So, this is your first UK tour. What has the British response been like?

We’ve played in London a few times before, but this was our first time playing outside the capital. We’ve all found everyone to be really relaxed and open minded. Sometimes it’s harder in the US to get people attending gigs. The Latin Market is very different in the US to here. Latin music in the UK, I think, is still seen as something exotic and different, so lots of people turn up out of curiosity

I hope that now you’re all living in NYC you don’t neglect Venezuela!

No of course not, we go very often, usually once a month at least. LAI HQ is New York, but the only place we get really huge audiences is in Venezuela, so we like to respect this. We do a regular New Year’s Eve gig in Caracas, which is great - we started doing it in 1994. We played The Loft last year which was great. Now everyone expects us to be doing the big New Year’s Eve thing, it’s got a kind of following. We all love Maracaibo too, it’s a funny kind of place, the party scene at night can be totally crazy.

Apart from the sounds and rhythms you find in Venezuelan music, what else about your culture has influenced your music?

Venezuelan culture and everyday life pervades our lyrics more than anything else. Life is different in Venezuela to other parts of Latin America - everyday things are different and our lyrics reflect that. Our lyrics are very influenced by sex and sexual words…the thing is, is that Venezuela is very open about sex, people talk about it all the time. (Ed. - check out “Ponerte en cuatro” on LAI’s 2nd album “The new sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera” for a prime example!)

Considering the recent political situation in Venezuela, has that influenced your music in any way?

Well, politics never was a strong influence on us when we first started out, but lately the situation has forced everyone to take sides and have a point of view. There is no escaping it and for the first time LAI have started to put across their political views openly. We have actually played two shows for the opposition and have even had the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez comment about us - he said, “I really like rock from Venezuela, especially LAI, but I think they belong to the opposition because I never see them!”

I assume you must be tired of that joke by now?

Yeah everyone says “LAI? But I can see you!”

What are your plans for the next 12 months, what do you see influencing your music?

Well, we are currently planning our strategy for the next year. We are recording a new album which will be a selection of covers of Venezuelan hits from the '60s, '70s and '80s, for example Media Luna by Giordano. Our idea is to explore these songs in a new and modern way. Media Luna for example is very down tempo with conga rhythms and we are going to restyle it in a disco funk genre.

I’m sure it will be well received in Venezuela but what about in Europe and the US?

Yes, we are expecting it to be successful in Venezuela - we have tried to emulate other artists’ styles when doing the covers, like Zero7 and Air. Regarding Venezuelans we feel like we are going into the final game with extra reinforcements! We are also hoping that LAI fans elsewhere will like it to. We are approaching the songs in an alternative, modern way. The songs we have chosen are good, timeless classics that should have wide appeal, we are not covering Venezuelan folk songs!

Did the two Grammy nominations help you become more widely known and recognised?

Sure, I think the peak of our popularity coincided with the two nominations. It was after this that we moved to NYC. We also had problems with our record label around this time and in fact Arepa 3000 was written in 2000 but wasn’t released until 2003. It should have been on the streets well before this, it was quite frustrating

Your most recent album sees you collaborating with producers Masters At Work. How did that relationship begin?

Well the first time we all heard NuYorican Soul, no-one knew what had hit them. We all felt like this was the same kind of vibe we wanted to achieve. Since then, we’d always set our sights on working with Masters At Work. We eventually met ‘Little’ Louis Vega at one of our gigs in NYC. When we moved to NY, we started hanging out at parties in Centro Fly, thrown by Louis Vega. One day we proposed a collaboration and the result was Bruja. After the success of this, we agreed with Louis Vega to do a full album.

Do you have any other collaborations lined up for the future?

Well we’ve done some work in the past with Dimitri from Paris and in fact he is going to be co-producing our next record which should be out in late 2005.

RELATED LINKS:
Los Amigos Invisibles - official website
Luaka Bop

	Buy Los Amigos Invisibles's Venezuelan Zinga Son Vol.1 album at Amazon UK (CD) | US (CD).
	Buy Los Amigos Invisibles's Arepa 3000: A Venezuelan Journey Into Space album at Amazon UK (CD) | US (CD).
	Buy Los Amigos Invisibles's The New Sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera album at Amazon UK (CD) | US (CD).

PUBLISHED: Sunday 24 October

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