Classic Rock Revisited caught up with Carlos to discuss the upcoming tour, how he came to invite George Lopez out on the road and his recent marriage to his drummer, Cindy Blackman. Santana also discusses the spirituality that surrounds his life and music and hooks us up with the guy that can get us some of his cool hats!

Carlos: If I tell you, then it won’t be a surprise anymore! Basically, we always bring five things: Genuine, Honest, Sincere, True and For Real on every song; that makes it a good antenna to receive, and transmit, the Holy Ghost. The songs are just vehicles. My band is one of the few bands that consistently brings it. When I say ‘brings it’, I mean when people listen to our band then they are reminded, on a molecular, and cellular level, that you have more love, energy, kindness, passion and patience than you think. That makes you relax with yourself, not relax like being idle, complacent or lazy, but instead to relax and not be frantic, desperate or nervous.

All of a sudden, you take a deep breath, and realize that you have more than you thought. That’s what is fortunate about my band. It brings a sound that reminds people that they are significant and meaningful. When people start investing too much into thinking, “I’m a sinner” or “I’m not worthy” then that is self-defeating. In other words, we bring clarity of conviction – not arrogance – but clarity of spirit, and that’s why my band is important.

Carlos: We are at a place where everything that Einstein said is now true. We are not so separate. The intangible means that hope, faith and trust are the evidence of things not seen. All of a sudden, the far out stuff that the hippies were talking about is not so far out.

When people talk about the game of football, they talk a lot about the intangibles. What is intangible? The collective willingness – that is sure a lot more than a chalkboard full of X’s and O’s.

American is talking in a vocabulary that includes intangibles, which is needed right now. Everyone is paranoid about the economy, and all the other things that are going on. All of that stuff is collective illusion. If you turn off CNN and Fox – that’s collective illusion, it is not reality. If you turn off the TV and go for a walk in the park, you see the bees doing their thing, and the birds doing their thing, and the trees doing their thing. Mother Nature goes on and you see that love is the only thing that is real. Somehow, people in the United States, we invest so much in fear that it ends up like everyday is Halloween but without the candy; that is boring to me.

Carlos: Thank you for asking that. I consciously made a decision to crystallize my intentions for a purpose. I was just reading about how John Lennon, Bruce Lee, John Coltrane, Albert Einstein, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley all learned how to transform the physical difficulties of time into the triumph of eternity. All of these people are still here. In fact, the only ones bigger than Bob Marley on Facebook are Eminem and Lady Gaga. Bob Marley is huge and he died thirty years ago.

We want to bring that type of essence into things. Everyone has that essence. You have it, I have it and anyone reading this interview has it. Everyone really has the essence of immortality. It is not just for Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King; all of us have that spark of the divine, and that’s what my band accentuates when we play. All of a sudden, you hear it in you.

Carlos: I go to his shows a lot and he comes to my shows a lot. We call ourselves the Divine Rascals. A ‘Divine Rascal’ is someone who has carte blanche from God to make people laugh. Laughter is a great form of meditation. When you have such a great belly laugh, to where you’re eyes are crying and you almost cut the cheese because you can’t control it, then that is the most therapeutic medicine that you can have. To laugh with integrity is when we laugh at ourselves and everybody else – we have equal opportunity. We don’t pick on short people or gay people – we just pick on everybody. When you can pick on everybody, including yourself, then you are able to have a sense of humor and you won’t become postal.

Carlos: [chuckles] This is true, especially a drummer who is as talented as she is. I will put it this way, I have seen a lot of drummers play and when I see Cindy [Blackman] play, she is in the Top 100 of men drummers, and among the Top 3 of woman drummers, in the world. She is like Bruce Lee on drums. She can really, really play the drums. I am not just talking about holding time; I’m talking improvising and playing drums like Bruce Lee.

Carlos: Yeah, I did.

Carlos: No.

Carlos: I felt that when I found her, she wanted the same things that I wanted. Cindy and I offer this to each other, everyday…we say to each other, with conviction, and clarity: First time, ever, everything.

Carlos: I will connect you to the guy who puts all of that together for me. I will tell him to call you in a little while. They’re not that expensive.

www.santana.com