Austin Lucas and The Dreaming Spires. Broadcast, Glasgow 18th October

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On paper, it seems an odd match. Indiana based outlaw country and California inspired jangled rock, Austin Lucas, “the tattooed George Jones,” backed by the 12 string fabulations of Oxford’s The Dreaming Spires. Sure, they share a record label in common but this could be something like Willie Nelson backed by Big Star which, when you think about it actually doesn’t seem like a bad idea so maybe the folks at At The Helm Records were “thinking out of the box” when they dreamed this one up. It helps of course that Lucas’s latest album has several songs that have a silvery sheen to them, a cross between Sturgill Simpson’s metaphysical moments and Gene Clark’s cosmic wanderings and a sound which The Spires were well equipped to provide in the live setting along with the tougher Bakersfield type songs.

Akin to the old “package” tours, we got two acts for the price of one tonight with The Dreaming Spires playing a set before backing Lucas. From the off there was a powerful thump in the rhythm section to back Robin Bennett’s jangled Rickenbacker on Everything All The Time, a glorious swatch of Paisley Underground/Overground rock (and not a womble in sight). The cowbell intro to Strange Glue hinted at a Stones type raunch but instead we were led into a slightly surrealistic wordy perambulation backed by a fuzzy Big Star like Memphis soul sound mashed up with the percussive drive of Cornershop. There was a sense of the baroque Gene Clark in the keening Road Less Travelled, a mild venture into psychedelia on Strength Of Strings (dedicated to Dylan’s Nobel prize) which slowly built up into a crescendo before they crashed into Harbuton Mead which thrashed around with an energy that recalled the halcyon days of The Long Ryders. House Of Elsinore was a throwback to long lost days of hippie minstrels channelling ye olde folke songs with electric 12 strings supplanting lutes as Shakespeare and Bach like riffs floated from the stage before ending with a sly nod to The Who’s psychedelic masterpiece, I Can See For Miles.

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Far away from being a whimsical recreation of jingle jangle times The Spires thrummed and throbbed with keyboard swells and Eastern accents from Tom Collison while Jamie Dawson powered away on drums along with Joe Bennett’s supple and melodic bass playing. Their climatic Dusty In Memphis was a fine salute to the power of rock and soul while Searching For Supertruth was a blizzard of strings and things.

After a short break, Austin Lucas took to the stage for a feisty couple of solo numbers starting with a powerful rendition of Go West. With gutsy vocals and a dramatic habit of snapping his guitar strings he immediately grabbed our attention. Somebody Loves You was a ferocious example of high mountain folk allied to a punk like snarl with his guitar playing reminiscent of Michael Chapman’s fluid fingertips. The band then came on, Telecaster in place for a muscular Ain’t We Free and a rousing Kristie Rae with The Spires locking into Lucas’s hard-boiled country sound, their harmonies opening the song, but it was back to the Rickenbacker chimes for Thunder Rail, a welcome reminder that Lucas can write soaring pop tinged anthems. Unbroken Hearts, the opening song from the latest album, Between The Moon and The Midwest made the case for the evening’s pairing, the band capturing excellently the glossy sheen of the recorded version and adding a soulful groove with some fine organ playing.  Likewise Wrong Side Of The Dream and Alone In Memphis hit a fine and soulful country groove but there was a step into a deeper country mode when lap steel was added for the keening country lament Pray For Rain. Here Lucas showed why he has been compared with George Jones, the sadness of the song at one with Lucas’s recent loss of his dog Sally, an event which had soured his arrival in Europe. Despite this Lucas was in fine form jesting with the audience and the band.

All too soon we were near the end of the night with the band departing leaving Lucas asking the audience what he should play next. Amid a plethora of requests the overwhelming winner was Shoulders, so, perched on the edge of the stage, Lucas tentatively began this moving song off mic, slowly building up into a spellbinding rendition with some of the crowd singing along. For the last song the band returned for a blistering Call The Doctor, a vibrant slash of spangled joyous rock’n’roll and a perfect end to a perfect night.

 

Austin Lucas On Why Sad Songs Are Here To Stay

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For those in the know Between The Moon and The Midwest by Austin Lucas is one of the finest albums released this year. It’s an album that tugs in two directions. There are chunks of tough country music and then there’s a shimmering, almost psychedelic sheen to several of the songs. Sound familiar? Well when the album was released back in February, several reviewers compared it to Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds In Country Music, in particular with the song Turtles All The Way Down. Good company for sure but in the end it’s a shorthand way of saying that both artists are at the forefront of reclaiming country music from the plethora of truck’n’beer’n’broads crap that’s been masquerading as country over the past few years.

Based in Indiana Lucas had a punk rock background before edging into his country sound on albums such as Somebody Loves You and A New Home In The Old World. His 2013 album Stay Reckless was considered by many to be his best but it coincided with a collision of personal and business problems that almost derailed him. Amidst a failing marriage and bouts of anxiety and depression his record label dropped him saying they didn’t hear any singles on the album. Cast adrift Lucas could have sank but instead he’s back, leaner and fitter and with a new label who believe in him and in the record. Between The Moon and The Midwest, recorded with Joey Kneiser from Glossary and featuring appearances from John Moreland, Lydia Loveless and Cory Branan is a tremendous slice of modern country and Lucas is touring the UK over the next few weeks promoting the album. An opportunity then for Blabber’n’Smoke to talk to the man about the album and its torturous conception. First of all we asked him about those comparisons to Sturgill Simpson.

I think there are several comparisons that can be made considering that we’re both legitimate country artists who are trying to push the boundaries of what the genre can be. Although it may be worth mentioning that his releasing Metamodern Sounds very nearly derailed the making of Between The Moon and The Midwest. I got pretty worried when I first heard Turtles All The Way Down reckoning that he’d already done the thing that I was in the middle of working on. However, in the end I decided to allow it to hearten me. Firstly, it showed that there was interest in this style of music. Secondly, his wasn’t a concept album. Nor was it psychedelic all the way through. Merely one song and a couple of small hints at psychedelia scattered throughout. Therefore, I felt I was still innovating the genre in a way that he hadn’t exactly done with his album. 

While people have honed in on the psychedelic aspect of the album at heart there’s a lot of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in the album. Are they big influences on you?

Of course they are. In my mind, they are two of the greatest and most innovative artists from that period in country music or any other genre. These are two guys who pushed more boundaries than anyone else and who did things their own way. In many ways, they’re role models for me and who and what I want to be and how I want to do things.

Some of the characters reappear throughout the album, is it a concept album, were you trying to tell a story?

Yeah, I actually came up with the concept for the album under the influence of a very special brownie, in the desert while on tour with Willie Nelson in 2011. It’s a love story about 3 best friends and how they miscommunicate, hurt each other and eventually ruin each other’s lives.

You open the album with Unbroken Hearts singing, ““I’ve been told to walk away nearly every time I make an album. I hear there’s no good men left, everyone in Nashville’s deaf, sad songs are a thing of the past.” I read that actually happened to you when you took the album to your previous label. The album’s been out for about eight month’s now so are there people out there wanting to hear “sad songs?”

There are absolutely people who want to hear sad songs and I am glad to say that I think there will always be people of quality who are interested in real songs. Truthfully though, since we’re on the subject, the song isn’t an indictment of the world at large, or even music row. It’s simply something that I wrote because I find the large scale music industry overall to be sort of unnecessary. There are many artists who court mainstream success but I’m not one of them. I exist in a world where that’s never been a desire or even an option. I’ve always existed on the fringes of the music world. Even within the scenes that I play in I’ve generally been an outsider. As a result I’m no stranger to the fact that, there has always been and always will be a place for independent artists, people who make extensive bodies of work for nothing more than the need to do so. My records or career may not ever have big money behind them. But quality music always finds fans and since I’m not interested in being a pop star music row is something that exists outside of my career equation. To be direct in a way that I haven’t been before, the words to that song in particular were only meant to shine a small amount of light on exactly that. The idea that these traditions of great song writing and storytelling would die after all these years is ludicrous. I think most of us know that, at least my friends and I know that. So I wrote it as a tongue in cheek battle cry of sorts. Nothing more, nothing less. 

You’re on a new record label, Last Chance, who have a deal with At The Helm in the UK. Are you able to say anything about them in terms of releasing albums that some major labels don’t see as hit material. After all, there is something of a resurgence in a more traditional country and songwriter form at present.

There is no question that they release a lot of stuff which would not be considered to be viable from a commercial standpoint. Certainly they are benefactors of the arts and in that way, I’m very proud to be a part of their team. 

The album and its predecessor Stay Reckless were recorded when you were going through a rocky patch, your marriage ending and such. I hope it’s not glib of me to ask if you subscribe to the notion that “break up” albums bring out the best in an artist?

I have no idea. I think that turmoil is well documented as being extremely fertile artistic soil though I’d rather not hypothesize on whether one must be in an aggravated or depressed state of being in order to make great art. To me, I think it’s simply a matter of staying hungry and being interested in getting better at your craft that should propel one to ever greater musical endeavours. 

You’re touring here with The Dreaming Spires who will be your backing band as well as playing their own support slot. It’s an interesting prospect and I was wondering what your thoughts are on what they’ll add to your sound.

I met them last year in the States during Americana fest through our shared UK label At The Helm. We got along very well and I quickly grew to respect them musically as well as personally. I have no question that they’ll have an effect on my sound and that’s exciting to me. The beauty of playing with new and different people is that freshness that you can get on old songs. Every new set of ears hears things in a different way and therefore, you can quickly find yourself in new musical territory. I’m excited to explore what those talented guys are going to show me about of my own songs. 

Before we go can you tell us anything about any future plans?

Just gotta get back into the studio and work on another album. Hopefully that will happen in the next half a year or so. 

Well, thanks and the best of luck with the tour. austinlucas_euro2016-800x565

Austin Lucas with The Dreaming Spires tour the UK and Ireland starting in Oxford on the 15th October with a Glasgow date at Broadcast on the 18th October. All dates are here.

Austin Lucas. Between The Moon and The Midwest. At The Helm/Last Chance Records

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After the country rock rumble of  Stay Restless Austin Lucas has stumbled further down that path to come up with the glistening jewel that is Between The Moon and The Midwest. I say glistening but shimmering would do just as well as there are moments here when the music does just that, it shimmers. Sure enough it’s laden with pedal steel and ringing telecasters, the ghost of George Jones is in the mix and there are some glorious duets with Lydia Loveless but Lucas, in tandem with Glossary’s Joey Kneiser has swathed the album in a sixties like sheen. Elements of Gram Parsons’ Cosmic American Music, Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb’s Wichita Lineman and even Brian Wilson’s teenage symphonies are all recalled while there’s a nod to the more recent metaphysical musings of Sturgill Simpson. There’s even, if you dig into the lyrics, a concept of sorts, several characters appearing in several of the songs.

The album opens with a welter of sounds as if the band were tuning up like an orchestra before Unbroken Hearts hits its sweet country stride. Riding the range here like Waylon Jennings,  Lucas lays his cards on the table from the start singing, “I’ve been told to walk away nearly every time I make an album. I hear there’s no good men left, everyone in Nashville’s deaf, sad songs are a thing of the past.” Thankfully over the ten songs here he proves conclusively that those deaf guys are in the wrong. Unbroken Hearts itself proves the point, its muscular Jennings chug leavened by some gliding pedal steel and chiming guitar especially at the end of the song as they spiral away. Lucas digs into the muscle and sinews of country rock throughout the album. Ain’t We Free rips away like Doug Sahm rocking the Armadillo back in the seventies, the curling guitars going apeshit while The Flame is introduced with a tremendous thick stringed grungy guitar strum that propels the song into a cosmic honky tonk heaven with a stinging pedal steel solo that recalls the fuzz fuelled efforts of Buddy Cage and Sneaky Pete back in the days. Wrong Side Of The Dream ripples along like The Burritos backing Gram and Emmylou with Lydia Loveless trading lines with Lucas in fine fashion before Lucas dips into George Jones territory for the piano led tear stained heartache of Pray For Rain.

An album composed of the above would already be well worth listening to but Lucas and Kneiser up the ante with a brace of songs that, as we said above, positively shimmer. Next To You is at heart a country ballad but it’s dressed up in a sumptuous confection of guitar and pedal steel that is like a heat haze conjuring up Dave Crosby and Israel Nash’s psychedelic country visions. Call The Doctor is like Jackson Browne or the Eagles on speed, the band whipping up a frenzied beat like a Koyaanisqatsi fast motion version of California freeway driving as Lucas thrashes around envisioning his own death. Death and dying are writ large on the closing song, Midnight (the album was recorded as Lucas was recovering from a period of depression) and here he just excels. A return to the mix of Parsons’ cosmic aspirations and old fashioned country writing that opened the album, here Lucas sounds like Willie Nelson sleepwalking with Santos and Johnny over a fluorescent nightscape, Steve Daly’s pedal steel lighting the way. It’s impossible really to convey just how good this song is, you really need to hear it. Aside from the perfect delivery the lyrics are somewhat amazing as Lucas sings

Let the devil have his horns and heathen souls.
Midnight, I’m too young to feel this old.
Only two ways this can end,
I’ve got to die or find Jesus, don’t know which one is worse.
I might die cursed, at least it’s an end
And if I’m born again I’ll live with a hole where my heart should have been.

If you’re somewhat restless waiting for that next Sturgill Simpson album to drop then grab this, it will not only tide you over, it might even be better.

The album’s released on 19th February and Lucas is playing some UK dates to tie in with that. Dates here

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Austin Lucas. Stay Reckless. New West Records.

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If you’re looking for an album that just about sums up the state of Americana these days then look no further. Austin Lucas has a punk background but grew up in a folk and bluegrass loving family.Ttiring of screaming his lyrics over a blitzkrieg of sound he returned to his roots and forged a fine amalgam of country and rock over a series of albums. Stay Reckless finds Lucas ensconced in the mighty bosom of New West Records which should offer him a fair degree of exposure. To top it all he’s blessed enough to have the services of Glossary, one of the finer exponents of the genre these days to hand catapulting this album into a contender for the year end top ten.

The album’s a captivating mixture of light and shade, hard driving country rock and choke worthy country ballads with Lucas’ tremulous voice, shades of Jay Farrar and George Jones flitting in and out, tying it all together. His duets with Glossary’s Kelly Knieser in particular tear and jerk at the heartstrings while he drives the harder numbers with authority. The band meanwhile are more than able to slam headfirst into the turbo charged punk fuelled maelstrom that is So Much More Than Lonely and then down clutch to deliver the wistful country flow of Four Wheels. Todd Beene’s pedal steel work in particular shines throughout the album but there are some exhilarating guitar duels with Joey Knieser with Small Town Heart standing out.

Lucas wrote much of this album in the wake of a divorce and this is reflected in some of the lyrics with Rings being the premier example. Lucas starts off with a solo lament before a sympathetic pedal steel whirls overhead. A restrained fiddle and some halting harmonies from Kelly Knieser add to the melancholic feel. It’s an excellent song given a wonderful delivery and perhaps the standout here despite tough competition from the miniature epic that is Save It For Yourself and the Waylon inspired toughness of Different Shade of Red. All in all an excellent listen.

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