Lucero finally has a Beyoncé-level music video ("Long Way Back Home," featuring Michael Shannon), but Ben Nichols never thought he'd hear the Memphis-based rock band's name uttered in the same sentence as Beyoncé's.
"But it's pretty cool having a video of that caliber. With Beyoncé there's a lot more dancing, and of course they're top notch as far as quality is concerned," Nichols told CL as we spoke in advance of the band's September 23 show at The Ritz in Ybor City. "But having a video that can stand up and hold its own among Beyoncé-type fare is pretty cool. Making that video is one of the coolest thing Lucero's ever done, and that's all thanks to my brother Jeff, of course."
Family was a big part of the conversation, and we talked a little about his band's future plus Ybor City's own Ol' Dirty Sundays where we swear we saw Nichols one night. Read our feature story on the band via cltampa.com/music, and see the full Q&A below.
Lucero w/Brent Cowles. Sun. Sept. 23, 7 p.m. $22 & up. The Ritz, 1503 E. 7th Ave., Ybor City More info: theritzybor.com
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Did you think anyone would ever compare Lucero to Beyoncé?
Never thought those two would ever be uttered in the same sentence, but it's pretty cool having a video of that caliber. With Beyoncé there's a lot more dancing, and of course they're top notch as far as quality is concerned. But having a video that can stand up and hold its own among Beyoncé-type fare is pretty cool. Making that video is one of the coolest thing Lucero's ever done, and that's all thanks to my brother Jeff, of course.
By the way, last time you played the Ritz in Ybor City, you ended up at Crowbar down the street for Ol’ Dirty Sundays. Your Ybor show is on Sunday again — will we see another cameo?
That's an interesting question. You know, with Lucero, yeah, there's usually a little bit of drinking involved, if not before or during, then definitely after the set. So we'll have to see where the night takes us. Seeing as there's plenty of options down there, there's no telling where I'll end up. I'm sure I'll be walking the streets of Ybor at some point in the evening, looking for some kind of drinks, of course.
Yeah, I feel like you have such a deep connection with your fans, and in Tampa, too, thinking about Nicole Kibert who shot that album art for your live album. You'll have to forgive me if my line of questioning seems discombobulated because you've talked at length about everything, so I am trying to avoid anything that you may have already answered.
That does make it tough.
Yeah, I had a bunch of questions, but you answered them already. You turned the 20 year mark as a band and released a new album on a new label, Thirty Tigers — I know the band started out with some pretty rudimentary goals, but you’re right where you want to be, having fun and doing it the right way — think you’ve got another 20, 10 or five years in you? I know you wanna do a few more albums like Ghost...
Yeah, I think, man, 20 years is a long time. I think that wholly depends on, it boils down to how tough the band members are and how our health holds out in old age. Ten years, no sweat. I think that, I kind of take for granted, like, "Yeah, I'll be doing this in 10 years." That doesn't seem that far away, and yeah, I still have more that I want to do with the band. Especially having done Among The Ghosts, like I said in other interviews, I would love to make a few more records that are of that same caliber. I think we're kind of hitting a stride. With Matt Ross (Spang) being the producer and Sam Phillips being right there. We actually bought a warehouse space, and old building, and old 50s garage, actually, right outside of downtown Memphis, so we're actually neighbors with Sam Phillips recording service. So we can literally push the gear down the sidewalk from our practice space down to Sam Phillips. With that being there, and Matt Ross being the producer there, it just seems like everything is right there, and it's too easy to not take advantage of that.
I've still got stuff to do. Ten years is easy. Twenty years? We'll see how the fellas are holding up. The road takes its toll for sure. We'll see where our bodies, what kind of condition our health is in. I mean, I dunno, I'll only be 64 (in 20 years), so yeah, it's totally possible.
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You talked about Matt a little bit, and you’ve called Ghosts the music that you were in the mood to hear right now. Matt Ross-Spang, he got you guys back on the floor, stripped it back — what do you think he brought to the record that you could not do on your own or hit exactly on Tennessee and That Much Further?
Man, he's got all these engineering — I don't wanna say tricks — but he's got all these techniques that I have no idea how it all works. And that building is a part of it, too. Sam Phillips built that studio after he sold Elvis to RCA and moved out of that small, one-room, little Sun Studios. Sam Phillips recording is the building he built specifically to be a studio, so there are these cave-like reverb chambers that are the size of a room, then there are little chambers built in between rooms. The way the chamber is designed, and even the hallway in the reception area — it's all designed to be used and mic'd.
Matt Ross-Spang is the kind of guy who can kind of take advantage of that. So we'd record, and he'd stay there all night and really run it through all these chambers, parts of the building. He got a really solid sound out of it. We'd record and be like, "That was really fun to play. I don't know what it's gonna sound like listening to it straight away — It doesn't really sound like a record, but we're on to something." You'd come back the next day, and he's kind of done whatever weird voodoo magic that he does, and you're like, "Man, that sounds amazing, actually. That's what we did yesterday?"
I'm not sure what it is, but he actually brings something to the table, and I have no idea how it works, and you can hear it on the record. And he's just a really easy going guy, real nice guy. We were co-producing, so we were on a more equal footing with Matt. So all the ideas, everything was on the table, and nothing was forbidden. We could kind of just experiment and see where everything took us. There wasn't one, he didn't have a vision or a sound that he was going for. He was very open to just working with whatever happened, so it was a much more laid back kind of thing. And it wasn't time pressure either. We were going in, recording a few days here, a few days there over the course of a year, so it was a much more, easy environment to work with as opposed to the last few records which were very time-constrained and very, uh, pushed. This one was done in much more natural kind of way. Matt was the right kind of guy for that.
Right on, and I know you were proud of the records that you did with Ted [Hutt], but do you feel like Matt was kind of able to manage...I know that you didn't have a problem with the way Ted worked, but I with think some of the guys it caused issues. Not taking away anything from Ted, but...
And we learned a lot making those records with Ted. I don't think we could've made this record with Matt if we hadn't worked through all that stuff with Ted, so it's all a process. Learning as much as we did working on those records with Ted Hutt — that put is in a spot where we could be like, "Oh, this is how you do it." And then that gave us enough knowledge and confidence to go in and kind of hold our own with Matt Ross-Spang. So, yeah, it all worked out it was supposed to.
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Obviously, you're writing from a different place, or trying to at least, on this album. "Among The Ghosts" cracks the whole thing open, and in my mind, I'm like, "Is Ben writing this, is he writing from another place?" And you've talked about that, but you obviously miss Izzy and her teenage siblings when you're on the road, but you wrote these songs because they remind you of home and make you feel better, but you've also talked about finally having something to lose. Please tell me, first off, that Izzy's first words weren't "Goodbye," and that was just a literary thing.
Haha.
And then, second, could you talk about that moment or those moments that lead up to that realization that you have something huge to lose, and how different that was compared to the way you lived your life before you had a family?
Man. Yeah, her first word was, "bye."
Really.
Not "goodbye," but "goodbye" works better in the song than "bye." It's definitely the first thing she learned to say because, yeah, when she was really little... I mean I fly out tomorrow to go play the Ryman, so, yeah. She's definitely grown up with having to say goodbye, and it's not getting any easier. Now she's two, she'll be two-and-a-half soon, and now she knows that we're gone. Now she can actually say, "No don't go." Ah, it's not getting easier — it's getting tougher.
Sorry.
So yeah, we'll see how that goes. I have a big tour to do, and we'll have to say goodbye again, soon. I think when my wife told me she was pregnant, kind of immediately, I don't know — "dread" is not exactly the right word. Obviously everybody is a little nervous when they find out that they're having a kid for the first time. There's a whole lot of unknowns there. But yeah, it kind of immediately struck me that I've got something much more important than myself to worry about now. Like, I've always taken care of the band guys, and I've had relationships before that were important to me, and I've always cared about my family back home — my parents and my brothers.
When it's your own kid it definitely, it's definitely... everything becomes more serious. And I think that's part of the sound on this record, it's that seriousness. Women & Work was definitely a lighthearted record. It was, in my mind, just having fun and experimenting with all that old rock and roll, and kind of soul sound. Just seeing what those are like in a Lucero context, and that was a lot of fun.
This record is kind of getting back to actual serious, "This is what gets me through life" type of music. Every night singing these new songs definitely helps when I am away from the family. Singing these songs, it's what I want to hear, it's what I want to sing, so yeah there's a seriousness to it, but it's all good. It's all very good, it's just so important to me. I don't wanna screw it up or lose it.
Yeah, and you have that Ryman date on the seventh, which is incredible in itself. It got me thinking about Paul Simon, and how he took a literature class that really got him going down this path of telling rich stories in the third person. I know you’ve moved away from Lucero’s autobiographical feel — what kinds of books do you use are learning devices or read to inspire you to tell stories?
The books and short stories were very important on Among the Ghosts. There's little bits and pieces borrowed or inspired all over the record. I don't know if I talked about it before, one of my favorite songs on the record is "Everything Has Changed," and the second verse of that talks about burning letters in the rain using a Sterno can. That whole scene was borrowed from a Tim O'Brien story, The Things They Carried. Little images that I have come across are kind of constantly working their way into the lyrics for better or for worse. I don't know exactly how illegal or immoral that kind of borrowing is. I think it's call part of the game, I think everybody kind of does that.
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Yeah.
It's definitely a big part of what I do. And right now, I don't have anything as tangible as "Last Pale Light" [(In The West)], which is completely based on [Cormac] McCarthy's Blood Meridian. I don't have anything that direct influencing the writing right now, but there are little pieces floating around from all sorts of different things, and I haven't written a single thing since we wrapped up in the studio for Among the Ghosts, so I'm not exactly sure what's coming next even though I'm planning on getting back in the studio soon. I have a feeling other songs, other books, and as cheesy as it sounds, films all sorts of things will work itself in there, and possibly even more comic books. There was a Maggie Chascarillo song a while back, and I've been telling people that the song "Cover Me" is kind of inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that film with Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
Right on.
So yeah, there's movies, there's comics, all sorts of stuff going on. But right now I can't really pin it down to one major influence, but it'll, I have a feeling it will keep going in that direction.
And I think I am running short on time, but two quick questions. Is there a reason you put "Everything Has Changed" as number three instead of number two on the album in terms of sequencing? I know that you're a fan of albums where the sleeper song that's great is sequenced right after the big hit or whatever.
Man, I'm not sure what the big hit on the album actually is.
Well, it's the title track. People land there.
I love the opening track, "Among the Ghosts." It was definitely the one to open the record with, and then it was a toss up. I thought about putting something else in the number two spot, but that "Bottom of the Sea" song had something in common sonically with "Among the Ghosts," and it made a big statement, like, "This is what the record is gonna sound like." With "Among the Ghosts" and "Bottom of the Sea" starting it off, you know it's gonna be different. Are you still there?
Oh yeah, I'm definitely here. I like listening to guys like you talk, man. I've learned that I should just shut up and listen to people.
Oh, it's all good. I was like, "Man, I'm not even sure if he's still there."
Snoring. Haha.
Those two definitely made a statement together at the begining of the record, and then after I made that statement, I was like, "OK, I'm gonna put my favorite song right here." I wanted the more angular, kind of post-punk sounding stuff to be at the begining before I got into the..."Everything Has Changed" sounds very, I don't know, Southern rock to me. It sounds very, it sounds like Lucero song to me, but it has, I don't know, it has all the right stuff in it, so I thought that was a pretty good spot for it on the record.
Cool.
I was very happy with the sequencing of the record as a whole. Ending with "For the Lonely Ones" was kind of, once, I did that guitar solo at the end of it, I was like, "Ooh. Yeah, that's a great way to end the record." So kind of the moment that song was written I was like, "Ah, yeah we've got the ending." And then, yeah, everything else kind of fit in like pieces of a puzzle, it just kind of clicked together.
That's awesome. And lastly this album isn’t dark, especially considering how happy you are these days. How do you balance visiting those darker places when songwriting and then coming back to your family when it’s time to be dad?
Man, it's really nice being able to kind of compartmentalizing those things and keep them separate. When I'm home, it's all about the family. My wife goes to work, and I hang out with a two-year-old all day long, and it's amazing. It's hilarious, and it's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun. It's like an 80s movie, it's like Mr. Mom, kind of ridiculous. The darkness never is a part of that, and that's the way I want it to stay. But then, yeah, when you're playing rock and roll or whatever kind of music, when you need the songs, and you need to visit... visiting is kind of healthy in a way, but dwelling in it is not. So I like that it's there and that I can access it at any time, and the songs have a good dose of that in them, and that's the best. When you are happy, but you can visit this place and really soak it in and really pay attention to it because you are happy. You can really dissect it and let it, I don't know, you can let it heal you instead of just bleed you dry because that darkness can definitely suck the life out of you. It's nice to be in control of it rather than it be in control of you.
Well, right on. Thanks for letting me go over, I can appreciate that. And I can hear that you are being summoned. See you guys when you come down here.
Sounds like a deal.
