On Tuesday, April 14, the Memphis-based, alternative country band, Lucero, will be delivering flask after flask of heart-wrenching, whiskey-drenched punk rock to Western New York. Titus Andronicus, a rock ‘n’ roll band from New Jersey, will be opening for the band. If this tour is anything like their past efforts, Lucero won’t disappoint.
Since their formation in 1998, Lucero has released six full-length albums. Drummer Roy Berry, bassist John C. Stubblefield, guitarist Brian Venable, and frontman Ben Nichols make up Lucero as we know them today, although the band started out as a simple duo consisting of Nichols and Venable. Lucero has undergone a number of temporary lineup changes, and the addition of piano, accordion, and other guest instrumentation by Rick Steff who has contributed to music created by Chan Marshall of Cat Power. Steff’s musical additions are plentiful on the tracks of Lucero’s 2006 release, Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers, giving the album less of a country sound and a fuller, more multi-layered musicality than is featured on earlier releases.
Currently, the band is in the studio with producer Ted Hutt, working on their next album in midtown Memphis. The album will feature Steff on keyboard and horns, and even the addition of backup singers, which the group has never before introduced into their musical sound. On the band’s official website, Nichols writes, “We wanted to take our favorite pieces of Memphis music history and combine it with the drunken rock ‘n’ roll we usually play and see what we came up with. This is gonna be a soulful one, folks,” he promises us.
Nichols released a seven-song solo album, The Last Pale Light in the West, earlier this year. The album is based on the book, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, who also authored the novel behind the major motion picture, No Country For Old Men. This release is very different than Nichols’ previous work with Lucero, because he typically draws lyrical inspiration from his own experiences rather than from other media sources. When speaking about this album, Nichols told NPR, “I think the songs came out in a very honest way.”
While I’m excited to hear some of the new tracks from Lucero’s upcoming album, I’m mostly looking forward to the familiar sing-along experience that the band offers their diehard fans. With performances off of their 2003 release, That Much Further WestNobody’s Darlings, and their cover of Jawbreaker’s “Kiss The Bottle,” Lucero doesn’t loosen their grip on old favorites while they’re working on the evolution of a sound that is constantly growing and venturing into new territory. Their classic songs of love and loss define them, as a band, and repeating these classics doesn’t cause them to stagnate, but rather, to reaffirm their place in the world of music and in the hearts of fans.
The atmosphere of the band’s live performance accounts for much of their popularity. The music of Lucero, without the clinking of beer bottles and the energy of a devoted crowd who shares in Nichols’ ups and downs, is like watching Rocky Horror Picture Show at home on DVD. Perhaps it’s the subject matter, but there’s something very personal about Nichols crooning about old flames and nights so long that he forgets what came before them. His on-stage performance seems like a public re-living of his most intimate moments.
The show will be at Mohawk Place and tickets are $15, presale.
