Moon & Stars The Mavericks

• 1 The Years Will Not Be Kind 03:25
• 2 Live Close By (Visit Often) [with Nicole Atkins] 03:20
• 3 Moon & Stars (with Sierra Ferrell) 04:34
• 4 Look Around You (with Maggie Rose) 04:44
• 5 And We Dance 03:44
• 6 Without a Word 03:39
• 7 Overnight Success 02:54
• 8 Here You Come Again (with Max Abrams) 03:30
• 9 A Guitar and a Bottle of Wine 03:11
• 10 The Name of the Game 05:11
• 11 Turn Yourself Around 04:08
• Total Runtime 42:20

Info for Moon & Stars

Americana icons The Mavericks have announced details of their highly-anticipated new album ‘Moon & Stars’. The record is due for release on 17th May via the band’s Mono Mundo Recordings imprint in conjunction with Thirty Tigers.

The group’s 13th studio album marks their first new music release since 2020’s ground-breaking and chart-topping ‘En Espanol’ project. ‘Moon & Stars’ is their first full English language release since ‘Brand New Day’ in 2017.

The Mavericks recorded the tracks for ‘Moon & Stars’ across the US in Blackbird Studio (Nashville, Tennessee), Frogville Studios (Santa Fe, New Mexico) and Dockside Studio (Maurice, Louisiana). The result is an album that invokes both a timeless feel of a classic Mavericks release, while once again challenging genre conventions and pushing the boundaries of their melting pot sound.

Special guests on the album include Maggie Rose, Nicole Atkins, the band’s own ‘Fantastic Five’ member Max Abrams and Sierra Ferrell who signs on the title track and first release. The band has also collaborated with songwriters such as Bernie Taupin, Sam Hollander, Wally Wilson, and more.

The Mavericks

The Mavericks
Any band that manages to survive three decades, seeing its core members go from young adults to veteran musicians is bound to have its swings and cycles. ​

The Mavericks, the eclectic rock and country group known for crisscrossing musical boundaries with abandon, has gone through three distinct phases since it was founded in Miami in 1989. An initial period of heady success marked by big hits and critical acclaim in the ‘90s. A long hiatus starting 2003 when the musicians each went their own way. And finally, a triumphant reunion in 2012 which held long enough for them to recently celebrate the band’s 30th anniversary. ​

Now, The Mavericks are releasing a new album that ushers in the fourth phase of their evolution. “It's like we've had three different lives,” says Raul Malo, the band’s lead singer and songwriter, “and now this is a whole new beginning. We’re sort of going into uncharted territory. I’m looking forward to it and I’m kind of nervous about it too. It's certainly a new adventure.” ​

On August 21, The Mavericks officially launch that adventure with the debut of their first-ever, all-Spanish album, released on the band’s own Mono Mundo label. Entitled simply En Español, it is produced by Malo and the band’s long-time collaborator Niko Bolas (Neil Young, Prince, Sheryl Crow). The line-up includes Malo’s fellow Miamian and charter bandmember, Paul Deakin on drums and vibraphone, as well as veteran Jerry Dale McFadden, who joined in 1993. Eddie Perez, a Mexican American guitarist from Los Angeles, is the band’s youngest and newest member, becoming a Maverick in 2003.

The band readily embraced the all-Latin concept, as a team. “It’s a communal project in many ways,” says Malo, “even though I'm leading the charge,” ​

Although all 12 tracks are in Spanish, as the title suggests, the collection represents a diversity of musical styles and cultural traditions, from tender boleros to brassy mariachi to reimagined Afro-Cuban classics. Seven of the tunes are familiar gems drawn from the vast Latin American songbook, while five are originals written or co-written by Malo. ​

Like the band’s entire body of music, this one album cannot be boxed into a single category. The songs are as diverse as Latin America itself, and as cohesive as the ideal of the American melting pot. To season this rich musical paella, The Mavericks add their signature country/rock/Tex-Mex flavors and a refreshing spontaneity to the mix. ​

En Español flips the band’s usual fusion formula, which adds a striking assortment of genres – salsa, ska, norteño, mariachi, and much more – to its sturdy rock/country base. Now, the foundation is solidly Latin with streaks of irreverent rock and twangy guitars running through it, all branded with the unmistakable Mavericks style. ​

“This album, to me, celebrates all those cultures that are so beautiful and so vibrant,” says Malo, who was part of the diverse ensemble known as Los Super Seven in the early 2000s. “I'm proud of this record for that. I think it’s a very inclusive record. Because this story is not just my story, it's the story of a lot of Latinos.” ​

The idea for an album consisting entirely of Latin music has been percolating in Malo’s mind for several years. The concept crystalized toward the end of the band’s extended separation, during which Malo was performing and making albums as a solo artist. But even when he was on his own, he never conceived of recording an all-Spanish album without his band. ​

“I was doing this solo stuff and I thought, ‘If The Mavericks ever get back together, I would love to do this project with them. I think The Mavericks would make a great album in Spanish.’“

In 2012, the band finally did get back together, and started touring and recording as a group again. In 2019, they celebrated their 30th anniversary with a successful tour that was unfortunately interrupted earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. ​

While the tour was suspended, work on the new album continued. ​

The inspiration for this labor of love is rooted in the immigrant experience of the band’s founder. He was christened Raúl Francisco Martínez-Malo Jr., the son of Cuban exiles who was born and raised in the stimulating immigrant environment of Miami’s Little Havana. ​

His parents, Raul Sr. and Norma, both came to the United States in the early 60s, fleeing Fidel Castro’s communist revolution. They met after arriving in Miami, got married and bought a home in the shadow of the old Orange Bowl, west of downtown. The hub of the growing clan was the abode of Malo’s maternal grandfather, who himself had immigrated from Spain to Cuba, later bringing his family to Florida. ​

As Malo entered adolescence in the 1970s, the Latin music industry was flourishing in the United States. Pop and folk music from many countries flooded Latin communities. Recordings from many countries were distributed domestically by major labels, sold in neighborhood discotecas, and broadcast on television and radio via a booming network of Spanish-language media.

Malo’s musical milieu was a mind-expanding cultural mashup. At home, there was a family piano to play at family gatherings, and his grandfather regaled guests with his “beautiful baritone,” Malo recalls. And there was a stream of music always in the air. Songs by Cuba’s venerable Omara Portuondo, Mexico’s romantic Trio Los Panchos, and brash mariachi superstar Vicente Fernandez. But his father also loved Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, while his mother exposed him to the refined art of opera and classical music. ​

The budding musician soaked in the sounds, unlike many first-generation teenagers who reject their parents’ music as corny or old-fashioned. ​

“I was never one of those kids who were like, ‘Ah, I hate that music,’” says Malo. “I liked it all, and I would take it all in. To me, it was just part of the vocabulary, part of the DNA.” ​

With a lifetime of music to choose from, picking songs for the new album could have posed an overwhelming task. But for Malo, it felt like a natural selection. ​

“To me, the criterion really was pretty simple,” he says. “The songs all mean something to me, personally. You’ve got to remember too, I’m not only thinking about what I want to sing and what I think I’d sound good singing. I also have to consider what would sound good with The Mavericks. Because we’re a pretty versatile band, but let’s face it, we’re not a salsa band, and we’re not pretending to be mariachis either. Those are entirely different things.”

Among the first songs Malo selected was the introspective ballad “Me Olvidé de Vivir” (I Forgot to Live), originally written in French and popularized in 1978 by Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias, one of the biggest stars of all time in Latin pop music. The tune – about a singer’s regret for lost time in the manic quest for fame – was a favorite of Malo’s beloved grandfather. ​

As fans might expect, The Mavericks did not record straight-up covers of golden oldies. The songs may be sung in Spanish, but the musical language is all Mavericks. ​

“We had to tailor the arrangements to what The Mavericks do,” says Malo. “That was the trick, finding the balance of playing these beautiful songs without trying to imitate familiar renditions. I think that’s the best way to pay tribute to the music that we love – by doing it our way.”

Asked to explain what “our way” actually means, the normally articulate bandleader grasps for insight into his own creative process. ​

“Man, I wish that I could put a method into words, like that was on purpose,” he says. “I can’t say that it was. Sometimes I roll a joint and I mess with the sounds, I get the right guitar and sometimes an arrangement comes out, or sometimes a whole song. But sometimes nothing comes out. So it's not as methodical as you might think. If it sounds good, I go with it. “I’ve learned to trust myself a little bit.” In composing the five new tracks, Malo trusted his instincts, both as songwriter and as a Maverick. ​

“I think I had one of them written,” he says, “and then the others, I just thought it would be fun to see what I could come up with, what I could write, and just give it a shot. After all, if you're a songwriter, you're a songwriter. Musically, if you really listen to them, it's not that different from what The Mavericks do normally. It really isn’t.” ​

“Poder Vivir,” the first original song in the sequence, at first blush appears to be a simple song about lost love. The two-word title suggests much more. ​

“I had this phrase and melody that just kept playing in my head,” says Malo about how he wrote the song. “I wasn’t quite sure what it meant exactly, or what I was going to say, but somehow it felt right to start the song with those words… After many conversations and late nights out on the road, the song kind of wrote itself. We wanted it to be conversational and simple in the end, and that’s what we got.” ​

That, and a killer final verse that makes the song what Malo intended it to be: “a bit philosophical and wise.”

This album contains no booklet.