The Power Of Tower Of Power

The Power Of Tower Of Power

by Benjy Eisen

The Tower Of Power horn section has made their way into your CD collection whether you know it or not. When not touring as Tower Of Power proper, the horn section acts as the world’s back-up band, providing brass for, well, just about everybody. Aerosmith, Santana, Elton John, Phish, Neil Diamond, Huey Lewis and The News, Peter Frampton, Poison, Heart and Bonnie Raitt are just a fraction of the artists who have hired Tower Of Power’s horn section. And they’re a successful band in their own right — their upcoming October 31 performance at the Whitaker Center has been sold-out for weeks. They’ve already scheduled another return on April 21, 2002. MODE gave bandleader Emilio Castillo an 8:00 a.m. wake-up call at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona to talk, amongst other things, about their repeat sell-outs at Whitaker Center:

MODE Weekly: You’ve been doing this for over 30 years. And still, every time you come to the Whitaker Center, you sell out. What do you attribute your success and longevity to?
Emilio Castillo: We’re not a run-of-the-mill five-piece rock and roll band. It’s kind of a different kind of a thing. There’s not a lot of bands that are ten-pieces and have a five-piece horn section. So if you’re into this kind of music, you’re really into it. And so we not only have fans, but we have super, super loyal fanatical fans. I mean these people, they travel thousands of miles to come and see us. It’s not unusual for me to be on the East Coast and somebody will say “I flew in from Chicago” or “I flew in from Kansas City,” or for people to come down from Toronto because we don’t get there as often as we do other places. We just have a real loyal fan base and it’s the type of music that, like I say, is not run-of-the-mill. It’s a specialized kind of original funk music, soul music. And people that are into, man, they are really into it.

MODE: When you first started out, is the place you are now anywhere near the place you wanted to be by now?
Castillo: It’s as far away as it could possibly be. I mean when we started out, my ambition was to get to Sacramento and play the topless bar. I thought that’d be great. I idolized this band called the Spiders and they were like really popular in the East Bay and they were my world. And the next thing I knew they were playing Sacramento at a topless bar. Well, I thought they hit the top, you know? That’s kind of where I was at when I was 16 years old. So, yeah, to say that it has gone far beyond my wildest dreams is an understatement.

MODE: Did you ever get to play the topless bar?
Castillo: Actually I didn’t. But I played Sacramento and did a live record there at the Memorial Auditorium — we did conquer Sacramento!

MODE: Has the retro–swing trend of the past few years impacted your audience in any way?
Castillo: We had a trumpet player with us for a few years and he’s not with us anymore, and I remember when Brian Setzer had that hit out and swing was the thing all of the sudden. He looked at me one day and he said, “You know you ought to write a swing tune man, it’s really popular.” And I looked at him and I said, “Man, what do I know about swing?” I’m not a swing player. I’m not going to start chasing trends at this stage in the game. We set trends; we don’t chase them.

MODE: Tell me about the live show. I imagine it’s very high energy.
Castillo: It’s very high energy. It’s a lot of excitement. There’s something about 10 human beings being right in your face blowing music that can’t be duplicated by any sort of machine or tape. It’s special. I’ve come to really realize that in the last few years about how amazing it is to make real human music.

MODE: How often do you tour?
Castillo: We go in and out all the time, but basically it always works out to be about 150 days a year. People ask me how can you have a family life and da-da-da, and I tell them, well I’m home 215 days a year, 24 hours a day, how often is your husband home? I get out there a lot but I’m home quite a lot and when I’m home, I’m home 24 hours a day.

MODE: I was going to ask what you did on your time off, but…
Castillo: I pass kids around.

Average White Band will open for Tower Of Power at The Whitaker Center on October 31. The performance is sold out.