Sam Llanas Completes 'Return of the Goya' Trilogy

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In 1986, the BoDeans’ debut album, Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams, was released to critical acclaim. The uncomplicated sound of the band, formed in Waukesha by Sam Llanas and Kurt Neumann, was a refreshing contrast to the hair metal, glossy videos and overproduced music of the day. That album included Guy Hoffman on drums and Bob Griffin on bass. The BoDeans were so popular at the time, they inspired a local tongue-in-cheek tribute act.

The band that once played local spots like The Landing and Hooligans soon toured with U2 and collaborated with Robbie Robertson. They eventually would headline Summerfest’s Marcus Amphitheater.

In 2011, Llanas left the band, embarking on a solo career. He recently released Los Ochos Final, the final CD in his Return of the Goya trilogy. Llanas recently spoke about his musical history and the current project.

The Past

Longtime fans will recall Llanas playing a striking black Goya G-380 Jumbo acoustic guitar. Llanas got the guitar, reminiscent of ones played by the Everly Brothers, in 1983 at Ralph Hanzel’s music store.

It was stolen in 1987 when the band was on tour in England. While that guitar was never returned, in 2017, Tom Gleason, a fan from Illinois, located a G-380 and gave it to Llanas in appreciation. Llanas was humbled by the generosity.

Say what you will about the particular hoodoo of inanimate objects, but Llanas went on a tear writing a dozen or more songs that ended up on the trio of CDs that bear the guitar’s name: Return of the Goya Part 1; Part 2 and Los Ochos Final.

The Goya songs are drawn from the breadth of his career. “Some of those songs were written way before Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams came out, and one was written pretty close to the release of Los Ochos Final, so it really spans 30 years,” Llanas says. “Don’t Cha Just Know” and “Radio Girl” date back to his early 20s. Part 1 hidden track, “Big Ol’ Moon” strikes a balance between Johnny Cash and Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen. “That song came to me after the whole record was mastered and sent off to be reproduced. We couldn’t have gotten the title on the cover if we wanted to,” he says of the song that was recorded on his phone.

“I didn’t seriously play guitar until I left college, about 1980. I started at UW-Madison, went there for a year and kind of floundered after that.” Llanas says he became disillusioned when the teaching assistants went on strike, but classes and finals were held anyway. “I felt like I wasn’t getting the education I paid for. I had borrowed that money, so I was out twice.”

It was at that point Llanas said he “did not want anyone else to be in charge of what happens to me.”

While he worked at legendary State Street music club Merlyn’s as a janitor, Llanas was not active as a performer, yet. Returning to Waukesha, he and Neumann formed a band called The Strand (“named after an infamous street in Waukesha”) before forming the BoDeans (originally known as Da BoDeans).

The band was set on getting a recording contract more than performing regionally. “We figured we would write as many songs as we could and record them as best we could, which at that point was directly into a cassette deck,” he recalls.

They found a book with addresses of music-biz A&R people (Artist and Repertoire people were the talent scouts who served as conduit between artist and record label) and sent out their demo tapes with the help of then-manager Mark McCraw.

One of the rejection letters stands out because it came from Warner Bros. in New York; they ultimately would be signed to Warner Bros. in Los Angeles via Slash Records.

Looking for advice or perhaps a mentor, Llanas and Neumann once poked their heads into Waukesha’s Breezeway Studios when the R&B Cadets were recording. “John Sieger was really nice to us. He didn’t know us from Adam. We probably asked him some questions and he talked to us a bit,” Llanas recalls. (Sieger would co-write “The Strangest Kind” on the band’s debut album.)

McCraw had T Bone Burnett’s records, and Llanas says they noticed his name as producer on records by Los Lobos and other records they liked. Burnett eventually produced the debut. “He came to see us in Minneapolis. He liked us, but at the same time he told us we should all go home and learn to play our instruments,” Llanas laughs. “Which was the truth.”

The BoDeans’ star rose quickly. Llanas quit college at 22 and by 26 had a major label recording contract. A January 1987 readers’ poll in Rolling Stone voted the BoDeans the Best New American Band. After 10 albums, Llanas left the band.

The Present

Four albums into his solo career, Llanas decided to tie things together with the Goya project. Llanas saw the three CDs as an opportunity to return to his light-hearted songwriting roots.

“When I started making solo records, it was kind of a dark ride. (1998’s A Good Day to Die was a eulogy for Llanas’ brother who committed suicide when the singer was 14 years old.) I didn’t want to make a record that was in competition with what I was doing with the BoDeans.”

With Goya, he had a clutch of material and thought a three-album set would be a good idea. “My working title was Samdinista!—but not everybody would get the joke,” he says referring to the sprawling triple-LP masterpiece by the Clash.

Return of the Goya - Part 1 includes country-influenced material, Part 2 is more of the rock ’n’ roll material people expect from Llanas, and Part 3 collects everything else. Echoes of rockabilly and ’50s-era rock ’n’ roll are never far away.

With “I Am, He Said,” Llanas finds a way to slyly pay tribute to Neil Diamond. “That was a song I had laying around for a long time, since the early ’90s. And I never could finish it—I always referred to it as ‘The Neil Diamond Song’ because it reminded me of the songs he had written from the Bang Records years.”

The song, based almost entirely on Neil Diamond titles and lyrics, is a brilliant idea that makes you realize how underrated Diamond is. “Boo Hoo Hoo” has a decidedly retro sound and “Love Me, Love Me Too” clearly demonstrates Buddy Holly’s influence.

Llanas says the spirit of the Goya has come to represent a return to the spirit of his earlier songwriting. He admits to aiming for the vibe of Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams but says the money was also a factor. For the most part, the production is sparse.

“I just didn’t have the budget to really produce things. We didn’t have the time to do 50 takes on one song—which I don’t like to do anyway.” Llanas says he made the three albums for under $20,000.

Like his frugality, Llanas’ choice of musicians also played a part. He called on players he could trust to make choices that resulted in few takes. Producer-guitarist Sean Williamson engineered the CDs, and the cast of enabling musicians is a cast of Milwaukee veterans. Llanas’ band for his upcoming show includes guitarist Sean Williamson, Mike Hoffmann on bass and drummer Matt Rhyner.

Return of the Goya CDs are available at Llanas’ website samllanas.com.

The Sam Llanas Band performs at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn on Friday, Feb. 7, at 8:30 p.m.

In a June 2018 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, Llanas was accused of molesting a minor.