Los Lobos

Vocalist and guitarist, David Hidalgo, met the drummer, Louie Perez, at Dixon High School in Dixon, California. The pair bonded over their mutual taste in music and they soon began writing songs together. In our interview, Louie Perez spoke to us about these early days alongside Hidalgo: "We played guitars and wrote songs and listened to records, and I remember him putting on Randy Newman's record and Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind, and Todd Rundgren's Runt. To me songwriting was something that I'd never thought about, but when The Byrds were interpreting Bob Dylan and that stuff started happening, it was like wow, this is like songs. And then of course Smokey Robinson. It was like, wait a second, there's something more than just moving to the groove. There's actually something that this is all about. That's when I realized that you can take your experience and translate it in another way: songwriting." Hidaglo and Perez were joined by fellow students, guitarist, Cesar Rosas and bassist, Conrad Lozano, in 1973. The band originally called themselves Los Lobos del Este (de Los Angeles), which translates to "The Wolves of the East (of Los Angeles)," but this was later shortened to Los Lobos.

Los Lobos first major breakthrough came in 1980, when they supported the former Sex Pistols' frontman John Lydon's new band, Public Image Ltd, at the Olympic Auditorium in LA. Audience member, and future Los Lobos multi-instrumentalist, Steve Berlin, admitted the band did not go down very well with the Punk crowd: "I had never seen more effluvia thrown at anybody." Los Lobos would later go on to support the likes of Bob Dylan, U2, Eric Clapton, Grateful Dead and Neil Young.

Los Lobos released their debut major label album, How Will the Wolf Survive?, in 1984. The album title was taken from an issue of National Geographic, which contained an article headed "Where Can the Wolf Survive?" Perez told Rolling Stone that, after struggling for success in the US having come from Mexican roots, this headline resonated with Los Lobos: "It was like our group, our story: What is this beast, this animal that the record companies can't figure out? Will we be given the opportunity to make it or not?" In 2004, How Will the Wolf Survive? was ranked at #461 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.