When I heard the announcement that two of my favorite bands would be touring together this Spring, I distinctly remember some jumping up and down and fist pumping. For a large part of my friend group, Lucero is a band we came to love through their many visits to Barley’s, The Valarium and The Bijou. I can’t count the nights that we sang every word as if we wrote them, sometimes in pitches only dogs can hear. Ryan Bingham came a little later, but he had us hooked and fast. The intro to “Southside of Heaven” feels like a road trip. The kind where the hot sun and warm wind mix together with the dust blowing through the open car window, one arm out keeping rhythm with the road. The music of both bands is created for and from the soul.
While you may have missed the tour opener in Asheville, NC, due to the massive winter storm blowing through the country, there are still plenty of chances to be a part of the magic. “We almost didn’t make it to our first show in Asheville. We left Memphis at midnight Monday night, (Laughing) or Tuesday morning, which ever way you want to think about it and of course there was a huge ice storm. People we’re like, ‘are you going to be able to make it?’ Well, we’ll see. As opposed to an eight hour drive, it took us sixteen hours to get there.” Within a few hours of Knoxville, you can catch the tour on February 25th in Atlanta at The Bulkhead Theater, February 26th in Birmingham at Iron City and March 9th in Chattanooga at Track 29. Shows have been selling out, so don’t delay.
A few years ago we caught up with John Stubblefield, bassist for Lucero, just before the Bijou show in Knoxville. The set was full of hits and a few rarities as they presented the “Women and Work” album and tour. Recently, we spoke again. Stubblefield gave us the low down on a new album, the new location for April 18th’s Lucero Family Picnic and Spring tour.
“I woke up in Charleston, South Carolina, and it’s thirty degrees warmer than anywhere else we’ve been in the last few weeks. I feel pretty, pretty good. It’s been icy and overcast and today there is not a cloud in the sky. The sun is shining and it’s about 40 degrees instead of 10 degrees. Life is grand.”
Last time we spoke, Stubblefield said that people would often ask why Lucero’s albums couldn’t be more like live shows? Last August they released “Live From Atlanta,” a double disc, 32 song album recorded over three nights at Terminal West. It is as close as you can get to the real thing. “We tried several times to record different shows, like at the Lucero Family Picnic that we throw over in Arkansas. We had the same guy, Kevin Houston, who engineered and recorded a lot of our records, bring his recording over to Little Rock and set it up on the pavilion. Then a big storm came up and we almost didn’t get to play. At the last minute we we’re able to pull it all together, after the storm had passed, but everybody was a little frazzled. It wasn’t quite the right setting for the live recording that we were hoping to get. We tried it a couple of other times, like at the Christmas show, and we’d go back and listen and there wasn’t necessarily anything inherently wrong with the songs, but it was situations where we had been off the road for a while. We thought, what if we do this at the end of a tour, when we’ve been out for a month or more? We already had two nights scheduled in Atlanta and we wanted to make it three nights. We had been playing together everyday and there is something that happens when you play together every day for thirty days. The tour was kind of a pre production for the record. It’s a great town for us. We have always been well received there.”
Lucero has a standing tradition in Arkansas every year called The Lucero Family Picnic. Traditionally fans, friends and family come from all over for this celebration. “We’re bringing it to Memphis this year for the first time, to our neighborhood. It’s become a Rights of Spring celebration. We’re blocking off a street and connecting two big parking lots at Minglewood Hall, where we also play the Family Christmas Show, in the neighborhood where a lot of us met. It’s right there across from the old Antena Club, where Brian and Roy and I saw hundreds of shows together. We were twelve years old when I met Brian, and then Roy shortly after that. It should be great. We’ve got the North Mississippi Allstars who have been long time friends and tour mates and are also from the area. The whole music part is kind of Memphis-centric. We wanted to introduce some of our out-of-town friends to a full Memphis experience. We’ve got North Mississippi Allstars, Marcela and Her Lover, Clay Otis and Robby Grant all playing. Central BBQ will be there cooking a whole hog. We’ll have lots of food and Memphis vendors and artist and t-shirt companies and causes we’re fans of, that we’ll introduce our friends and fans to. (Laughing) It’s a Lucero Lifestyle Festival. It’s a time to celebrate the awakening of Spring and a good excuse to get together with family and friends, and all kind of celebrate each other.”
Stubblefield and I both have roots with early concert experiences in the Beale Street Music Festival. “It was the first Memphis in May festivals, which would happen downtown on the back of a flat bed trailer in a little parking lot and the New Daisy Theater and some clubs on Beale. I still have memories of being on my dad’s shoulders in a warehouse downtown, seeing Memphis Slim play. I was probably about three or four years old.”
The current tour is in full sway and the tickets are becoming hard to get. The grouping of Ryan Bingham and Lucero seems to be a perfect storm of music. “It’s a mutual admiration society. We were fans of him and his music and it turns out that he was fans of us and our music. It’s a true co-bill show. He’s got fans that should know about us and we have fans that should know about him. (Laughing) We’re going to bring everybody together and show them what we’re all into. It should be a good time. There is a great opening band, Twin Forks. They’re really awesome. It’s worth getting there early to check them out too.”
The wait is almost over. Lucero’s new studio album should be released later in 2015. “That’s what we’ve been doing this year. Before this tour, we spent a couple months in a demo studio, writing and demo-ing up a new batch of tunes. We’ve got about fifteen (laughing) in various states of structure. After this tour, we’re going home to load into Ardent Studios in Memphis and start cutting a new record. Hopefully if everything goes right, which we’re on track, and the stars aline, we’ll have it all done and a fall tour.”
