got to meet Quincy Jones. How many does he have? Like twenty?


FJ: He could use them as doorstops.

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: Yeah, I think so too (laughing).


FJ: Unlimited wealth or eternal youth?

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: Wow, now that I am a father, I could use the wealth. Yeah, because the way schools cost nowadays and clothes and then they are going to grow up and be teenagers and ask, “Hey, dad, can I have some Adidas?” “What $200.00?” Health is always the biggest expense. You never know what life may bring you. For example, when my wife was pregnant with my first son, for some reason, we were in the middle of insurances and trying to switch and they didn ’t accept my wife’s pregnancy because they called it a “preexisting condition.”


FJ: Fuckin’ HMOs.

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: Well, it wasn’t even an HMO. So the band actually made a few gigs and paid for my children’s birth, which is always a beautiful thing.


FJ: Let’s get political and turn off all the viewers. We’re living in odd times.

ASDRUBAL SIERRA: I think it is sad when, I am not going to try and be preachy or anything because that usually turns off a lot of ears and closes a lot of people’s minds because they think it goes back to the Sixties or something, but I have family in the military and so I am scared for me, my family, and the children of all those guys. It is really sad when all these guys are arguing about money because that is all it really is, money and oil. Then there are all these people that are insane like Saddam that are in power overthere. It is humanity. I think a long time ago, we opened up a can of worms with this guy. He used to be our ally. I was in a taxicab and there was this Armenian guy who was driving and we were listening to news and he tells me, “ This is crazy what is going on,” and he told me that he hoped they get that guy because he was in Iran. He lived in Iran when he was a teenager and they killed 50,000 people in one day with those dirty missiles. I saw my father. He died of it. What does missiles do is they make your skin peel off of your body. They make your head three times the size and they killed 50,000 civilians, Saddam and the United States because they were backing him and Iran was being backed by Russia. It is all about money. Everyone knows that in Iran and Iraq, you can fill up a twenty-nine-gallon tank for like two bucks. That is the real ruler there. It is not about Saddam. It is not about Bush. It is about oil. I think everybody is forgetting this movie that came out a while back, Three Kings. That was with the other Bush. It is kind of sad. I am not a political man because I hate the word politics and everything that revolves around it, but I look at everything with my children in mind. Do I want my children to live in a world like this? I don’t think most of this world wants this. These people weren’t born terrorists. They weren’t born hating America. There was a lot of nurturing done. The sad thing about this war is, as much as Saddam needs to be taken out, we are creating more people to fly a plane into a building. We are going in there and bombing people. With that kind of mentality, it only makes us less human and that is going to make it easier for his country to be just like Israel and every other day there is a bus bombing.

Fred Jung is the Editor-In-Chief and is the goalie behind Giggie on the soon to be world champion Mighty Ducks. Comments? Email Him