Los Lobos’ latest album, “Gates of Gold,” boasts bold guitar riffs, inventive arrangements, moving lyrics and soulful singing — all the precious elements that have caused fans to treasure the band’s music for more than three decades.

But whoa! Did we really just say “three decades”? Los Lobos released its first major-label album — “How Will the Wolf Survive?” — in 1984. Longtime fans of the band have been fellow travelers with Los Lobos over a long road of time and experience.

As talking with the band’s singer, David Hidalgo, makes clear, time, travel and aging weigh in the balance for Los Lobos as the band continues to make music, as do the joys of creativity and collaboration.

“The traveling is the hard part, getting from one place to the other, being away from family. The payoff is the show, usually,” Hidalgo said, his voice soft and slightly weary. It was the first interview in a series to promote Los Lobos’ tour of the islands, and he sounded more stoic than psyched.

From what Hidalgo, 61, pictured second from right, has been telling reporters, the changes in the industry have been somewhat daunting. Gone are the days when a brilliant, creative album could give the band a large financial boost; instead, touring has become crucial to keeping the band afloat and albums are the boat fuel.

“It does … after a while, time seems to drag, you know? And when you get home, you realize how much time has passed.”

That’s the reality of life in a working band — but the payoff, as Hidalgo says, is in the music.

The joy and the satisfaction come when the band is in the moment and the audience is along for the ride, he said.

And the audience has been with Los Lobos, listening intently, for a good, long time.

Los Lobos arose in classic fashion, as high school friends Hidalgo and Louie Perez bonded in East L.A. over their love of American songwriters, British folk and guitar rock.

Becoming serious about music, they wrote songs combining traditional Mexican music, folk, pop and even traces of punk rock. Saxophonist Steve Berlin, escaping the combustive environs of California’s The Blasters, joined Los Lobos’ orbit and convinced Slash records to record the band.

“How Will the Wolf Survive?” captured the imagination of many listeners in the ’80s; its authentic sound was a contrast to the increasingly slick mainstream rock.

Next up, Los Lobos’ cover of “La Bamba” for the soundtrack of a film about Ritchie Valens propelled the band to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. But the band rebelled against the idea that it should milk nostalgia for more hits. Instead, members came back with more roots and rock — and struggled to draw enough attention to pay the bills.

Figuring there was little to lose, they let loose with members’ pent-up ideas in “Kiko,” released in 1992. With its spare, mysterious production, many consider it Los Lobos’ best album. In an interview with Uncut magazine Berlin described it as “the spark and the heart and the sound of searching.”

After “Kiko,” Los Lobos had secured a place in American music.

And with a string of albums and side projects, culminating in the 2010 album “Tin Can Trust” and the 2015 release “City of Gold,” Los Lobos continues to prove adept at fanning a spark into a flame.

Hidalgo said the band knows it’s time to write new songs when it starts to feel routine to play what they have — and when new material can help draw live listeners.

“People don’t buy albums like they used to,” he notes. “It’s a different world from when you could make more money — your livelihood — off of recording and sales of albums. And now, it has to be done live, so we can, uh, sustain our families.

“When we have a new album, we know it will be at least a couple years until we do another. We try to milk it, as best we can,” he said, laughing. “We’ll want to extend the life of the album, hoping it will get out there.”

He understands that promoters and audiences want to hear that the band is up to something new.

“When you have something out there, hopefully it will generate more ticket sales, so we work together,” he said. “You need something. You can’t go out and play the same things. There are songs, we would consider standards, in the sets that we do. But you need new material, to keep it fresh.”

Inspiration is prized, Hidalgo said, because after so many years of writing and recording, the band recognizes how valuable a good song can be.

“When we’re working, out on the road, we don’t have time to settle down and write. So when that feeling comes around, when it’s time to do another record, we have to set time aside for the creative process,” he said.

“Usually we come up with one thing and it leads to another. It opens up the gates.

“Throughout the year, I’ll put down ideas — it’s usually musical ideas, chord changes or a riff or something. When I’m on the road, I’ll get my phone or video and record it,” he said. “That’s what I did this last time.

“Once we find ideas, musically, that are something we could use, Louie (Perez) and I, we write together, and we’ll talk it over, then go back to our corners and work on it. But there’s no real structure in how we do it, we take it as we can get it,” he said.

“When we record, we enjoy the chance to get it going and let it flow, you know? It’s tough, though, the creative process. It’s tough to sit down and work something out.”

His voice took on warmth, and enthusiasm replaced acceptance, as he described that feeling of completion, when a song comes to life: “A lot of times or most of the time, I’ll play something for Louie, and I’ll just be humming the melody, and he’ll hear something that starts to get an idea going. And that’ll start the words processing.

“We’ve worked together for so long, you know, that we can easily feel it out. We can feel it when it’s going to turn into something,” he said.

“When it works, it’s great.”

With “Gates of Gold,” it works. The album’s songs incorporate jazz, Tex-Mex, lovelorn blues and age-defiant rock to earn kudos as “characteristically gorgeous” and “deeply probing” from the Los Angeles Times.

The album’s title song seems to look ahead to an uncertain future and acknowledge mortality, but also the promise of an unmapped road: “Almost there and yet so far is where we’ll find our home / So close but still so far are stories to be told. …”

That tension between yearning for a home at the end of the road and curiosity for the “stories to be told” is evident in Hidalgo, as he talks about Los Lobos.

Last year the L.A. Times quoted Los Lobos’ manager as saying “Gates of Gold” might be the band’s last. Asked if that could be true, Hidalgo paused for a long beat, then said, “I don’t think so.

“I mean, what are we going to do? I’m too old to get a job now, I’ve got to stay with it,” he said, and gave out a laugh, as if relieved to say so.

“We’ve built this up over the years, and I’m grateful for the following we’ve acquired along the way,” he said. “So I don’t see how we could stop.”