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With one voice

Musician bridges troubled waters playing messages for mankind

Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 3, 2006 at midnight

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As a traveling musician in troubled times, Manu Chao, one of the founders of the alternative Latin/punk music scene, sees more than he ever wanted to see. Places he has sung, cities in which he has lived, have seen terrible violence.

"What happened in Spain with the bombs in Madrid, what's happening in France is part of the process of what's happening in the world. Everything is going crazy, my friend," Chao says via phone from Paris. "The situation is more and more disintegrating, getting worse and worse. The general problem is quite dangerous.

"When you write a song you're always influenced by your surroundings. Of course the world in which I'm living becomes part of my songs. More and more this world is going crazy and more and more it's an emergency to find solutions," he says.

Raised in Paris, Chao spent time living in Spain and has traveled extensively throughout the world, although tonight's show at the Fillmore Auditorium is his first trip to Denver.

"The music gave me the opportunity to travel. Traveling is the best university you can have in life. I've been lucky enough to get in this fabulous university. The more you learn about other cultures the more you understand your own culture," he says.

Chao's work and that of his previous band, Mano Negra, is touched by vast influences ranging from traditional Latin music to the hardcore punk music that attracted Chao as a teenager. His lyrics lean toward the political.

"When I got into music it was because I was a fan of music. I wanted to do music like any teenager," he says. In songwriting, he says, "you try to be honest in your life and your job and go on. I don't know why it works for me. A lot of people might consider my career not normal. But you don't need somebody you see every day on TV. I have a lot of people who listen to my music, that's for sure. And that's it. I try to be honest. That's the main work. I try to be honest with myself. If I'm honest with myself, I'm honest with everybody."

While he has a vast following in Europe and South America, Chao has never broken big in the U.S. and isn't sure he will.

"I'm not the best person to analyze that. We never tried to force the thing, sell CDs and get famous in the U.S.," he says.

Then again, "we never tried that in Europe or South America. My question is why it's going so good in Europe and South America? Even in Europe, they never understand why the guy who never goes on TV has gigs that are always full."

His only significant exposure over here was at a Central Park gig a few years back.

"When you're playing in Central Park in New York you're playing for people from all over the world. Everwhere I go around the world I can find somebody who tells me 'I saw you in Central Park.' New York for me is a place I really like; I really feel at home there. I've got people who know me and know my music because there are people from everywhere," he says.

His travels have given him insight into terrorism, war, immigration and other issues of the day.

With immigration, "the problem in the U.S.A. is the same as in Europe. There is a big, big hypocrisy about that. All the politicians say they want to regulate immigration, stop everybody at the borders. But at the same time the industry and economy needs the immigration. They want immigrants without papers because they can treat them like slaves. There's this hypocrisy. Immigrants without papers can be fired in a minute. They've got no rights. They've got nothing," he says.

"The politicians say one thing and the industry says another thing. And the economy is stronger than the politicians."



Mark Brown is the popular music critic. or 303-892-2674