Julieta Venegas on music, storytelling, and social change.

By Camille T. Taiara

IN AN ERA of musical maquiladoras spewing out grotesque quantities of production-line pop, Julieta Venegas serves as an inspiring counterweight to the glitzy glam and flashy, hollow fanfare many North Americans associate with her hometown of Tijuana.

The 30-year-old singer-songwriter began playing the piano when she was six. She studied classical music while simultaneously playing in a series of underground bands, starting in the mid '80s with Chantaje – precursor to the combative punk-ska group Tijuana No – before opting to go solo. She composes her own music, pens her own lyrics, and plays the piano, accordion, guitar, keyboards, drum machine, and synthesizer.

Her two solo albums, produced by Gustavo Santaolalla of Amores Perros fame, are melodic houses of spirits in which she explores the recesses of the human psyche, amid moody, sometimes carnivalesque soundscapes. Her voice is clear, multitonal, distinctive. Her compositions demonstrate the experimentalism of Tom Waits and Los Lobos and the intimacy of Suzanne Vega, but with a distinctly Mexican temperament.

Julieta maintains a childlike fascination for melody. She exudes the enviable freedom of spirit of someone who's truly doing what she loves.

I spent an hour with Venegas last time she was in town, during sound check prior to her show at the Justice League March 30. The portrait that emerged from the interview was that of a true music aficionado in touch with her own creative process and with the balls to take chances and see where they lead. Here's what she had to say.

Bay Guardian: People have described your music in very different ways. How would you describe it?

Julieta Venegas: It's hard for me to pin myself down to a certain style. I'm very intuitive when I'm working. I let the songs take me where they have to take me ... I have a theory that people describe themselves through music – describe their stories, also. And my story is, I'm from Tijuana. My mom is someone who listened to Tom Jones just as much as she listened to Juan Gabriel, José José, Pedro Infante. And I think being Mexican, having a certain temperament, has made my music take a certain direction.

BG: What are some of your musical influences? I'd like you to take the question in the broadest terms. It could be other musicians, but it could also be from growing up in Tijuana where you're exposed to different cultures that blend and form hybrids you wouldn't see elsewhere. Or it could be that you were sitting at a bus stop, hearing different sounds, and you get an idea for a song ...

JV: I grew up a music lover. All my family are music fans. I didn't really listen to that many Mexican or Latin rock musicians when I was growing up. It was mostly American or European. I started playing music with classical piano. When I started writing songs, I was playing with a rock band. I didn't really like reggae and ska, but I wound up playing in a reggae and ska band. It was my introduction into improvisation, composing, another side of music that I had never explored. It was a process of playing in bands and realizing that what I was playing wasn't really what I was doing at home, because when I got home, I started writing songs also. Now I listen to music from a different point of view. Lou Reed was one of the people that I first listened to as a composer, who had a very different style. Now I like Los Lobos, Tom Waits, Stevie Wonder.

BG: Do you have a favorite instrument?

JV: I think it's still the piano. It's what made me get into other instruments, and it's the base for everything I've done. It's the one I've actually studied, because the other ones have been self-taught. When you're playing an acoustic piano, it just sends you somewhere. It's a timeless instrument. As soon as I start playing one, I get a bunch of ideas.

BG: I've read that you describe yourself primarily as a composer. What's it like to also sing, and how's that leading you to discover another side of your musical self?

JV: With this album, I've gotten the chance to sing with other people. I think I've discovered myself as a singer. I'm starting to believe. When [Spanish composer] Joan Valent first invited me to sing, he invited me to sing a bolero that Chavela Vargas used to sing. And I had never sung one before. I thought, "You're crazy. You're taking me to Spain and putting me in front of an orchestra?" It was for a Mexican film, Demasiado Amor. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it. But it was a good experience for me ... I'm starting to enjoy it. And I'm starting to compose in a different way, too. I was being very melodic with songwriting, but now I'm starting to simplify a lot of the melodies to give more importance to the vocals.

BG: You've performed in various countries – Mexico, the United States, Spain, Italy, Venezuela, Colombia. How have the different audiences reacted to you?

JV: Latino audiences are not passive. Either they love you or they hate you, but they're very giving. You can't be passive to that energy. In Mexico, when we did the Revolución tour, I especially got that feeling. If I wasn't reacting to them, they would eat me up. I was opening up for Jaguares with three other bands, and the audience didn't really know me. I was playing right before the Jaguares, so by that time, they were like, "If you don't give us something good, we're going to throw you out." So I had to come out, like, with my whip! "Down!" [Laughs]. That tour really taught me a lot. Now I carry many gadgets with me [More laughter]. Water guns ... I'm just kidding. But I like it when audiences are not politically correct. I prefer rowdy audiences to audiences that are passive. I've never gotten thrown offstage; that's a good thing [Laughs again]. In Mexico, believe me, that's a good thing!

BG: In addition to your abilities as a musician, an aspect of you as an artist that I find most intriguing is the intimate character portraits in your songs. I'm wondering where you get the inspiration for those. It's like you become somebody obsessed. You transform yourself into another person.

JV: I'm a voracious reader. That's what I love about novels: the portraits of human behavior. I like [everyone] from Dostoyevsky to Charles Dickens to Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo. Human relations in general obsess me: how we get along in life with our friends, with our families, with our lovers. Nobody is simple. And the way we react to things has so many ramifications. I like getting into somebody else's shoes and saying, "This time I'm a guy, and this is what I think." Not to simplify or stereotype. I want to paint a certain point of view.

BG: Have any of the characters you portray in your songs come directly from a book or person, or are they composites, or does it depend on which song?

JV: They're usually composites. Only, in my first album there's a song called "Andamos huyendo," which portrays the feeling of being followed by somebody. It's right out of a book entitled Andamos huyendo, Lola, by Elena Garro. Every time I read her, I get really neurotic. Somebody finally told me, after I'd read five of her books, "You really get awful when you're reading her. You really should stop." And I realized that, yes, she really gave me a weird feeling I don't like. But I like that somebody can make you feel those things. But I'm not going to read anything else by her [Laughs].

BG: What do you think of the term "rock en español" being used in the United States?

JV: That's just something to call it. It's normal to label things. Here in the States it's been getting a lot of attention in the media. But at the shows, it's still Latino people going to them. In my shows I don't see any change. I think I'll have to start playing with Anglo bands to see a change in the public. I think that "rock en español" can also be a way to categorize things and say, these are the kinds of people who go, these are the kinds of places they play at. I think music should be more free.

BG: Last March, during the Zapatista caravan to Mexico City, you made a comment about TV Azteca and Televisa's Concierto por la Paz. That leads me to ask this question: what role do you see music or art playing in social change?

JV: I think in Mexico we have to be very skeptical about the two largest television companies getting together to produce a show like that. If you want peace, there has to be political change. It has to be the government getting together with the EZLN. I'm pro-EZLN. That concert wasn't clear about who it was for. Where was the money going? Peace? What kind of peace do you want? I mean, everybody wants peace. The EZLN wants peace. The government wants peace. We want peace. But you have to sit down and talk about how you're going to get there. People were saying it was historic. I don't think it was. I think the concert was just something that was trying to lead people's attention somewhere else. There were other shows being done alternatively – some of which I participated in. We were trying to help out by sending food, sending money to communities in Chiapas.

As much as I don't want to be someone who tells people what to do, I realize that ... I'm on the stage. I have my opinion, and people will listen to it. I'm not somebody who writes about social things or political things. But it's something you can't run away from. In Mexico certain artists don't want to talk about politics. Which is really stupid. I think musicians can get people's attention. But I also think we shouldn't be the ones people rely on to make a decision. It should be an educational process. People should be more informed in general through other channels, not only by someone talking about an issue in an interview. Social change should come through education.

BG: You've had experience as an underground musician. Now you're on a major label. How has that been a change for you?

JV: I've been very lucky. I've been able to do the records I want to do. It's not like, "When are you going to start selling more records?" I have been very lucky to have a label that says, "We are developing an artist." That's something that isn't done much in Mexico. The promotions side of it gets a bit hard. But I don't think I'll go back to my underground days because underground sometimes translates into no money, bad shows, no production ...

BG: Less professionalism, the sound system's crap, or somebody doesn't show up ...

JV: Exactly.

BG: Rock en español, as with the music scene in general, still tends to be a very male-dominated genre. Lots of women still tend to play a secondary role. It matters more how you look. How has it been for you as a female musician?

JV: I've never been in a situation where I feel put aside because of being a woman. All the people I've dealt with – musicians, company people, media people – have always been very much about the music. But my dad was very mad that I was going to do music. He said I should get married, I should do something else. A lot of families in Latin America still direct their daughters [away from a career in music]. You're not to be in bars ... Industry-wise, there's still a certain reluctance among companies to sign a woman, because they still don't know what to do with us. But those things are starting to change. Now we're seeing more women musicians coming out of Latin America: Elly Guerra, Cecilia Toussaint in Mexico, in Chile there's Nicole, Javiera Parra, Ex with Colombina Parra. In Argentina there's Erica García; in Spain, La Mala Rodríguez.

BG: How about reactions from the audiences?

JV: At one show in particular during the Revolución tour, in Dallas, they were very rowdy. They were yelling, "Que se encuere! Que se encuere!" ["Take your clothes off!"] The whole show was like that. I think we do have to put our pants on and get people's respect. But they're not doing it seriously. I think people aren't used to seeing women onstage. They're going to react like that. So you just have to be like, "Oh yeah? Well, fuck you," and point them out. Yes, I look nice, but ... I can play, you know! The music is important. And it will eventually go away. Now they're saying things like, "Te amo." ["I love you."] I'll look back at them and say, "Hey, what's your girlfriend think of that?"

Julieta Venegas performs July 29, 8 p.m., Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell, S.F. $15. (415) 885-0750.

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