by LP Artist Relations Manager Steve Nigohosian, © 2000

STEVE (LP): As far as the creative process when you guys are doing albums, how much involvement do you have, not only in the music, but in the percussion parts as well?

RAUL: For me, it’s a bit of both. There are times when Carlos has something in mind and he’ll want me to play, and then there are times when he’ll allow me to create as well. There have been some things in the past, where I like started a rhythm and he’ll write something around that, so it’s a bit of both. Karl has been more involved with the creative process, as of late, than I have. And Karl is more in touch with the popular forms of music than I am. I’m a little more old school, I guess. I’ve really studied the Afro-Cuban traditional styles of music, you know, always trying to interject that in one shape or form. Although I was raised playing "Top 40s" stuff and more an R&B style of music, I still am not as proficient at it as Karl is. And so Karl has been very instrumental in helping to create a lot of the things that we do here.

STEVE (LP): Karl, what do you think, how does it work for you?

KARL: Well, when I try to approach something, there’s a couple of ways that you want to think, because we’re all producers in our own right. Obviously, we can really lay down the law if we wanted to, you know, pull all kinds of stuff. But I try to figure out what works best for the songs and listen to everyone’s parts; what the bass player is doing or what the drummer is doing. And you try to find those kind of certain holes; as opposed to layering parts. I’ll try to find a couple of holes or something like that and I’ll put stuff in there, but trying to create a rhythm that flows and it could be sporadic, it doesn’t have to be one thing all the time. On top of that, if I try that, sometimes Carlos just says, "Hey, you know, give me the bell" …boom…or something like that, you know. Then you kind of go, well, here I am trying to be creative, but he has another way of listening.

RAUL: Sometimes less is more.

KARL: Exactly, sometimes he has another way of listening and you’re there, you listen to the whole thing, and it’s like wow, you know, yeah

RAUL: The way I would equate it is he sees the big picture, and oftentimes I find myself looking at my little area of that picture that I’m supposed to take care of. And I’ll come up with something I think is wonderful and creative, but maybe it’s too busy for the overall picture; it might take away from your focus of what the song is all about. Sometimes being simple or less can be more, you know.

STEVE (LP): Yeah. How much is Carlos into the percussion?

KARL: I think very much and it really shows during a "Live" performance because Raul and I and Carlos have such a thing going. It’s not really planned it pretty much just starts happening, you know. It’s like, "Oh My God." It’s magic; that’s really what it is, it just becomes magic and we were cracking up the whole time, man. You know Carlos would look at me and then he feeds me, and then I get going and Raul starts feeding, and we get these kind of electrical charges that come between the three of us.

RAUL: It’s like a round robin.

KARL: Yeah, and it becomes just this huge…

RAUL: …An animal of its own.

KARL: …performance within the performance and we’re just like, man, and sometimes Carlos would just stop playing and reach up and shake our hands. And I’ll tell you what, hey man, when you get that one, it’s a good feeling, you’re in there…you’re like, wow, man, and you know it’s one of those things where you sweat but you don’t smell. It’s one of those things and you feel good after the gig. It’s not like, you know, " Man, I can’t wait to get back to the hotel." It’s not that. It’s like, man, we hug each other, we give each other five, and…

STEVE (LP): You know, correct me if I’m wrong, at least in the shows I’ve seen unless it’s my imagination, is he really looks to you guys and I think maybe it has something to do with that, maybe the primal instinct of drumming or the fact that it’s just an integral part of the band’s music.

RAUL: Well, you know what, it’s a little bit of both of those things. First of all, every instrument has to quote the drum. I don’t care if you’re playing violin, flute, kazoo…you have to quote the drum in its phrasings. And Carlos is so aware of that, that when he plays a phrase… there are times when he’s playing quinto within his solo, and you always have to listen to the drummer. And the thing is, too, with the music that we play within each solo; we listen to the solo so intently that we’re there to embellish. If Carlos states a phrase, it’s a question and answer; it’s call and answer. So he’ll state the question, and Karl and I will answer it. And sometimes, what’s more amazing than anything, is that we’ll answer the exact same answer at the same time and we’ll look at each other and we’ll get this grin and glow and goose bumps and hair standing on end, because that’s the magic that Karl was just talking about.

STEVE (LP): Does that come from playing together so long?

RAUL: Because Karl and I, when we first started playing together…I think the first time we sat in and played together, really was at Caesar's, and I felt it right then and there.

STEVE (LP): This was when?

RAUL: This was about 10 or 11 years ago. It was just before Karl came into the band and I felt it right from that moment, a certain oneness with Karl as if I played with him everyday for my whole life. Karl understands me better than anyone in my playing. He knows where I’m going to go, what I’m going to do, and I understand a lot of Karl. I don’t understand all of him, but I pretty much know where he’s going and we know how to support each other. And as a duo, as a team, I think we have something very, very special here.

STEVE (LP): Yeah, you know, there aren’t many percussionists, I think, who fit together like two puzzle pieces as much as you guys. I mean the other two I think of are Phil Collins and Chester Thompson, the drummer. Those guys, together, when you hear them, they complement each other so well. I think of you guys the same way because too often you hear of bands where it just doesn’t mesh.

KARL: I think a lot of it, speaking of the higher side of it, is that Raul and myself were blessed to have the ability to really listen to Carlos’ emotion within his playing, not just a chop itself, but the emotion on how it moves. We don’t hear it like in…oh, he’s doing a bar of five and there’s a seven and so I’m going to hop on that bandwagon, you know it’s not that.

STEVE (LP): It’s a more instinctual…

KARL: Well, it’s more of feeling his emotions as far as like, man, I got the blues tonight or check this out, this is how I’m feeling, and it’s like, okay, I’m going to do this because I feel you. You know what I mean, it’s like that; it’s like another thing. We do have a thing and that’s fine, but there are certain things, man, where you can feel him and sometimes if you don’t go there and he's saying, "Man, I’m giving it to you here, right now" and sometimes he’ll turn around with a look like, not pissed, and just like…

RAUL: Where were you…/p>

KARL: Yeah, "Don’t you feel me, man? Aren’t you going to go with me, man?" And it’s like that for me, you know. I watch him like a hawk, man. I might not be looking at him all the time, but my ears are 100%. And if I watch him too long, then I get into him like, "Oh man, that’s Santana" you know, then I start blowing it…"Man, I’m up here with Santana" and so I kind of look out, you know, to give me that thing. But my whole energy and my listening focus is on how he pitch bends certain things, or how he takes a chop and where he’s going to go with it, emotionally. I think Raul and I have that and we have that dream like, sometimes, we’re like [whoa, whoa, whoa], and it just kind of goes…your arms just start flying and you start going for it, and then he’ll look at you like, yeah, that was it.

STEVE (LP): Tell me what it’s like working with the drummers. I mean you guys have had a lot of great drummers; you had Walfredo Reyes, Jr., you had El Negro; Rodney Holmes. Is it hard going from one drummer to another? I mean, see this also goes back to you and Raul complement each other. Now is it kind of like, hey, we have this thing that works really well, now we have another aspect coming in that we’re going to have to try to gel to or it’s going to have to work itself out. Now you’re getting a third party, a new third party, is that tough to switch from one guy to the next?

KARL: Well, for me it is. There are certain things that you have to learn about each drummer that comes in, it’s-a- give-and take situation all the time on this gig. For me it’s a little hard, but I try to keep an open mind and listen to where he’s coming from. I mean, I don’t know, how do you feel about it?

RAUL: For me, there’s a slight transitional period of getting used to the way a drummer approaches the music and just the way that they feel time, in general. But Karl and I are professional enough to be able to play with almost any drummer. I’m sure Karl and I have done recordings where the drummer is not a good drummer and their time is terrible; you have to learn to adjust in the studio. The one blessing that we’ve had here, in this band, is that we've had great drummers. Carlos will not take any musician into this band unless they’re top notch. I’ve had the pleasure of playing with a bunch of phenomenal drummers going back to Graham Lear, Chester Thompson, Walfredo Reyes, Oresto, El Negro and Rodney Holmes; every one of them is a phenomenal drummer in their own right. The thing is there are times when, depending on the song, the song dictates who’s going to be carrying…or dictating the time. If it’s more of a funk kind of a groove, then the drummer will dictate and Karl and I will follow. But if it’s more of a Latin groove, then Karl and I pretty much dictate the time and then the drummer follows along with us.

STEVE (LP): What a great situation to be in, to be able to trade like that…

KARL: Sometimes, we’re the meat and potatoes, and sometimes, they’re the meat and potatoes.

RAUL: Exactly and you know what, some people ask me "Who’s a better drummer?" I think the two drummers that we've had here in the band, the last two drummers, El Negro and Rodney, are two of the top drummers in the world. They’re both phenomenal drummers and they both have their fortes and it’s like apples and oranges, it’s hard to say which one is better. I won’t say which one is better than the other; I think they’re both phenomenal, and we’re just blessed to be able to play with that caliber drummer.

KARL: And they’ll say the same thing. I know both those guys well. They’ll also tip their hat to the next drummer as well.

STEVE (LP): Yep, big shoes to fill too, I’m sure. Tell me a little about how you approached the recording of Supernatural, It has such a smorgasbord of different styles of music. I mean I always thought of Santana albums as you have your Blues, you have your Latin, you have a mix of things, some funk, but this album you have Wyclef Jean, you have the Matchbox 20-type, straight a head rock of Rob Thomas. I mean how do you approach those parts? And that must have been fun for you guys to really be challenged in that way of all these different genres on the same album.

KARL: Definitely, a lot of the tracks Raul and I did play on, and some of them we didn’t. But we still have to capture that thing on stage, you know, that makes it challenging for us, too. It’s not the same old thing, you know, it’s always a different avenue you’ve got to walk down. You can’t be close-minded. You have to be open enough to accept what the song is really trying to say and then just complement it, basically, without playing overbearing or just, you know… there’s a lot of different music on this record and I think we’re really doing it well.

RAUL: I’m learning every night, every time we play a song, I’m getting closer and closer to perfecting the groove for that song. It’s always a work of progress for us to try to make that song swing the best it can possibly swing and not get locked into saying, "Well, okay I’ve got it and this is the way it’s going to be." We’re open enough, and our ears are open enough, to really lock in and try to feel the heart of the song. And we have to shift gears so many times throughout a show, especially now, our show is really based on songs. Whereas before the success of this album, there were songs but it would be a song that might last 20 minutes, an instrumental song that would go through a lot of different time changes and things like that. Whereas now we’re doing more formatted-type songs, formula type songs, and that’s a great challenge of its own, you know, to play like "Love of my Life", and then to shift from there to "Maria, Maria"; and then all of a sudden, we’re doing, another whole style of playing. We just really have to be on our toes and kind of be like cats because Carlos can switch up anytime. It’s funny, we’ll be prepared to do what’s next on the list, but sometimes Carlos will switch up. He likes to do that, I think, to keep us on our toes. In other words, we have to be that cat that you drop out the window at any given moment and land on our feet and be ready, and to be able to switch gears and to go follow him whichever place he may lead us. All of sudden, we’ll be playing a song and he’ll be playing something from "Cream" (hums a song), and we have to be right there.

STEVE (LP): You got to be right behind him. You think he reads the audience, too, and looks around…

span class="karl">KARL: Yeah, I think so. I think he does and it goes back to emotional, how he feels. He knows that, man, it just sounds like we’ve been throwing too much at their face, and I’m going to slow the pace down or something like that. But, yeah, like Raul said, you have to be on your toes and your ears, you have to have big ears. Really, the way we approached this record was a song at a time. So you really don’t see the whole movie yet, you know, like we’re only doing parts of the movie or different scenes, so we have to approach each track as a movie in itself right then and there. So we recorded the first three songs and then we went to the other tunes, but it was a long while after that. And then we started playing, just coming in, and doing overdubbed parts of songs and listening. So we never did hear the whole picture or see the whole picture or hear the whole picture, until the final product, and that’s what made it special. And also, it made it fresh, you know it was like, wow, okay. So you’re going into work and in the studio, okay we’re going to do something with K.C. Porter today and that’s it, let's see what K.C. has. He’s coming in and going, "Just help me plant this flower; let’s grow it together, see how it comes up." So we come in, we do our thing. There’s many drummers on the record, Gregg Bissonette, El Negro, Rodney, Billy Johnson, and they all added their own thing. Then there’s ….

RAUL: Alex Gonzalez (Maná’s drummer)…

KARL: Alex is on the record, yeah, that’s right. So there are different drummers, so when I hear each song, it's like, wow man, listen to that.

STEVE (LP): That almost keeps you on your toes much like you said when Carlos switches the set list around. Having so many different drummers must keep you on your toes, too, you know, because everybody has got their own fingerprint and their own vibes…

KARL: Exactly, that’s the key thing, the vibe, and that’s hard to capture is the vibe. Carlos is very, very sensitive to that…super duper…and I understand it and I recommend it, you know what I mean.

RAUL: You know what was a lot of fun is when we did the thing with Maná. Karl and I flew down to LA to record the song with Maná and it was wonderful. We worked great with them, but we had to keep in mind that the guitar solo was going to be put on later. So we had to envision what was going to happen and where is Carlos going to feel the notes in the solo. But thank goodness, Karl and I have enough experience of playing with Carlos that we were able to envision, and have the foresight, of being able to throw a little couple of licks here and a lick here and leave room for him here, you don’t want to crowd him, and we did all that without the solo being there.

STEVE (LP): That must be hard to…

KARL: Well, I was just going to elaborate on that. It’s not only playing with the man, but Raul and I grew up listening to him. So we really soaked in the music, you know, for us in the Bay area, San Francisco. Santana was like…that’s it, Santanaville…you got the bridge and you got Santana. Santana is a big part of this whole city…

STEVE (LP): The whole identity of the city.

KARL: …and so you’re growing up, you’re listening to him. I mean although Carlos took the solo to another level, he was just so inspired by what everyone had to offer. The whole album and his playing is unbelievable because it brings out another person; it’s always a different spark that causes the fire, it’s a different catalyst and so each song brought out another personality in Carlos/p>

STEVE (LP): That sounds like something that he probably wanted to get back to for a long time as well. I mean do you think it ever left?

KARL: I don’t think he’s ever left it, I don’t think so, man.

RAUL: Carlos has always been growing, musically and spiritually every day, and that’s really something that Karl and I take to heart is the fact that…what Karl and I have really learned from Carlos is his standard, his high standard, of perfection. In other words, he won’t settle for people going half-assed at something. You have to give it your all, 120% every time, even when we’re in rehearsal or during a sound chip. You know a lot of people think, "Oh, this is the time when I can kind of relax and just play," you know…no. Every minute that we play an instrument on the same stage or anywhere together, we’ve learned that we have to give it our best and give it our heart and our soul. And I’ll be able to take that with me for the rest of my life; that high standard that he has and that he’s taught us.

KARL: Oh, he knows, yeah. A couple of nights go by, you aint right, and he’ll just ask, "Everything okay at home?"

STEVE(LP): He can tell through the music.

RAUL: Absolutely.

STEVE (LP): That’s kind of scary someone can read you that well…

RAUL & KARL: It’s wonderful.

STEVE (LP): What song off of the album, this current album, and also if you guys can name a song off of past albums you played on from a percussionist’s point of view, what’s the most fun song to play, which one showcases you guys the best, is there one? In particular this album, if we were to listen to the whole album, which one just gives you that vibe where you were like "Man, this is it, this is the one percussion wise that just gives us a chance to really sink our teeth into this tune?"

RAUL: My answer to that is, on this album, we didn't really have that opportunity, but that’s fine; that’s not what this album was meant to be. The closest thing to it would have been, I think, " Day of Celebration" which is the hidden track or (Da Le) Yaleo. If you go back to the last couple of albums that we did, "Sacred Fire" and "Milagro." I think "Milagro" for me, really showcases what Karl and I do best. That’s where we had pretty much free reign to do what we wanted to do, and we don’t need to have that on every album. You know we were able to…I was able to get my rocks off there and that’s fine with me. That’s my own answer; I don’t know how Karl feels.

KARL: Well, you know I try to be as humble as possible and I approach every song like it’s going to be the number one tune. I don’t try to cheat a tune or song at all. I don’t need a spot because I really, I love to groove, and for me, that’s the thing.

STEVE (LP): I think that’s why a lot of people think of you guys, as musicians not just as percussionists. You could be selfish if you wanted to be, but what you guys do is, my take on this, when you’re doing the parts or you’re coming up with your drum parts, you really are thinking of the music as a whole. You’re thinking, how are the drums going to take this thing to another level and complement what other instruments are on, what Carlos is playing, what the lyrics are, what the groove is. And that’s the difference to me between musicianship and just being, say, a drummer or a guitarist. I mean it goes back to the full picture you were talking about. You try and envision the full picture; how your particular color is going to look when someone stands back and looks at that whole painting, how it’s going to jump out at them.

RAUL: Karl said it best, too. As far as drummers are concerned or percussionists are concerned, and it’s something I’ve adhered to my whole playing career and I just never had a way of saying it the way Karl said it, I think he said it best by what we do, as drummers or percussionists, is play a groove and swing. And we have to do that maybe 90% of the time. I can’t remember exactly the percentage you had quoted, but it might be 90 to 95% of the time and that’s really what we do. The soloing is 5% of it, and so you really have to concentrate on being able to hold a groove and make that groove breathe and live because you can’t just play it straight, it has to have curves and valleys in it. In other words, if you play it straight, then you can get a machine to do that. You have to be able to give a groove life. You can do it with something so simple, and that’s the challenge every night./p>

Please check out Karl & Raul's drums.