For more than 50 years, Los Lobos has defied musical boundaries, blending rock, blues, Tex-Mex, country, R&B and traditional Latin sounds. Rising from East Los Angeles in the ‘70s, the band gained widespread acclaim with a Grammy-winning cover of “La Bamba” and has since built an enduring legacy with multiple awards, hit albums, and a reputation as one of the most dynamic live acts in music.
Formed in 1977, X quickly established themselves as one of the best bands in the first wave of LA’s flourishing punk scene, becoming leaders of a punk generation. Featuring vocalist Exene Cervenka, vocalist/bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom, and drummer DJ Bonebrake, X continues to tour with the original lineup intact.
However, as 2024’s “The End is Near Tour” suggested, and as the band described its ninth album, “Smoke & Fiction,” as its final album, X’s tour with Los Lobos will be one of the American punk band’s final run of shows before disbanding for good.
I recently talked with Exene ahead of the show at the Rose. I was a certified nervous wreck beforehand, expecting her semi-detached stage persona to come through the phone. (My audio recorder captured the moments leading up, which included the following statement: “My heart’s jumping out of my chest. One of these days I will get over this, but today is not the day. Fifteen seconds to go. I need some water.”)
But as soon as she said “good morning, this is Exene,” I knew everything would be okay.
I saw X at Minglewood Hall in Memphis last year, on the band’s penultimate tour. Standing near the lip of the stage, addled for a reason I can’t explain here, I experienced firsthand rockabilly, Americana, and folk bleeding into punk rock. To solidify the genre-bending of the night, a string band trio opened the show.
Billy Zoom’s guitar and John Doe’s bass were hypnotic. DJ Bonebrake was a metronome with soul. And Exene, in my recollection, stared chiefly at the ceiling, murdering her parts. (Murder, in this case, is positive.)
And amongst the crowd were more than just punks of a certain age: there were young people, in jackets with patches, looking strikingly similar to those from the late-’70s. So, what is it about X, and maybe more specifically the music, that inspires younger generations of punks?
“It’s the same thing that inspired people to start the scene in the first place,” Exene said. “There’s always going to be a percentage of young people that are looking for something completely different and original and exciting and smart. They want to be challenged, creatively and intellectually. They want to have fun, too. Let’s not forget that. I always love seeing the young people because I just know who they are: I’m you and you’re me. We’re the same.”
There was light moshing at the Memphis show, which she explained was originally called “spontaneous dancing” before the hardcore scene codified it as aggressive and ritualistic rug-cutting.
As X’s final album “Smoke & Fiction” and 2020’s “Alphabetland” proved, the band is still at the top of its game. With the original lineup still together, just like Los Lobos, I asked Exene what’s kept them going for so long.
“Luck,” she said. “Why are we not dead? Why are we still together? How can we still be playing? How can we survive so many weird things that have happened to us? How can we survive personality conflicts that come up after 50 years of knowing people? How do you have the desire to keep playing? What makes you keep going, even though it’s physically challenging? It’s the luck of the draw.”
When X was coming up in the ‘70s punk scene in LA, it wasn’t chasing a sound; it helped create one. Listening to bands that came out of that scene, not one sounded like another. They were all making it up as they went along.
Billy Zoom just played what he liked, even if that meant playing Chuck Berry riffs with more driving, distorted tones. Exene didn’t know how to sing, so she just sang whatever she thought was good to sing right then. Dual vocals between John Doe and Exene may have appeared radical to someone, but they did it because that’s what they wanted to do and nothing restricted them from doing so. That liberating mindset is true of all the bands that came out of the LA scene.
After nearly 50 years of X, why is it the end?
“Why not?” Exene said. “I don’t know, because it’s really hard to write a whole bunch of songs, practice a whole bunch of songs, work out arrangements, figure things out intellectually and musically, talk with the producer, refigure things out, go in the studio to record, and then wait four or five or six months for the record to come out.”
Exene is also the youngest one in the band: “69-and-a-half.” There, she said, was an answer for me.
“But I also think that the other reason is I don’t want to play until it’s like, ‘Oh, she can’t sing anymore. She never dances. She used to dance.’ I don’t want to be that person. Maybe I’m not at the perfection moment of my career, but at least I’m still good at it.”
Brandon Berry covers the music and arts scene in Dayton and Southwest Ohio, spotlighting local musicians, underground and touring bands, cultural events, fringe phenomena and creative spaces. Reach him at branberry100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
What: X & Los Lobos: 99 Years of Rock ‘N Roll
When: 7 p.m. Sept. 21
Where: Rose Music Center, 6800 Executive Blvd., Huber Heights
Cost: $38.50 – $64.50
Tickets: rosemusiccenter.com
About the Author
