In conversation with Larry & Joe

Interviewed by Brian Burns for WUNC
12.12.24

Larry & Joe are on a mission to show that music has no borders. The duo combines their Venezuelan and Appalachian roots to celebrate the traditions of both cultures and to create music that sounds fresh while also nodding to their roots. Their second record “Manos Panamericanos” was just released and they’ll be celebrating with a show at The Fruit in Durham on December 12 at 7:30.

WUNC’s Brian Burns recently caught up with Larry & Joe to discuss the new record and how the duo met.

For people who don’t know you and your music, can you first tell us how you two met?

Joe Troop: We met thanks to COVID. I was playing in a band from Argentina up until the pandemic. The band was Che Apalache. Larry is an asylum seeker from Venezuela, and he hung up his musical career there to migrate to Raleigh eight and a half years ago. He was working construction and then in 2021 we happened upon each other and we got to collaborate and the rest is history. Since then we’ve some 400 shows all across the continental U.S.

 
I love hearing all these different influences from across the Americas in your music. How do you go about picking the traditional songs that you incorporate into your sets?

The songs are connected to us through lived experience. We do a tango, and it’s my grandmother’s favorite tango. Larry suggested we do a merengue, which is from the Dominican Republic, but it was popularized in Venezuela and his mother used to put it on when he cleaned his grandmother’s floors. These songs have a deep meaning for us, and we also decided to focus on songs that have a social implication for us individually and for the society. We’re sort of tipping our hat to the great traditions that we can access through recorded music.

This is an excerpt of an edited transcript of that conversation. You can hear the full interview by clicking HERE.