Entertainment
They Love the ’80s
Still inspired by retro sounds Los Amigos Invisibles isn’t afraid of pushing its music
During the ’70s energy crises, Venezuela was a cosmopolitan country riding high on inflated oil revenues, but the 1980s oil glut crippled the economy and set the stage for the Bolivarian Revolution. This dramatic shift changed the country’s place in the world, but for a group of Venezuelan teens, it sparked an artistic renaissance that inspired Los Amigos Invisibles.
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Still inspired by retro sounds Los Amigos Invisibles isn’t afraid of pushing its music
During the ’70s energy crises, Venezuela was a cosmopolitan country riding high on inflated oil revenues, but the 1980s oil glut crippled the economy and set the stage for the Bolivarian Revolution. This dramatic shift changed the country’s place in the world, but for a group of Venezuelan teens, it sparked an artistic renaissance that inspired Los Amigos Invisibles.
“We were such a rich country in the ’70s that artists like the Police, Queen and Michael Jackson all came here, and people preferred to see them than a Venezuelan band,” recalls Los Amigos guitarist and songwriter Cheo. “In the ’80s, the country couldn’t afford to bring as many artists, so people started doing stuff in Venezuela. There was a huge boom of singers, movies and productions, and we suddenly had all these musicians we loved.”
Inspired by the ’80s music boom, Los Amigos Invisibles emerged in the early ’90s with a street-party sound grounded in acid jazz, disco and funk. Discovered in the states by David Byrne (Talking Heads), the band soon went global performing in over 60 countries and relocating to NYC in 2001. Two decades after their Caracas-based launch, Los Amigos continue to innovate with their new album, Repeat After Me.
“We don’t fear anything sound wise,” says Cheo, born Jose Luis Pardo. “We play cumbia, drum ‘n’ bass, house, funk, dance. We don’t have any fears of where we push the music.”
Though steeped in the band’s signature disco-funk sound, Repeat After Me expands the musical palate to appeal more to international audiences. The romantic “La Que Me Gusta” is certainly accessible even in Spanish, but nearly the half the tracks are in English. The band even channeled Duran Duran and Human League on the electro-dance “Hopeless Romance.”
Band members tracked Repeat After Me during stops in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Caracas.
“We spend the whole year playing live,” explains Cheo. “For us, that is more important than radio singles so the songs need to work in the live show, on the dance floor. For example, there is a build up in the middle of the song ‘Sexappeal,’ and we made it longer because it really worked live.”
Whether in concert or on record, Los Amigos masterfully creates a party music vibe, so it’s fitting that Cheo supports medical marijuana. He concludes, “I support it, definitely. People should be able to do whatever they do, and if you are allowed to drink alcohol, you should be allowed to smoke marijuana. I don’t see the difference at all.”
Not Commercial Sounding
“When we did Commercial, it was our attempt to do the most pop album we could do,” says Cheo of Los Amigos Invisibles’ Latin Grammy-winning 2009 album. “It worked well in Latin America, but it didn’t really work in the U.S. On [Repeat After Me], we tried to do music that sounds more like the stuff we listen to. We weren’t trying to do Commercial [again], but we did want to reach a more Anglo crowd, which is one of the reasons we wrote more in English. We have lived here for 12 years, and most of us live our daily lives in English, so it feels more natural than it did 10 years ago.”
