LUKAS NELSON AND THE PROMISE OF THE REAL…
KEEPIN’ IT REAL…LUKAS NELSON AND THE PROMISE OF THE REAL
Growing up at his father’s side on tour buses, stages and studios, Lukas Nelson has come away with a sense of being firmly grounded in family, music and being true to himself. During a torrential rainstorm in Pittsburgh, Lukas and his band mates Tato, Anthony, and Corey sat down with me prior to their show with BB King and shared their vision of keeping it “real”.
How would you describe your sound?
Lukas: It’s really hard to describe, honestly. We just go out there and play what we feel like playing. I call it Rock and Roll because it encompasses a spirit rather than a genre. It’s that feel. We each bring our own piece to the puzzle. We respond to the crowd. We have a different set list every night. We pull in a bunch of different influences in when we play. When we’re in the heart of the country, where there are more country fans, we play more country sounds. Tonight, with BB King, and because it’s a hard audience, we’ll obviously pull out the blues songs. Opening for BB King we know there are hard core blues fans out there and if they don’t like you- they’ll let you know it! It was the same when we opened for Willie – with his fans you have to play what they want to hear!
There’s a reciprocal nature and relationship between the music and the musician- and the audience.
Anthony: We just played a show in Boston- the House of Blues – there were about 2500 people and not only do they have to warm up to us, we have to warm up to them. That show was one of the highlights of this tour. We had a great show there, we performed great.
Does opening for a legend like BB King add to the pressure of a show?
Lukas: It’s a little heavy. His musicians are great and we respect them. We’re playing in front of them and we want them to respect us. You always want to be the best you can be. It’s been inspiring. We’ve had some of our best shows with BB. I always play for people. I’m a performer. I feel I play better when I have an audience than when I’m at home, hanging out. When the energy is there, the pressure, the vibe – I play better.
Tell me about the band name – “Promise of the Real.”
Lukas: Well, Anthony and I really like Neil Young. Neil has a concept about being real – about playing real music- and I grew up in a family that was that way. We all have. We don’t want to be a fake, plastic band that is over produced and a departure from who we really are. We are just promising not to be that way. We are promising to be real, to keep it real.
Are you all songwriters?
Lukas: I write the songs. I write my songs on the acoustic guitar. I’ve been writing since I was very young. I have probably about 1000 songs not released yet. But when we get together as a band, we jam and some of the jams will turn into songs too. We come up with the songs and then it’s the band writing it so, in that way, we write it together.
Where does your inspiration come from?
Lukas: You know the girl who wrote Eat, Pray, Love? She [Elizabeth Gilbert] did a lecture on “Ideas Worth Spreading” (TED.com) about inspiration and creativity. She talked about dealing with the pressures that exist once you’ve had a successful album out there and how some artists get depressed and crazy when they fear that they can’t top their best work. She likes to think of inspiration as something separate from herself. The Greeks used to call the spirits of creativity “daemons.” The concept of inspiration is that it is in the form of a spirit floating in the universe. I like to call it just “the universe”.
The Latin root for inspiration, “inspirare” means “to breathe in.”
Lukas: Yeah! So the universe comes in and says “hey, write this!” You are not writing it- it’s coming from somewhere deeper and the people who are open to it, receive it. That’s why it touches so many people in the world. Sometimes I’ll l hear an entire, completed, song with all the different parts, in my head and I have to write it down. If it’s a really good song I’ll hear it all together – violin and everything. I’ll hear it all in my head. So I just write it down and bring it in to the studio.
Was there a turning point or an evolutionary point when you knew you would be a musician?
Tato: We all grew up listening to really great music, we love music. It’s in us. And we believe in it. It’s family; it should be part of family and that’s kinda’ what we are.
Tell me about the making of your CD.
Lukas: It’s getting back to the real. We don’t do a lot of overdubs. We don’t fix the song in the middle – it’s a live take. Willie was in the studio with us and he gave us the philosophy “do it three times and keep the best one.” Most of the songs we kept were the first take. No auto tune – none of that stuff happening. We cut 22 songs and mixed 16 of them in 18 days. They way they did it back in the day. In the studio we had a great engineer -Steve Shady. We produced it ourselves. I grew up in that studio – it’s next to my house, owned by my Dad. The vibe is incredibly cool – it feels like home and that adds a lot to the music. We had fun; we worked hard, worked together. We worked non-stop. We did 15-16 hour days.
Did it feel like work?
Lukas: It felt like that when the day was over and we wanted to keep going but we were all so tired. We had to stop – our ears were tired! We would wear our ears out listening to the songs over and over again. When we were mixing I would have to leave. I would go to a pond by hole 5, or 3, (Willie has a golf course next to the studio) and I would sit under the oak tree and see turtles and snakes. The weather was beautiful and I would watch the sunset, sit there and meditate.
Center yourself, reconnect?
Lukas: Yeah.
So there’s a real connectedness with the history there…
Anthony: We, all of us, just felt that home vibe. We felt the vibes of all the great artists who recorded there. Many, many gold records were made there- we would feel the connection. Lukas’ family would show up….
You mentioned family earlier…
Lukas: There is a song I wrote for my parents called “Mothers and Fathers”. My Aunt Bobby played piano, my Dad sang on it…
Cory: We would get choked up sometimes listening to them.
Lukas: It was a real, almost spiritual, moment that we all shared…
As the rain poured in Pittsburgh, Lukas and his mates grabbed a bite to eat and hit the stage with an energy and an honesty that only underscored their promise to “keep it real.”
Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real consists of Lukas(lead guitar, vocals), Tato Melgar(percussionist from S. America), Anthony LoGerfo(drums) and Corey McCormick(bass). To purchase their EP and to view their concert schedule go to www.promiseofthereal.com.
