Country Rockers Lucero are Road-Tested

Sunday News
Published: June 25, 2006
By JOHN DUFFY, Correspondent

Anyone described as a cross between Bruce Springsteen and Kurt Cobain with a dash of Willie Nelson would turn some heads. That's how one industry insider characterized Lucero singer and songwriter Ben Nichols. At first listen, the description seems to fit the group's sound as a whole, but throw in a bit of Steve Earle, some Replacements, Bottle Rockets, Drive-By Truckers, Uncle Tupelo and a dash of Faces, and you'd be closer.

The Memphis, Tenn., quartet, which will perform at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster Tuesday, plays a compelling brand of country rock that has made them one of the best American bands you've probably never heard of. But the band is steadily growing a fan base not only through its 250 shows a year but also through the independent film "Dreaming in America," the result of filmmaker Aaron Goldman following Lucero on the road and in the studio for several months.

The film shows the making of the group's 2005 release "Nobody's Darling" with famed producer Jim Dickinson in his Mississippi barn. The resulting album won universal praise and earned Lucero a "band to watch" nod from Rolling Stone. Nichols, who spoke on the phone from the band's rehearsal space (located in the same building that once housed Elvis Presley's dojo), remembers how the filmmaker approached the band. "Aaron saw us perform one night and wrote us a letter asking if he could tag along to make a film."

Lucero, which includes Nichols, lead guitarist and co-founder Brian Venable, drummer Roy Berry and bassist John C. Stubblefield, allowed Goldman to ride shotgun in a cramped, smelly tour van to capture the band in its element. The film is a great introduction to the band: more honest than a glowing, superlative-laced press release, better than a Web site and almost as good as watching a show and then hanging out with the band afterward.

And even though it starts out showing the band members unable to finish a gig due to drunkenness, it also shows their willingness to play until there are no songs left in their repertoire. "I was nervous at first, but in the end," Nichols said, "it worked out really well for us because it gave people a glimpse into what we do and how hard we work at it. It really captured all the energy of our shows." That van, by the way, ever present in the film, like a fifth member of the band, died early this year on a southern California highway. A cracked cylinder head was the diagnosis. "We limped all the way back to Memphis in it going under 55."

The film also chronicles the band's dealings with the business side of music, its struggles with indie labels that go broke, lack of medical coverage and other woes not uncommon to bands on Lucero's level. "We are slowly learning how to play the game ... but that's a whole other barrel of monkeys." Nichols hopes to be able to concentrate completely on music at some point.

Lucero just finished recording its latest effort in Richmond, Va., in early June, tentatively titled "Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers." Nichols calls the new album a triumph, an expansion of the previous album's stripped-down, four-piece, no-overdub approach. "I think it's the only time every song came out the way I first heard it in my head."

The album is expected to be released in September on the Liberty & Lament label, an imprint of Warner Bros. Nichols sings in a semi-intoxicated, close-mouthed drawl that sounds far past the point of hoarseness. His voice, while sometimes dragging through the verses as if the words won't come out, can't conceal his exceptional songwriting. Nichols' straightforward songs with simple words are never simplistic. When Nichols first began writing songs at 14, he was, by his own admission, terrible.

"Then at some point I realized that every lyric doesn't have to be the best ever, it doesn't have to be poetry. And usually when you consciously try to write great is when you mess it up." Nichols sings of a world where some live and others dare not go, where booze drowns sorrow, where lost love is weathered like a hurricane and worn like a scar, and where the consequences of drinking and loving always seem to be put off to another day.

He is like Springsteen in that so much of his music contains an undercurrent of escape and personal liberation, and like Cobain in his knowledge that there often is no escape. Many artists, from roots rock to mainstream country, sing of similar themes, but few convey heartache in such judiciously chosen words, in a manner at once enraged and tender, as Nichols does throughout "Nobody's Darlings."

Among the album's best tracks is "The War," a song that loosely describes his grandfather's experiences during World War II. If there were a corresponding analog, it would be The Band's classic "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." In "The War," sung over a single acoustic guitar, the singer is drafted in early 1943, survives the Normandy invasion, fights across France, rides a tank into Belgium (he likes the Belgians better than the French), and when it gets cold, carries a bottle of liquor with his gun. Despite being promoted to sergeant, he is busted down in rank three times. "Following orders never suited me/Giving them out was much worse/I could not stand to get my friends killed/So I took care of myself first ..."

"Anybody who goes to war comes back wounded or scarred in some way," Nichols said of his motivation to write the song, which is unlike any other on the album. "It was really just a tribute to my grandfather, to express some empathy with him, but it does seem to have resonance with what is going on today, even though I wasn't necessarily thinking of that when I wrote it."

In the end, Nichols and the other members of Lucero want people to understand they are just a rock band that works hard for a living because they love what they do. "We watch the first three bands at the show and drink in the audience like everyone else. We don't hide in secret back in a dressing room or on some sort of island ... or wherever the hell rock stars hang out before the show."

The members of Lucero are still waiting for the day when they make enough money to, say, make a down payment on a house or start a family. The success of last year's album meant that for the first time in its history, the band earned money from selling records. Lucero sold almost 20,000 copies of its previous three discs, but hadn't received a valid royalty check from any of them. The band got one check, but it bounced. And they still drive a van from show to show across the country. But at least now it's a nicer van. This one has air conditioning.