Do not be alarmed if you're in a Safety Harbor bathroom on March 24 and hear someone testing out the sound. It's probably just Primavera Music Festival headliner R.LUM.R.
The 28-year-old breakout R&B/pop sensation likes to test out the resonant frequency in lavatories while on tour — he said so in a Twitter message about L.A.'s Moroccan Lounge.
"There's also a bathroom in Chicago O'Hare that's good, too," he says while laughing over a bad phone connection.
R.LUM.R (pronounced "pronounced Ar-Lamar," based on his real name, Reginald Lamar Williams, Jr.) is driving through some mountains in middle America when CL catches up with him. It's been just a couple of months since the Bradenton native now living in Nashville played something of a homecoming show at Crowbar in Ybor City. He remembers the area well, and he should.
Williams' first concert experience happened when Coheed and Cambria played Jannus Live, and he used to go on impromptu tours hitching rides with bands like Matthew Fowler and Bay area outfit The End of April. A member of The End of April, Chris Martignago, is now Director of A&R Research at Atlantic Records and R.LUM.R's manager.
On March 9, R.LUM.R will release ALTERIMAGE, a new EP featuring re-imagined renditions of tracks from his critically-acclaimed debut, AFTERIMAGE.
Look below to get more information on Primavera and read the rest of our Q&A where Williams waxes on his early days, the realities of "Spotify stardom," and why being good live is any band's ticket to longevity.
I feel like your time in Tallahassee was very formative — do you ever think about that little house up there on Sharon Rd.?
Yeah, the Sharon house, absolutely, I remember doing like, that's where I learned to video edit. I started doing like, short films, those were like the YouTube days of Iron & Wine doing videos and stuff. I got a lot of great memories from that.
And just to set the stage tonight, you're in Boise, you have a sold out show there tonight?
Actually, no , we're on the road today. Not playing in Boise.
I forgot that was canceled, sorry man. That's a bummer. So what, are you guys going to go see Black Panther instead, or are you refusing to watch it since you like Blade so much?
Man, I wish we could hit Black Panther tonight but, I'm probably not in the right mind space even, and we gotta drive back 11 hours to Utah today, so it all works out. I'm legitimately planning on trying to figure out a way to buy out at least 20 tickets to provide for everyone I know when I get back to Nashville.
Right on. You said that you weren't in the right mind space to watch Black Panther, what did you mean by that?
You know I'm in work mode. We're on tour and you know, as much as it's great to travel and its fun and it's beautiful, and it's this wonderful experience, you still gotta take care of your voice, rest, and stay calm. But if I go to see Black Panther, I have a feeling I will be shouting at the screen, yelling, "This is amazing." So, I'll probably need a day or two to recover.
Speaking of work mode, I hear you spent your Valentine's Night playing a sold out show in Portland, but in your day time you were listening to some demos. Can we talk about what these new songs feel like? What can we expect?
This is true, I was. I think at this point all I can say is that I like them. I think they'll be very cool. We'll definitely be playing some new songs [on tour] for sure.
Where'd you end up demoing those songs? Are these the songs you wrote on the winter writing trip, by the way?
Yeah, those are some of the songs I wrote on the winter writing trip, yeah. Some acoustic demos that I just do in my room.Somethings I can build out and turn into other stuff. It's a mish mash of stuff. Some stuff I do in my room, other's at friends' house in Nashville, some stuff in L.A. It's a hodgepodge at this point.
What happens to the stuff you don't like? Do you put it in a folder and save it later to build out further along the road or do you completely ditch the idea?
I don't know, there's a lot of things. Sometimes it's a song for other artists, sometimes they do come back. Sometimes I just forget about it, and then [intelligible] will be like, "Hey, do you remember that?" and I'll be like, "Yeah, I like that".Unfortunately, it's never a straight process.
Right on. Are you ever tempted to re-record anything from the All Of Us or Change EP?
Someone had said something about that earlier. There is stuff all the way back in my catalog. And I look back on that stuff and be like, "Oh, you sound good for your time". But like, it's a great representation of that time, it represents a snapshot of that location. You can't edit a picture once you've taken it. So I think those are fine living in that time. Unless I find something that's really connected to where I'm at right now.
Full band set in Safety Harbor? Josh Blaylock on keys maybe?
Actually no, he won't be with us. We settled down, and I thought he was the right vibes for the recordings he did with us. And we sat down and everything came naturally. And everything we did we did for the fans. We want them to know the history and how we came up. But yeah, the Safety Harbor set, everything we do will be with a full band.
Your first concert as a fan was at Jannus (Coheed), and you just played a sorta-hometown show in Ybor. Now Safety Harbor. I take it you get around on your own bus these days, but who did you used to hitch rides with back when you didn’t have a car?
Yeah, Chris Martignago , who's my manager now, used to be in this band called The End of April.
Is that a Riverview band?
Yeah, they were a Riverview band, graduated from Riverview High School. I'd hop on their tours. There was this kid named Matthew Fowler. I did some touring with this band out of Orlando named Awestruck. I used to play with Van Robertson and Harper Sublette and a bunch of different cats.
And I know it's probably a little difficult to return the favor to someone anytime soon now with the roads you're playing and I'm sure the contracts look a little different.
Things are definitely different now but we've brought out and bring as many people on tour as we can. Like the new [unintelligible] we've played with, he's incredible and he's been killing it every night.
Asking a little bit on Nashville, a city really rooted in certain things (“10-year-town,” the country music scene), but you moved there party because other places like L.A., Atlanta and New York already had a deep history when it came to breaking black artists. You tour a lot, so IDK how you’ll answer, but what’s changing in Nashville? Do you feel a sense of change being on the ground there or are not you there enough to notice it?
Yeah! I am not as steeped in the country scene so I don't think I can speak as much for there since I wasn't born and bred there. I wasn't born and bred in the country tradition there so I don't think i can speak as much to country. I went to create my own lane there, and I think we've been relatively successful doing that. That being said, that in itself I think is indicative of change there. The fact that I can go there and having an audience there after breaking ground.
Of course, the first six months there or whatever took some convincing and some time, but the fact that I can have an audience there and do shows there is indicative of having a change there. I know there is a bit of a growing scene and affection for things that are considered alternative to what you generally hear in Nashville, but at the same time it's not like an antagonistic relationship. I think that's a good way to go about it, i see people like Louis York who is like R&B, soul, playing at the Bluebird as much as I see country acts headlining and selling out Cannery Ballroom. Or like I saw Corbin Esso at the Ryman which is where the Grand Ole' Opry used to be. There is obviously quite the change in tide, and i think it's just be good to be thought of. It's a honor to be mentioned as one of those who helped usher in change, even if I wasn't one of the ones who had boots on the ground, like Dolly Parton performing Jolene.
Yeah, it was really cool to be up there. I was up there over Christmas and I saw Jason Eskridge on the cover of a magazine up there. I felt that was so rad to see that.
Yeah! It's amazing!
And he's like a DJ, too. With his Sunday Soulful thing...
Yeah!
Do you still write for other people?
I just try to stay creative, you know? The music will tell you where it wants to go, I think. It's my job to try to facilitate it and try to be as honest as possible, so, If we write a thing, and we finish it, and someone else can display it better than I can and it's true to them, it's their song. It kind of makes sense on its own, I try to make it as simple as I can. So, short answer is yes.
Is there a short answer to the question to what motivates you to do it on your own? Was it the positive feedback you were getting from people or that you felt they couldn't be done by anybody else?
I feel like there's a dichotomy there. This started as a passion project, holed up in a studio [in Tallahassee]. We were doing beats, doing work, what we were always doing. Then we got an EP ready to go, and it was "Show Me," "Nothing New," "Be Honest" and another song called "Blame It On Me," and a few songs that never saw the light of day. Once we got that done and we started showing people, that's when the positive feedback came. That was a very affirming thing like, "Ok cool" not only did we like it but other people did to. We showed Atlantic and them because of the writing camp we were doing and they were like, "Oh, this is cool," too. That positive feedback definitely helped but it was something we were going to do anyway.
I just had an interview with Jason Mraz where he was talking about the way songwriting royalties are getting paid out. He sounded frustrated, and it’s crazy to hear an artist at his level still dealing with it. You’ve been called a streaming sensation, etc., but I feel like there really needs to be an education — as far as listeners go — about how that gets paid out and how hard it really is to make it. For the other emerging and hoping-to-emerge artists out there — could you talk about how you went about structuring your deal, things you wish you would have done differently and how you are able to create revenue for the small business that is R.LUM.R.
I think there's one thing about technology that no one can take away or change is playing live. You gotta play live, All the way back to the Led Zeppelin days. If you play live, people are going to notice. I've been lucky to play and being able to do it and learn what works for me and getting immediate feedback [Unintelligible]. You learn so so much that way. The monetary stuff is very helpful, but the advantage you get from all the streaming is people just figuring out who you are. It's not the same as the days of Led Zeppelin where you absolutely positively needed big PR, big management, to get your stuff out there. The internet has equalized a lot of that. With that, the market is going to be flooded, so you have to be distinct, and you have to be good and be good live. There's only one thing-you can have a good PR campaign to get people in but if you don't wow them they're not coming back. That's always true and I think that's always going to be true.
I think when people see your streaming numbers people will think "Reggie's got it made" but I think it's quite the opposite. You still have to hustle.
Yeah there's a lot of reality in it when you're driving 11 hours to Utah.
So being on a Spotify playlist is a lot like how getting on the radio used to be, is that how the label treats it?
Yeah. I'm not sure how the label treats it but it's definitely good how old radio was with PR.
You obviously had a not-so-great family life as far as your folks supporting the music thing — have you been able to start a family of your own yet?
I think that kind of depends on finding a good partner, right? [laughs]
Yeah, or you could adopt.
Yeah, I've thought about that.
Which U.S. bathrooms have the best resonant frequency? L.A.?
[laughs] That's funny, man. I was in L.A. and we played this place called the Moroccan Lounge and I think i [Unintelligible]. There's also a bathroom in Chicago O'Hare too [laughs].
