“No matter what's happening with hurricanes and Earthquakes and fires and the stuff that happens in Las Vegas, look in the mirror and say, 'My light will see me through.'”
That’s one of Carlos Santana’s messages for Tampa as his October 27 date at Amalie Arena approaches. The 70-year-old guitarist knows there are critics of his deeply spiritual, some-call-it-Kumbaya, outlook on life, and that’s okay, too.
“I say, 'Well, yeah, but this kumbaya will kick your ass from here to eternity,” he added with a laugh. Even a short chat with the living rock and roll legend is full of perfectly phrased philosophy, and in 10 minutes, CL soaked up a lot of it. When asked about the inner child he’s been trying to tame inside, Santana proffers this.
“Your spirit and your soul, they cannot be f-ed with because they are immutable. So the more you spend with the inner child, it means that you're hanging around with your spirit and your soul, and you know what happens when you do that, the more, you take a deep breath and you hang around with those two qualities, you become more luminous because your love is light — love is the brightest light in the darkest night.”
Read more: Carlos Santana shares name of forthcoming Rick Rubin-produced LP, explains its purpose
When asked about what inspired him, Santana points to ‘Trane, Miles and even his Mega Nova bandmate Wayne Shorter. He says taking a dip with guys like that — along with Lennon and Bob Marley — can help you tap into the potential you have inside.
“It's like hanging around with Einstein and Hawking, you know? You're hanging around with Picasso and Salvador Dalí, and DiVinci,” Santana says. “And here's a secret — you are them, and they are you. So all you have to do is immerse yourself in something that you want to research, and next thing you know you are articulating this language.”
It’s a lot to take in, and it might be better off heard than read, but Santana also gave a hint of what fans can look for when the Transmogrify tour hits Tampa. In describing a young guitarist, Quinn Sullivan, Santana reveals a little of what he looks for in a guitar player.
“This cat is, like, the new Stevie Ray. So it's encouraging to see that the future, because a lot of guitar players, they practice speed, and they practice how they look in the mirror, so they're really fast at deception,” he says. “Now, it's not how fast you play, it's how quick you get to the heart of the listener — that's what's happening.”
Get to the heart of Santana in our full Q&A below, and get more information on the show via local.cltampa.com.
Hey Carlos, how are you? Thanks for your time today.
Oh, thank you Ray. I'm good, thank you for asking. How about yourself, how are you doing?
I'm great, man, thank you for the call. Sorry if I seem a little disjointed today.
Oh...
I'm gonna try and squeeze as much in in ten minutes as I possibly can — and I'm nervous.
Wait, hold up. Before we go forward, what's disjointing you?
Oh no...
Is it something personal, you don't wanna talk about it? None of my business?
Oh no, no, I'm just nervous about asking you the right questions and making sure I don't ask you repeat questions that you've answered before in other interviews.
Aw, no.
There are so many people that want to know so many things.
Oh, no, Ray, I trust your spirit. I know you have clarity and integrity, so I trust your spirit.
Right on. I was gonna ask you something, and you can answer it or not. I wanna know about this inner child inside of you that you are trying to train to respect and honor you. I find it hard to believe that somebody like you, 70-years-old, deeply spiritual, has not figured about that little kid messing around with you. You were talking about a book, Original Sin.
Um, visiting the inner child is knowing that innocence is good and that you're never gonna lose it or misplace it, so let's put it in a way where people can arrive at discovering their own knowing, for example — the two most powerful things that a human has, no matter what ideology, nationality, any of that, is spirit and soul. Your spirit and your soul cannot be f-ed with. You cannot scratch it, you cannot burn it, drown it, stain it, or anything. When people say, 'He's stained with sin,', that's, like, bullshit. We make mistakes and we correct it, and amend it. The only thing people can hurt is your ego, and your feelings, and maybe break your heart and disappoint your mind. But your spirit and your soul, they cannot be f-ed with because they are immutable. So the more you spend with the inner child, it means that you're hanging around with your spirit and your soul, and you know what happens when you do that, the more, you take a deep breath and you hang around with those two qualities, you become more luminous because your love is light. Here it comes.
I say this alot. Love is the brightest light in the darkest night. Love is the brightest light in the darkest night. And so when people say, 'Well that's kumbaya,' and I say, 'Well, yeah, but this kumbaya will kick your ass from here to eternity.
Yes, I read that about you.
You know? Because you can't dismiss being cynical and arrogant about something that is beyond your understanding. All you can do is say, 'I respect and honor that I have the capacity inside of me the capacity to create miracles and blessings.' If you wanna call that 'kumbaya,' I don't care what you call it, but don't call yourself a dumbass that knows everything, but can't do shit.
Oh, that's awesome. Thank you, um, still there?
Oh, I'm here with you, man. I find myself, now, now that I'm 70-years-old, being less and less invested emotionally with fear, so I find it funny now, for instance, the boogeyman, the monster under the band. I just look at it know like it's just a shadow that has no power over me anymore, you know?
I hear you.
And what I have is thirst for adventure. I keep telling people, and I'm okay with this, I keep telling people, 'I just turned 70-years-old, but I feel like a 17-year-old person who's in the backseat of a car at the drive-in movie, and I'm not watching the movie,' you know what I'm saying? I'm discovering how to be with wild sex and be spiritual at the same time, and play the guitar at the same time while you're doing it.
You know, I was gonna ask you about young guitarists who inspire you, but it seems like you're so inspired on your own. I had a question about your improvisation method. You obviously improvise — or at least your make it look like you're improvising — every show and performance for solos, how do you find new material, new source material and new phrases to bring onstage and specifically for this 'Transmogrify' tour?
Oh thank you for asking that. If you want to, for me, reaching out into John Coltrane, and Miles and Charlie Parker, and Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter, and Tony Williams and all that, you know, that's what you dip yourself into because when you dip yourself with them it's like hanging around with Einstein and Hawking, you know? You're hanging around with Picasso and Salvador Dalí, and DiVinci, you know? And here's a secret — you are them, and they are you. So all you have to do is immerse yourself in something that you want to research, and next thing you know you are articulating this language with the same principles as John Lennon's "Imagine," or the same principles as "One Love," Bob Marley.
So for me it's easiest, easy, easier, easiest, to get up in the morning and get onstage and convince people that you are witnessing something that is, um, in front of your eyes. I saw Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Ray, and Jaco Pastorius and Miles, and I gotta tell you, man, I'm hearing them, and I'm seeing them, and I can't friggin' believe it. You know, because each one is like a hurricane, tornado, I think they call it a 'force of nature,' that is beyond my comprehension in my mind. However, in my heart, and in my soul and spirit, I can do that, too, I can be that, too.
I love it. And you talked about John Lennon and Bob Marley. Bob Marley played in Tampa once, and I wanted to know remember, at all, it was kind of an old proto-Santana Tampa Bay area band called Blues Image. This guy, Mike Pinera was in the band and they played Thee Experience on the Sunset Strip back in the day. Wondering if that rings a bell at all for you.
Yeah, I heard that sound. Blues Image, probably if I see or hear them it'll bring it all back to me. It's been awhile, but, you know, we all started together, wanting to change fear on this planet, and some of us are still doing it with more power, and more grace now, and more understanding that it's now impossible to bring unity, harmony and peace on Earth someday soon with everything that is happening.
Right on, and you've talked about LSD being something we can use safely these days to bring people together, but I also wanted to know, kind of connecting the past here with your current situation, the future. Who are the young guitarists, even any instrumentalists or improvisationalists who blow you away? Anyone alive still on your collaboration bucket list?
Yeah, there's a young brother named Quinn Sullivan. He's 16-years-old. He looks like he's 9-years-old, and he's been training constantly, he's under the training of Buddy Guy, and when you hear Quinn Sullivan, you know that this cat is, like, the new Stevie Ray. So it's encouraging to see that the future, because a lot of guitar players, they practice speed, and they practice how they look in the mirror, so they're really fast at deception. Now, it's not how fast you play, it's how quick you get to the heart of the listener — that's what's happening. And here's another clue, I got this from Wayne Shorter. He says, 'You have to think slower to play faster, and you have to think faster to play slow,' aaay.
I love it, and you talked about Wayne Shorter, so I gotta ask you, everyone wants to know about Mega Nova — what’s the status of that band, I know it’s a lot of moving parts, but you’ve said that the band is the opposite frequency of Donald Trump, and right now the world could use the opposite of Donald Trump right now, so what's up with Mega Nova?
Mega Nova is fun for me and my wife because just to be in the presence, in the same room, with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, you know, the rascal in me says, 'I wanna do a tour with two geniuses, two afros, and a Mexican,' so that's Wayne, Herbie, Esperanza Spalding, my wife Cindy and me, the Mexican, you know.
Haha.
People crack up when they hear that. The music? Eh, it'll happen, you know, we can go to Miles, or Coltrane or anywhere, you know, we can go anywhere with this band, but right now what's really up ahead is Cindy completing her own CD, it's going to be called Give the Drummer Some. And I'm working with Rick Rubin on this album called Africa Speaks, The World Listens. It's only African songs, incredible rhythms, with the philosophy of medicine music to heal a twisted, crooked, collective mentality — damn, that's a mouthful.
Yeah, I like it. You were gonna call that record Global Revelation, right? Did Rick Rubin tell you you couldn't do that?
No, we changed the name from Global Revelation to Africa Speaks, The World Listens.
OK, right on. I know your world isn't ruled by fear, um, but you live in Las Vegas — I know your stance and post-attack statement on guns, but in all honesty, how scary was that terrorist attack and how is the city recovering? You know from your standpoint, being very tuned in and also being a resident of that city.
From my point of view, and a lot of people get angry when I say what I say because a lot of people are invested in, the grip, of having the right to own as many weapons as possible, you know. So, for me, I look at it like this. How many children have to die before you put a stop sign near the school? You know. So put the stop sign. Nine children or 12 children don't have to die, just put a freaking stop sign.
What is a stop sign? Here's the stop sign, and this is where people get angry at me, but I don't really give a shit, you know, because I'm not here to please twisted, crooked minds. New Zealand, Japan, England, Italy, a lot of nations made the commitment of having no weapons at all, only certain people have them to protect, you know, a nation. Or, and also, no weapons, Nintendos of killing people, like New Zealand banned, about 20 years ago, anything to do with killing people with Nintendos. They would not allow it. They don't care. No lawyers. No, we're not gonna have games of people killing people, you know. And so for me, that's the stop sign.
And people say, and let me say this clearly. I don't belong to the left or the far left, or the right, or the far right. I don't have any political agenda. I don't have any none of that bullshit that people accuse me. The only thing that I have is passion for compassion, so anytime you wanna say, because there's a lot of dumbass people who say, 'Well why can't you just play the guitar and not go into politics?.' Well, I'm not talking about politics. I'm talking about saving people's' lives, and what makes you think that I'm your puto poodle, and I just play the guitar and don't have an opinion?
EDIT: We regret the misunderstanding in the above passage and regret mishearing Mr. Santana's comment.
I hear you, man. Michael McDonald talked to me about this for about 15 minutes last week.
Yeah, so, for me, you and I, we work together. We share together a commonality of frequency because of you people can come, or not come, to see our concert, but if they come to our concert they will realize that the sound, resonance and vibration of the Sanatana and the Santana band is meant to take you to a place where you can see the big picture for the highest good of all human beings. This is not about divisions, separations, superiority or inferiority. This is about, I'm still that hippie at Woodstock, I'm still that hippie that wants that highest good for all people in this planet — and that's it.
I hear you , and I think I might have one more question left.
OK.
I'm gonna take it back to Woodstock. You were playing on acid and some hallucinogens. People really wanted to know, after I put the call out that I was going to be talking to you — did you really see your guitar as a snake?
Electric snake.
So that's real.
Yeah, yeah. I'm not afraid to do it. I'm not afraid to do it in New York City. Some people shouldn't do it because some people are not nice. If you're not nice don't take it because there's nowhere to hide.
Right on, I love it. Well thank you so much for your time Mr. Santana. It is an honor to speak to you.
Thank you Ray. Stay precious alright?
Of course. Safe travels here.
Oh, wait, wait, wait.
Yeah?
Before he hang up, tell people Carlos said, 'My light will see me through,' no matter what's happening with hurricanes and Earthquakes and fires and the stuff that happens in Las Vegas, look in the mirror and say, 'My light will see me through.'
Right on.
Cool.
And let me know if you wanna go to the Dalí museum with me when you come down here.
Okay then. Take care.
See you Carlos.
Bye bye.
