25 Years of Ozomatli: Uli Bella on How to Keep a Band Together (Episode 77)

Make Music Your Business.

Uli Bella is a multi-instrumentalist, a jiu-jitsu black belt and a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning band Ozomatli. He has worked and collaborated with Santana, Fishbone, Maná, comedian Gabriel Iglesias, Common and De La Soul. Nomad even worked alongside him, without knowing it, on the soundtracks for Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Happy Feet Two.

In Episode 77 of The Career Musician, recorded in the band's 25th anniversary year, Uli breaks down how Ozomatli kept its six original members together for a quarter century. If you're trying to figure out how to keep a band together, this is a masterclass in treating a band like a business without losing the love.

Split it equally and take care of your people

Ozomatli started as a big band of players with other priorities. Uli remembers a backyard meeting where they went around the circle asking who was in and who was out. By the middle of their first album, they realized the traditional way of splitting songwriting and publishing was turning sessions into fights, with everyone pushing their two cents to claim a piece of the song.

"We had to make it all equal... In a band that big, when it came to songwriting, all of a sudden it started turning into kind of like a fight in the studio about wanting to put your two cents in, whether or not it was good for the song."

Uli Bella, 6:59

They went further. They paid health insurance for their side players, paid people monthly and kept some on retainer. Later they set up monthly pay for the band too, instead of gig to gig, so there was always money to pay people, and when there wasn't, they all took a bite of the sandwich together. Uli contrasts it with bands where two members collect the publishing while everyone else resents them. Their model, he says, kept them secure for 25 years. That is Make Music Your Business, built into the band's foundation.

Get a mediator before the band breaks up

Every band hits the "I'm out" moment, and Ozomatli almost split several times. Early on, during a dark period, their first manager introduced them to a therapist, a neutral person who could hear everyone without taking sides. Over the years they worked with different people until they could call their own meetings and confront each other without it feeling threatening.

They also eventually drew up a band agreement, after one of the times they nearly broke up over money. Uli describes it as nothing draconian, just something in place for everybody's sake. Nomad called it the most mature approach he had heard. If something nuclear happened today, Uli says, nobody would hesitate to bring a mediator back in. Objectivity, from the ETHOS code, applied to an entire band.

The live show is the one thing they can't bottle

Ozomatli came up at the tail end of the old label model, with advances, artist development and tour support. Uli is frustrated watching artists today get one release and no more push, and with how music has become a commodity when everyone has a friend who will do it cheaper. So he asks the question every artist should ask: what do we have that others don't?

"It's always been our live show... That's like one of the last things that us as musicians, they can't bottle that up."

Uli Bella, 16:45

The band never had one massive commercial hit. Their reputation was built on a live show people told their friends about. The name itself came from that mission: their original drummer suggested Ozomatli, the Aztec day sign associated with dance, and getting people to dance was what unified the salsa, cumbia, Jamaican music, hip hop and funk.

Training informs the art, but there's more to it

Uli started on classical piano at his violinist father's insistence, took close to 15 years of lessons, then classical clarinet, then saxophone, and finally taught himself guitar just to play songs he loved. He was a hardcore jazz student in college, but the classical world's competition and politics weren't for him. His first big lesson came in a Latin ska band, watching a room go wild and realizing that's where it's at.

Still, he's clear: chops alone don't make a career. He knows Juilliard graduates who aren't working.

How you treat people, how you perform and how you connect with an audience all matter, and if you're difficult, it gets even rougher no matter how good you are. Very few people can play with their back to the audience like Miles Davis. Reliability beats virtuosity. And he always had reverence for the elders whose shoulders he stands on, studying their work even when it isn't his taste.

Santana's summer music camp

In 1999, Ozomatli opened for Santana on the Supernatural tour, and Uli still has a framed set list from Boise. They ended up playing horns on three or four songs a night as Santana's horn section. At the end of the tour, Carlos handed every one of them a check for it. Uli calls that tour a conservatory: Carlos would pull them aside to play them music they had never heard, and they got to hang backstage with veteran players from bands like Tower of Power and Miles Davis's groups.

That's Work begets work and generosity at the highest level, and it shaped how a young, hungry band thought about respecting elders.

Diversify, and think outside the box

Uli told Nomad that most of the band's income comes from gigs. Licensing is a blessing when it comes, but nobody can count on it. So they diversify. For Happy Feet Two, they wrote sound-alike style pieces for the video game instead of the hit songs that would have broken the licensing budget. A show on Yo Gabba Gabba! turned them on to a kids album when Uli saw merch lines 12 people deep. During the pandemic, they planned to release outtakes with merch, and Uli did a daily jam on the band's Instagram to keep the engine idling and stay connected with fans. That's Diversify or Die for a working band.

He also kept a routine to beat the Groundhog Day feeling: coffee, the dog, the news, exercise, practice, then his daily jam. And his jiu-jitsu journey, 16 to 18 years to a black belt, came from the same mindset as music: I know I won't be the best, but I'll keep doing it to see how good I get, and never quit.

The takeaway

For the kid in Idaho dreaming of LA, Uli's advice is realism. If music is in your core DNA, put everything into it. If you're in it for fame and money, you'll be gravely disappointed. Labels are not your savior, today's deals often want a piece of everything, so get an entertainment lawyer and a good accountant. And it has to be motivated by love. If you're getting ready to take your shot, start with the free Get the Gig guide, and find Ozomatli at ozomatli.com.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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