Throwdown Tour

About austin_lucas

To judge a book by its cover, Austin Lucas may look like the odd man out on the Country Throwdown tour. Boasting an extensive collection of tattoos, Lucas could pen a novel with the amount of ink decorating his body. However, he doesn’t write his stories on paper; he sings every last one as if it were his final curtain call, leaving everything onstage before taking his bow.

For Lucas, performing on the Country Throwdown Tour is coming full-circle as a musician. Raised in the backwoods country of Monroe County, Indiana, Lucas was born into a bluegrass lineage. His father, Bob Lucas, is an accomplished musician and performer in his own right, having earned songwriting credits on two of Allison Kraus’ albums, including 1997’s Grammy-winning So Long So Wrong. Learning to harmonize before learning to read, Lucas’ talent was recognized and fostered from an early age. Beyond pickin’ sessions on the porch, Lucas honed his vocal control in six formative years as a member of the nationally-acclaimed Indiana University Children’s Choir.

In a narrative as well-worn as it is true, Lucas rebelled against his upbringing, leaving the country for the bustle of the big city. Beyond the rolling hills of southern Indiana, Lucas also left the comfort of traditional music for the catharsis of punk rock. After the better part of a decade spent criss-crossing the globe with a series of bands in broken-down vans, collecting scars and collecting stories, Lucas was all out of angst. Reflecting on the experience, Lucas contends, “I wasn’t interested in that musical style as a lifestyle anymore; I didn’t want that to be the focus of my general existence.” While much of the appeal of punk music lies in its unrefined rawness and simplicity, Lucas hit a musical glass-ceiling. “I found myself in need of a different musical palate to paint with in order to create more diverse melodies and lyrical imagery, and the clarity provided in acoustic music allows for an easier gateway for listeners to hear what you’re speaking about.”

In between the endless tours of dingy clubs and basements, Lucas found respite for his ringing ears in the delicacy of traditional songcraft. “I spent five years living in Prague, and the distance geographically and culturally made me feel more connected to my family, culture and past, all of which affected the direction of my songwriting.” As they say, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.

Following his solo debut, The Common Cold (2006), Lucas has steadily built upon his recorded output, releasing Putting The Hammer Down (2007) and Somebody Loves You (2009), which debuted at #7 on the Billboard Bluegrass chart. Additionally, Lucas has found time to record a collaborative record and a number of limited-run vinyl singles, including a stripped-down rendition of Dolly Parton’s ‘To Daddy.’ Culminating with his fourth album, A New Home in the Old World (2011), Lucas has consistently evolved and grown as a musician and songwriter, resting on no laurels. As he sees it, “The best thing about being a solo artist is the ability to move forward and experiment all the time, to not be dictated by others’ influences, but to have the ability to move around and explore your own influences.”

In the simplest of terms, one can track the trajectory of Lucas’ discography by counting the additional players on the records. While some of his earlier recordings were as bare-bones as they come --a voice, a guitar, and a microphone-- each successive album has built upon the songs’ framework, incorporating banjo, fiddle, upright bass, and pedal steel. A New Home in the Old World ratchets the sound up to the next level, adding texture with a Hammond B3 organ, the brassy flourishes of a trumpet, and even a little bit of muscle, courtesy of electric guitar. ”It’s scary, being an acoustic musician and transitioning to a more electric sound; if your fanbase has pigeonholed you and come to expect one thing from you, if you don’t continue to fill those shoes it can be the kiss of death to your career. But at the same time, I’m like a shark: I’ve got to keep moving forward.”

Recorded in December 2010 at Farm Fresh Studios in Lucas’ hometown of Bloomington, A New Home in the Old World was mixed and mastered by Paul Mahern, who has built his reputation engineering records for Bloomington’s prodigal son, John Mellencamp. "Having grown up with Mellencamp and Bloomington music in general, working with Paul is a new benchmark in my career." While the elder Lucas has been at the helm producing his son's records, A New Home in the Old World marks Lucas' first time self-producing. "Having had my Dad produce all my recordings, this was something I wanted to do, to see if I could accomplish the task myself."

While Lucas does not have a regular backing band, his studio accompaniment comes from a rotating cast of friends and family. Members of alt-country darlings Lucero and Magnolia Electric Co. drop by to add their parts, and no less than four members of the Lucas clan contribute. "This certainly isn't how most rock bands record, but in traditional country music no one plays better or sings better together than family." Bob Lucas brings his considerable fiddle skills, along with electric guitar, vocals, and a little banjo; sister Chloe Manor once again harmonizes and adds the the majority of banjo; brother-in-law Chris Westhoff anchors the bass; and the newest member of the family, Mrs. Cate Swan-Lucas, contributes vocals as well.

The songs themselves are the most diverse Lucas has offered to date, pushing past the confines of singer-songwriter genre convention. Opener “Run Around” wastes no time hitting its stride with a searing fiddle lead and galloping drums. With its languid piano and drawling pedal steel, “Sit Down” conjures a house band playing through a hazy happy hour to the regulars who hoist their drinks in recognition. “Thunder Rail” and “The Grain” pull no punches as Lucas’ most straightforward rock songs, pulling from heartland rock and the guitar riffs of bands like Thin Lizzy. “Sleep Well” sways as a funereal waltz, its chorus dropping to clipped guitar and falsetto vocals that are spine-tingling in their intimacy and fragility. Album closer “Somewhere a Light Shines” is a slow-burner, rising to one of Lucas’ biggest choruses, a swell that could be considered the first power-ballad in the Austin Lucas repertoire.

Singing with the conviction of a preacher bereft of his faith, Lucas accordingly tackles recurrent themes of the soul, sin as personal purgatory, and the possibility of finding redemption in this life. The fallacies of man take center stage as the righteous false prophet is denounced as “no angel or holy man” but a “hollow vessel with unsteady hands.” Turning the harsh light of hindsight on himself, Lucas addresses the hard lessons learned in the passing of youth, ruminating on the failures and missed opportunities that still haunt him. The places this introspection takes him do not see the light of day, but are “where mercy was fed to the wolves,” soundtracked by “the bell that will ring at your burial.” To make mistakes is only human, to recognize the error of your ways is invaluable, but to dwell on past mistakes until they corrode the soul is a road to ruin. Lucas wants not to lie fallow, pledging, “If there’s a light shining/ Point the way there/ A straight way of walking/ I’ll be like an arrow.”

To date, Lucas has found great success across the pond, selling-out venues in his biannual European tours. In the past year he’s raised his profile in the States with appearances at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Canada’s Sled Island Festival, and Florida’s Harvest of Hope. Recent tours with bluegrass-rock act Langhorne Slim and former Country Throwdown artist Cory Branan have increased Lucas’ exposure and further developed his loyal grassroots following. Folk music is for the common folk, and Lucas delivers, often ending his shows playing on the floor amidst the crowd. "It’s a beautiful thing to be able to almost physically connect to every person in the audience, to let them truly experience what an acoustic guitar and voice sounds like. That being said, I'm really excited about playing for all these people and letting the speakers do their job!"

Asked what he is most anticipating about being on Country Throwdown, Lucas needs no time to contemplate: "Willie is one of the greatest country singers of all time, a living legend, so I'm beyond excited to get to see him every night. If there’s one single man alive who could teach me by just watching him play, it's Willie."