Before they were a family trio, the group known now as Los Lonely Boys was a family quartet led by their father, Ringo Garza Sr. Today, the band, which features brothers Henry, Jojo, and Ringo Jr., is a Grammy Award-winning group famous for songs like “Heaven” and “Onda,” in the mid-1990s, before all the fame, they were backing up their dad in local clubs and learning the ropes. But as the brothers became more and more proficient as musicians and as a unit, their father realized something. He saw that it was time to let the birds out of the nest and watch them fly on their own. And soar they did, ever since their 2004 self-titled debut LP, all the way to today, some twenty years later, with their latest offering, Resurrection, which dropped this summer on August 2.
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“He was basically the founder of Los Lonely Boys and the leader of Los Lonely Boys,” says Jojo, the bassist for the band, about his dad. “And somewhere around 1996 or 1997, he let us venture out on our own. He kept saying we were getting a little too fast for him, and he just handed the reins over, and the Los Lonely Boys that everyone knows was born then.”
For Jojo, who was born into this musical family, one where his mother was also a talented singer and songs and musicians were everywhere (lead guitarist Henry was preparing to write his first song at four years old, Jojo says), it wasn’t easy for any of the parties to split from his dad, not for him, nor for his brothers or even their father. “It was hard on all four,” Jojo says. Their father had fronted the band for years, and the brothers had followed his lead. “It was a very tough time as a family to be able to get out on our own, so to speak,” the bassist adds, “and do our things as young men when our dad had been guiding the coach, if you will.”
Jojo remembers his father was “sad a lot of the time,” but ultimately, he says, it was for the best. It was a choice that had to be made for the trio of brothers to step out as adults and see what they could do in the world. At the time, they were getting into more rollicking rock songs from intricate artists like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, while their father was into stuff from Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and the Beatles. “He said, ‘I’m going to step aside and give you guys your space,’” Jojo remembers. It was in 2004 when things really took off for the brothers. The San Angelo, Texas-born trio began to play at venues all over the region and beyond. They honed songs and refined chemistry. They then exploded.
“It takes your whole life to write your first album,” Jojo says. “But after that, it becomes work.” When they got to a studio to record, they just picked their best dozen. At the time, they were so tight together that most of the songs on that debut LP were done in one take, even the nine-minute solo-rich blues-rock track “Onda.” “For us,” Jojo says, “I think it was a natural thing. We’d played so many years together with our dad that it just became like breathing to us … But this time, it was becoming almost telepathic.”
The band was in such unison that they would even write songs and parts while on stage. For some groups, it takes weeks or months to write tracks in a studio or practice space, but the brothers of Los Lonely Boys almost did it by accident. “We wouldn’t even realize it until we did a drum fill with a guitar lick, and then we’d all look at each other like, ‘Wow, we’ll remember that for next time,’” Jojo says. They understood the magic, mathematics, and language of writing songs together. “Understanding when a song is going to pick up or lay down or break down,” he adds.
When you’re that close as a family, the connection is beyond organic. It becomes something even spiritual, a quality that Henry, Ringo Jr., and Jojo take very seriously to this day. As tangible food feeds the human body, music feeds the human soul. The brothers feel that they are merely the tool of expression for the Creator in this way. If an audience member at one of their shows grins or sheds a tear or starts dancing, that’s because the music was meant to inspire those reactions, almost like directions from on high. They feel called to this and honor the vocation. But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Sometimes it’s real work. The brothers, though, are studied and don’t run from what it takes to push forward. Even as kids, they were listening to the greats.
“We’d hear Ronnie Milsap, even the Beatles,” Jojo says. “And we’d say, ‘Daddy, they’re singing your song!’ Of course, he’d go, ‘Yeah, they are!’ For Los Lonely Boys [songwriting means] basically taking a piece here, a piece there, a snippet here, a snippet there and finding the things that meld together most organically.”
In this way, the group is without genre, and that’s how the brothers like to think about it. Sure, they traverse pop spaces, blues, and rock—including on tracks like “Crazy Dream” and “Hollywood” from their 2004 record. But, as Jojo puts it, the music is less a style and more like the breeze. “It’s as simple as the wind that blows outside between each leaf of every tree,” he says. “It’s the same breeze no matter what continent or what part [of the world] you’re on. Music is that way for Los Lonely Boys. If it’s supposed to thump, it’s going to thump. If it’s supposed to growl or roar, it’s going to do that.”
In other words, the brothers know they must embrace whatever the song requires of them; however, it should be appropriately expressed. They are the vehicles for the music, not the other way around. Over the years, as their writing has become more nuanced and refined, they’ve figured out how to paint more profound, more intricate pictures with words and parts. “All of a sudden,” Jojo says, “music becomes this thing, this learned thing for even your own people. You wind up becoming a teacher through music.”
To date, the group has put out six records, including Resurrection. Their last album, though, came out 11 years prior in 2013. Over the decades, they’ve recorded with artists like Willie Nelson and Santana, earned Grammy nominations and wins, and even performed during the 2008 World Series, harmonizing through the National Anthem. They’ve charted on Billboard and seen the world via thousands of tour dates. This life, though magical, is still odd. For a family band, it means they can’t often see their wives and kids much of the year. It means constant travel, hotels, and never-ending pavement. There is a lot of good and a lot to struggle with along the way. But the result of that is, if nothing else, growth.
“If you can’t embrace growth,” Jojo says, “then you’re kind of a waste of life. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always something special about remaining organic and in a certain place. But we, as people, as human beings, are made to grow. Everything we do or express in our own abilities should be part of that.”
Los Lonely Boys have learned that the music business can be fast-paced, relentless, and sometimes unforgiving. And while they’ve had to adapt over the years, some things do remain constant, including their appreciation of the idea that they are vessels of expression for important spiritual or familial qualities. And when it comes to the title of their new 10-track record, the band is telling fans and music lovers that they’re back. “Some people are like, ‘Where y’all been? What ya’ll been doing?’” says Jojo. “For Los Lonely Boys, Resurrection means just giving new life, a new breath of air to something that is much needed.”
Most of the album’s tracks touch on themes of love (romantic or otherwise), something the trio intentionally puts forward. “When it’s all broken down, it’s about healing and hope and about believing in each other and in one another,” the bassist says. “But it’s also about having a good time.” Standout songs include the rhythmic “Dance With Me,” which is about the relationship between two lovers and whether that interplay, so to speak, can last a lifetime. Another standout is the concluding song, “Bloodwater,” a deep blues-rock jam about mortality that tugs on heartstrings as much as it showcases supreme musicianship and bold style.
And with a giant summer tour with their friends Los Lobos, now mainly behind them, though there are more dates set for the fall and beyond, the band’s lives as road dogs continue. While that can be arduous for the trio, what makes it all worth it is seeing the transformation that their music can offer those in attendance. “There’s a lot to be very appreciative about,” Jojo says. “One of the things about the tour that I still love and think my brothers love most is watching the people molecularly be altered by the energy and vibrations of the music. That is something that you just can’t get anywhere else.”
While that change happens in people, Jojo says, in a way, it is also something outside of our corporeal bodies. Something even more extraordinary than our shared humanity. For Los Lonely Boys, a group of brothers who play “Texican Rock n’ Roll” and have seen the highest highs the art form can offer, to be lifelong artists and carry on the tradition their father started is the ultimate reward. “The greatest thing about it,” Jojo says of the emotive, at times-raucous profession he shares with Henry and Ringo Jr., “is to be a small portion of the expression of the gift and blessing of music.”
Photo by Matt Lankes
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