Lucero forgets genres and strives for its own sound
by Joe Tarr
When Lucero played the prestigious South by Southwest music festival in Austin last month, their set didn't go exactly as planned. The band ahead of them blew some circuit breakers, temporarily killing the power. When Lucero hit the stage the power went out three more times before the organizers pulled the plug.
Having played Austin several times, Lucero had some fans at the show and many of them were disappointed. "I said, 'follow me outside, I'll play whatever you want me to play acoustic,'" says frontman Ben Nichols. "I ended up in the back alley. A hundred people followed me out. I screamed my lungs out. It ended up being a cool thing."
Such dedication and relentless touring are starting to pay off for the Memphis group as it crawls its way to the top of the alt-country/Americana heap. Last year's release, Tennessee, brought favorable reviews and an industry buzz.
In song and on stage, Nichols exudes the persona of a hard-boozing, sensitive loner who might have just stepped out of the Tom T. Hall song "Homecoming." Tattoos cover his arms and he wears tight white T-shirts, smokes Camel cigarettes and does his best James Dean slouch. But, on the phone, Nichols chatters like a kid thrilled to be playing music for a living.
Nichols never set out to be an alt-country musician. His first band, Red 40, played punk music. After that group fell apart, his friend Brian Venable told him he wanted to start a country band. Nichols didn't know much about country music but he was gung-ho to try something new.
"One day you figure out you're able to play anything you want to play and it's real liberating. I was feeling stuck in one type of genre and thought, 'I can do this if I want to. I can do country songs or heavy metal songs. Hell, you can make industrial music. As long as it's a good song, it's a good song.'"
The early material Lucero wrote perhaps played up the country shtick a little too much, with exaggerated Southern accents and lots of waltzes and slow songs, Nichols says. But, the band is finding its own voice.
Tennessee is certainly in the vein of Americana, but the band isn't afraid to add some modern touches, like a drum machine or a moog, along side violin and stand-up bass. Nichols lyrics are of the heart-on-the-sleeve variety, without dipping into bathos. "With Red 40 I figured out that you need to keep it real simple. You don't have to make it poetic. Just don't write anything you're embarrassed to say in public," Nichols says.
Constant touring (the Blue Cats show will be their third in Knoxville in about six months) has honed the group's playing and built it a fan base. But the touring also cost the band founding member Venable, who didn't like the rugged road life. (He's been replaced by Todd Gill, former leader of the Paper Hearts, who debuts with the group on this tour.)
Nichols says for now he loves being on the road and playing out. "It's always nice to come home, whether you've been out for five days or five weeks. But then you come home and you're bored as hell and ready to go back," Nichols says. "Hell, I wouldn't be doing anything else if I was here at home so I might as well be out working. It's what we want to do right now."
Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars produced the group's first two records. The band plans to record again in May, this time producing it themselves. The music is definitely evolving into more of a rock sound, he says.
"You're playing bars every night, it's really hard to play 1-1/2 hours of slow, sad songs. We're writing more rockin' songs," Nichols says. "The sad slow songs are still there and it's definitely a part of what we do.... I hate to say it's becoming more of a rock 'n' roll band. We're not really that. But the sound is definitely evolving. I think [the next record] will sound more like we do live."
That trend is actually somewhat common for alt-country groups, a genre Nichols didn't realize he was in until friends turned him on to some of his compatriots. "I was like, 'Oh, this is what we do?' I thought we were like Tom Waits or the Pogues, only from the South.
"There's some good stuff [in the alt-country genre], but the bulk of it becomes pretty standard and predictable. But that's like anything."
How does Lucero rise about the standard and predictable?
"I'm not sure that I do, actually," he says. "I might steal from a wider variety of sources than other alternative country bands do. I'll steal stuff from the Pixies or the Pogues or Bruce Springsteen. And I won't worry about it being an alt-country song and instead worry about it being a good song.
"I'd like to think I'm taking this and meshing it into something somewhat new or at least somewhat my own, even if it's not new."
April 3, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 14
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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