Not a laugh riot

There aren’t a lot of bands that can say that leaving a major record label is the least of their concerns.

But then, there aren’t a lot of bands like Ozomatli.

A 10-man bilingual rainbow coalition that forges salsa, hip-hop, funk, calypso, rock, mariachi, jazz, reggae and Afro-pop into a scintillating fusion, the L.A. collective is too busy just now to spend time fretting about leaving Interscope Records after one album.

Far from having its hopes of a mainstream breakthrough dashed, everything -- with one significant exception -- is looking up for the band. A new album for a new label is due in June, they’re on a tour that includes a couple of hometown shows in the next week, and the group generated considerable excitement with its recent appearance at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

One review from South by Southwest, however, is the big exception to the rosy picture. That’s the Austin Police Department’s report on the band’s performance at the Exodus club, which ended with the arrests of two members and the group’s manager.

They’d brush the whole affair off with a smile if they could. In fact, bassist Willy “Wil-Dog” Abers, singer-guitarist Raul Pacheco and singer-woodwind player Ulises Bella did exhibit a sense of humor about the Austin trip during an interview before a benefit show Ozomatli played recently at East Los Angeles College.

They chuckled over a reference to the band’s “weapons of mass syncopation” in one newspaper story about police response to the band’s traditional concert-ending conga line, which spilled into the street around 2:30 a.m. They’ve even printed up new T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Free the Ozo 3.”

Band members dismissed speculation in the music community that the incident had anything to do with the liberal political views often expressed in Ozomatli’s songs and the fact that the problem occurred in President Bush’s home state.

“In one sense I wish that were the case, but it wasn’t,” Abers said. “Before we went, we really felt we were going to get our name out there and tear the town up. There was no idea it was going to end up this way, with these hideous accusations.”

What’s preventing them from letting go with a full-fledged laugh is a third-degree felony assault charge looming over percussionist Jiro Yamaguchi. He’s accused of striking a police officer with the tom-tom that provides the beat for the conga line.

Police said that by leaving the club and performing in the street, Ozomatli violated Austin’s noise ordinance. Authorities also say the band was slow to respond to instructions to go back inside.

The band’s position, supported by the account of an Austin Chronicle reporter who witnessed the performance and its aftermath, is that Yamaguchi was simply holding the drum over his head while complying with officers’ orders and that he dropped it only after being hit by a dose of pepper spray.

“We’re going to fight it all the way,” said manager Amy Sue Blackman-Romero, who was charged with interfering with police procedure, a misdemeanor (as is the charge facing Abers for violating a noise ordinance). The three spent less than 24 hours in jail before being released.

While hoping their lawyer will succeed in having the charges dropped, the band members are moving ahead with plans to capitalize on their new deal with the jazz-based Concord Records label, which is branching out by signing Ozomatli and releasing the new “Street Signs” album, due June 22.

“Interscope is really good with about three styles of music: pop-rock, pop-alternative and hip-hop,” Abers says. “We didn’t fit any of them. We owed them one more album, but we asked to get out of that commitment, and they let us, so it worked out well in the end.”

Beyond the uphill battle facing any band that doesn’t fall comfortably into any one genre, Ozomatli also faced the challenge of promoting an album, “Embrace the Chaos,” released on the worst day imaginable: Sept. 11, 2001. It sold just 75,000 copies. “We survive regardless,” Pacheco says. “Even with all that, we had three labels interested in signing us. So obviously someone still thinks we’re worth something.”

While continuing to work on the new album, the band whipped up “Coming Together,” a six-song EP available at www.ozomatli.com. Its more integrated blend of the myriad musical strains each member brings to the mix provides a clue into what awaits fans in “Street Signs.”

One of the most intriguing cuts from the EP, which Ozomatli played near the end of the East L.A. College show, is the title track. It leads off with spacey electronic effects, shifts into a gentle South American percussion workout over which Bella plays a Middle Eastern-like melody on clarinet, and segues into muscular Latin funk. It’s an evocation of the song’s “one world” plea for peace, and it had several hundred fans up from their seats, dancing and thinking simultaneously.

“That’s more of what we want to do,” Pacheco says. “Everyone tends to bring their own flavors. When we’re working on a song, somebody will say, ‘That rhythm can work here if we try it this way.’ ”

Bands usually survive longer as benign dictatorships, yet Ozomatli remains a democracy -- “as much as it can be,” Pacheco adds.

“Sometimes coming to a decision is a long, drawn-out process,” he says, making it sound much like democracy in the real world. “It’s never perfect.”

*

Ozomatli

Where: The Glass House, 200 W. 2nd St., Pomona

When: Saturday, 7 p.m.

Price: $16.50

Info: (909) 629-0377

Also: Tuesday at the Canyon Dinner Theatre, 28912 Roadside Drive, Agoura Hills. 9 p.m. $22.50. (818) 879-5016.