If you’ve been in or around a Ben Nichols solo show (or I guess his Instagram) over the past year or so, you may have heard rumors that the Lucero frontman has been hard at work on a solo up. Details were obviously scarce, but you can find YouTube snippets of working versions of a few tracks if you try hard enough. And so it may have come by surprise to some that the follow up to Lucero’s last studio record – 2023’s Should’ve Learned By Now – was not a new Nichols solo record and not a new original Lucero record, but a secret third option: an unplugged record that features a mix of classic Lucero tracks combined with some deep (and some SUPER deep) cuts, and starring not the full band but just Nichols and longtime Lucero sideman Rick Steff.

“Rick and I, we’ll do shows just the two of us from time to time, and they’re always so much fun,” Nichols told us over the phone in anticipation of this Lucero Unplugged release. “I’d had that in the back of my mind for a long time that I wanted to capture what me and Rick do at those shows and try to put it on a record. This is pretty close!“

Instead of committing one of those Ben and Rick shows to wax, however, Nichols and Steff opted for a slightly different approach. They convened at frequent collaborator Matt Ross-Spang‘s Southern Grooves Studio in Memphis – of course – and ripped through a few dozen tracks in minimalist fashion; just Nichols on guitar and vocals and Steff on the studio’s Baldwin F grand piano. “I wanted to keep it as simple as possible,” he explained. “We knew what we were getting. We knew the piano that was in Matt Ross-Spang’s studio. And Rick loves that piano. And so yeah, it was kind of the natural choice to just focus on that.“

When it came time to compile a setlist – er, tracklist – for this project, Nichols certainly had plenty to choose from. Lucero turns 27 years old in a couple of months and has put out eleven studio albums (the latest three – Among The Ghosts, When You Found Me and Should’ve Learned By Now – with Ross-Spang); twelve if you include 2000’s The Attic Tapes). If you’ve seen a Nichols/Steff duo show or if you’ve seen Nichols perform solo, say at a Bikeriders tour show or his annual one-off at Crossroads in New Jersey, you’re probably no doubt aware that, sure, there will be some crowd pleasers involved, and there will be a few b0sides, and then there might be a few REAL deep cuts. Such is the case on the new Unplugged record. “I wanted it to be an unplugged record. I wanted it to be a greatest hits record. I wanted it to have a couple of rarities and surprises, and I wanted it to be some of my favorites,” Nichols told us. “I think it walks all those lines.”

A quick scan of the album’s back jacket reveals tried and true staples like “Tears Don’t Matter Much” and “Nights Like These” and “Texas And Tennessee.” It also includes a few comparative deeper cuts that find new ways to shine in this stripped-down format. Songs like “Diamond State Heartbreak” and “In Lonesome Times.” And then there are the deep cuts. Like, REALLY deep cuts. Like “The Prayer” and “Tell Me What It Takes.” No, the latter is not a cover of the 1989 Aerosmith track, it is in fact an old Lucero original that appeared not on a studio record, but in a much more unlikely place: the soundtrack to season three of coming-of-age teen TV drama One Tree Hill. “The guy from One Tree Hill was a big fan. He named a bunch of the episodes after Lucero song titles. That was very nice,” Nichols laughs. “He actually asked us to write a song special for the soundtrack, and that was “Tell Me What It Takes.” We did it real quick,” he continues. “There was no budget. We did it in a friend’s studio, no producer, no nothing, and just kind of recorded it ourselves. That…is what we sent him.”

The result of both the song and the record itself is tremendous, a fun and engaging listening experience that gives the impression of a live show without the threat of the entire thing careening off the rails, which can be enjoyeable in the moment when you’re at the show but maybe doesn’t translate as well in recorded form. Inspired by the bright, twinkly sounds of the grand piano, Steff in particular is allowed to stretch his legs a little more than when he’s competing with horns or dueling guitars. Check the solo on “Diamond State Heartbreak” or the E Street Band-esque vibe of “That Much Further West” for prime examples. Not that his ability to adapt to this unique setup was going to be a challenge for a musician of Steff’s caliber. “It’s so funny,” Nichols laughs. “Bringing brand new songs to him…stuff he’s never heard a note of in his life. I’ll play the first few bars…and he just lays in on top of it like he’s played it a hundred times. He already knows how it goes. I think Rick had my number from the very get-go.”

Will there be duo shows this year to support the release of the Unplugged record? That’s the hope, sandwiched in between Lucero tours (like the upcoming Menzingers support run that runs May 8 to June 8 and covers a large swath of the US). There’s also that issue of a new Nichols solo record, which will be his first in more than fifteen years. “The only other solo album I’ve ever done was The Last Pale Light in the West,” he explains. “And that was when Rick was still kind of brand new back then, and Todd Beene was kind of brand new for me back then, so it made sense to do (that record) with those two guys, just to make it kind of separate.” The new record is essentially in the can, and it features a unique lineup: Cory Branan on guitar, the aforementioned Beene on pedal steel, and MorganEve Swain from The Huntress And Holder Of Hands on strings and backing vocals. Nichols hopes to have that album out this year as well (more on that later), and then, well, then it’s time to get to the next Lucero record.

Check out our full chat down below. Lots of goodies about the Unplugged record and the solo record and the evolution of the writing/recording process and how Covid messed with Lucero’s trajectory and much more. And, obviously, check out Ben Nichols & Rick Steff: Lucero Unplugged, officially released tomorrow (January 24th) on digital and double LP!

(Editor’s Note: The conversation below has been edited and condensed for content and clarity. You’re welcome.)

Dying Scene (Jay Stone): So congrats on this record. I’ve listened to it a bunch now. It’s really fun. And it’s not what I expected. I think because you had sort of talked about doing a solo thing for a while, I just kind of figured the next thing in the chute would be like the full Ben Nichols solo record. So to have you and Rick sort of re-imagining a bunch of songs is really fun. It was different. 

Ben Nichols: And you’ve listened to all 20 songs, haven’t you? They sent you the whole thing? 

Yeah. Yep.

That’s great. Yeah I do have the Ben Nichols solo record in the works. That’s what I was working on at the beginning of the month. But yeah, before that, I felt it was…I don’t know…I felt it was appropriate to go back and revisit the old stuff first. I’m glad it worked out that way. Rick and I, you know, we’ll do shows, just the two of us from time to time. And they’re always so much fun. I’d had that in the back of my mind for a long time that I wanted to capture what me and Rick do at those shows and try to put it on a record. So this is pretty close. 

Yeah, it’s interesting you mentioned that because it sounds like, and it plays like, a live show. Obviously, it’s not a live show because you guys are in the studio. But like, the setlist seems like it’s put together, like, especially like one of your solo live shows. 

It definitely was. And that was kind of intentional. On a piece of paper somewhere I’ve got the order that we recorded them in the studio. And it was probably pretty close to what ended up as the final arrangement of songs on the record. There’s five more out there that we did that just didn’t quite gel. Like if we would have had another day to go back in and, you know, do a couple more takes of things, there might have been a couple of different songs in place of some of these. But yeah, this functions, like you said, almost like a live set. And so kind of what we ended up with is what you get, just like at a live show.

I mean, obviously, there are some songs that if you’re putting together a live show, whether it’s you or the full band, there’s songs that are going to be there nine times out of 10, like “Tears Don’t Matter Much,” “Nights Like These,” stuff like that. But when it comes time to dig for some of the rarities… like, “Tell Me What It Takes,” for example. Is that from…I don’t remember that song, aside from fucking like One Tree Hill or something like that.

That’s exactly what it was from. 

Is that right? Wow. 

Yeah that was back in ’04 or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Well, right whenever Rick joined the band. I think he’s on that original recording. I’m pretty sure that was whenever he joined up with us, so right around Nobody’s Darlings, Rebels, Rogues era. Yeah, the guy from One Tree Hill was a big fan. Like, he had named a bunch of the episodes, the TV episodes, after Lucero song titles. And that was very nice. That was cool. That was one of the first times Lucero had really been, I don’t know, used in television or anything. And yeah, he actually asked us to write a song special for the soundtrack. And that was “Tell Me What It Takes.” And we did real quick, you know, there was no budget. We did it in a friend’s studio, no producer, no nothing, and just kind of recorded it ourselves, basically. And that recording is what we sent him. And that’s out there somewhere. 

Yeah, I feel like I’ve heard that song like twice, maybe.

Me too. (*both laugh*) Yeah, I haven’t heard it very often. But yeah, I was able to scrape up a copy somewhere. And I was like, “Oh, me and Rick, maybe we could do this justice.” And so yeah, I thought it was good enough to give it a second chance at life, or give it a second life. I think it came out really nice on the record. That’s one of my favorites on this unplugged album, actually. 

Yeah, it’s a total like, out of left field sort of moment. And you don’t always get those when it’s an album…well, like this, right? Like, it’s not just quote, unquote, the hits. You kind of dug really deep.

I wanted this album to function as a little bit of everything. I wanted it to be an unplugged record. I wanted it to be a greatest hits record. I wanted it to have a couple of rarities and surprises. And I wanted it to be some of my favorites. And so yeah, it walks all those lines. There’s a little bit of each of those. I mean, obviously, the whole thing is unplugged; just guitar and grand piano. And then there’s a lot of hits on there, enough to make it a great live show if this was the setlist. And then yeah, you got “The Prayer” and “Tell Me What It Takes.” “Darby’s Song,” “When You Decided To Leave.” A couple of things that don’t get played very often with the full band. It’s nice to have those in there to kind of balance it out. And those are some of my favorites, too. So yeah, this record, it became real close to being all of those things for me. 

Yeah, you even threw in like, “Hate and Jealousy,” I think is a song that I don’t know if I’ve ever heard live. Maybe once. 

We’ve done it a few times recently. We did it at one of the New Year’s Eve shows actually, just the other day. So it pops up from time to time. We relearned it when That Much Further West came out on vinyl. And we did the whole That Much Further West show. It’s on there. So it’s in the arsenal again.

Which I’m glad about. I love that song. I love “Can’t Stand to Leave You.” I’m glad that that one sort of, in somewhat more recent years, like popped into set lists again. That’s such a cool song. And it’s a different song for Women & Work, too. It kind of sticks out. 

I think when it was written, it might have been written before Women & Work, or at the very end of Women & Work. I think it was written before. It might have worked better on All a Man Should Do, or even 1372. But it ended up on Women & Work, just because that’s how it worked out. But that’s one of my favorites. I love the lyrics to that. And I just love the little guitar riff in it.

Yeah, so do I. 

And I wish, I don’t know, in live shows, it seems too delicate sometimes. And I can’t find the right place to put it in the setlist. But I think I’ll try harder. I would like to play that one live more often. 

With the full band? Or when you do your solo thing? 

Both. I like it both ways.

Did you have to do much rehearsing? I mean, obviously you haven’t played some of these songs ever. But did you have to do much rehearsing, you and Rick? Or did you just kind of say, here’s what we’re going to play, figure it out? I mean, Rick feels like he could figure that stuff out with his left hand. 

Yeah, luckily, Rick is that kind of musician. He’s just a top-tier musician. It’s so funny, like bringing brand new songs to him, stuff he’s never heard a note of in his life. And I’ll play the first few bars, and I’ll start singing. And he just lays in on top of it, like he’s played it a hundred times. Like, he already knows how it goes. He knows where I’m gonna go. I think I’m a pretty simple man. I’m a pretty simple songwriter. And I think Rick had my number from the very get-go.

So I think he could do it with almost anybody. But with me in particular, we’ve been playing together so long and he’s just so good. He knows what I’m going to do before I do sometimes. He knows the chord I’m going to pick and the vocal melody, and he knows how to complement those perfectly. So yeah, we did a couple of days, I guess, of rehearsal. Just a few hours of rehearsal, running through, especially some of those ones that we needed to kind of the prayer and tell me what it takes. We’re like, all right, how do we do these? But once we had those figured out, everything else came pretty naturally. So no, not a lot of rehearsal. We did a nice four-day run on the West Coast, just me and Rick. And so a lot of that, that run kind of functioned as the rehearsals for this album. 

Yeah, it seems like you kind of let him go a few times, like took the leash off a few times, not that you keep Rick leashed necessarily, but I think in that sort of format, there’s a moment on that first Atlanta live record where you talk about just wanting to be home, drinking a whiskey and listening to Rick play the piano all night. It seems like there’s a few times in the studio where you’re just like, “just go, man.”

Yeah, yeah. And that’s just fun for me to hear him play like that. And yeah there’s something about just recording as a two-piece. There’s a lot of room for him to work in. And there’s a little more space and he can kind of stretch his legs a little bit. And I think just from the very start of the record from “In Lonesome Times” and “That Much Further West,” which are the first two singles released, you can just hear him just being able to focus on those piano parts and really let those kind of shine through. That was one of the special things about this album.

Yeah, he gets real twinkly at the end of “That Much Further West” like that. He’s sort of playing the horn parts that kind of got incorporated into that song over the years. And then he just goes off. I sent it to my dad and my brother and said “tell me that’s not such an E Street Band sound…” And it’s just the two of you!

Yeah, that’s I’m glad you hear that in it. Yeah, like this solo on “Texas and Tennessee.” The little solo on “Diamond State Heartbreak” right there. It’s real honky tonk, you know. And then I love this solo on “Buy A Little Time” as well. The piano solos really shine on this record. Because yeah, he is taking elements of maybe some of Brian’s guitar parts or some of the horn section and just kind of incorporating and covering all the basses that would be there with a full band. And he’s just doing them all himself. It’s just really fun to hear. 

But he’s not doing it on like keys or synthesizer like he would live. Like that’s just him and a piano.

Yeah. 

Like just a big grand piano. 

Yeah, nothing’s plugged in. There’s just some microphones above the grand piano. So yeah, that’s just him and you know, the sustain pedal. You know, on the piano, built into the piano. And that’s the only effects that are on there. Yeah, it’s a pretty raw album. 

So even Rick’s stuff sounds different on this because of just the way that it’s just on grand piano.

Yeah, I can see that. I hadn’t thought about that too much. 

Was that the plan going in like to do grand piano? Or did you kind of get in the studio and realize now this is how it should be like as about as stripped down as it gets? 

I think that’s what I wanted. Everybody’s like, “Oh, you’ll have him play an accordion.” No, not this time. Maybe later. I wanted to keep it real. Yeah, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. And we knew what we were getting. We knew the piano that was in Matt Ross-Spang’s studio. And Rick loves that piano. And so yeah, it was kind of the natural choice to just focus on that.

Yeah, if it would have been a different studio with a different piano, you would have gotten maybe a slightly different performance. But um, but yeah, I the whole kind of ‘it’s like a live show’ aspect. Yeah, like you get what you get from the day and the studio and the performances. It’s just kind of capturing a time and a place. 

I know you’ve worked with Matt Ross-Spang before a bunch. But is this the first time you recorded in that studio? Or was Should’ve Learned By Now there too?

Should’ve Learned By Now was there. And yeah, and then…well, we did When You Found Me there as well, actually. 

Oh, okay. I thought that was Sam Phillips with him. 

No, Among the Ghosts was started at Sam Phillips. Maybe… wait, hold on. Maybe When You Found Me might have been started at Sam Phillips, but then we finished it at Southern Grooves. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. We did Among the Ghosts at Sam Phillips.

That sounds right, yeah.

But then he was building the studio during the pandemic while we were all separated and I was writing When You Found Me in my basement. Yeah. And then we finally got in there and recorded When You Found Me. Yeah, I don’t know. Man, everything blurs together in my old age…

Well, yeah. And the pandemic fucked us all that way, too. Like there’s so much from those four years…

It really screwed with Lucero for sure. I feel like we were really hitting a stride. You know, 2018, 2019…2018 was our 20-year anniversary. That Lucero family block party was one of my favorite memories.

Mine too.

That was a great one. And I feel like we were really going strong. And then, yeah, COVID really took the wind out of us. Like we put out Among the Ghosts. And I think that’s still one of my favorite albums, favorite Lucero records. And then we all got locked down. And yeah, with When You Found Me and Should’ve Learned By Now, those are both COVID albums. One was kind of my deep dive into my basement synthesizers. (*both laugh*) And then the next one was supposed to be the exact opposite of that. And I think they’re both kind of… I don’t know, they both suffer from the isolation of me writing them completely by myself and not being around the band enough. Just in my opinion. 

Yeah.

And so, so yeah, it was nice to go back into Southern Grooves with Matt Ross-Spang, with just me and Rick Steff and make everything very simple and play some songs that that I’m still a fan of from, you know, the back catalog. And so, so yeah, it was a really fun day back with Matt Ross-Spang in the studio. I feel good about that.

It also gave me sort of the vibe of, and I don’t mean this negatively, but like those COVID live streams that you would do in the studio, because like, you’d rip through a version of a song. And then like, when you play a song live normally, obviously, you’re feeding off the audience, they’re feeding off you, people are clapping and whatever. And then to just go like, stop, okay, on to the next song. Like, it kind of plays like that a little bit. Does that affect you? Like, when you play a song, like “Nights Like These” or “Tears Don’t Matter Much,” which are like, those are full band, full audience participation songs at this point. Is it sort of weird to play them theoretically live, but to like an engineer? 

For some reason, to me, it was different in my brain, just because I knew that we were recording a record. A live-in-the-studio record, but still, I knew there was no one out there actually listening at the moment. I knew that they would be listening in the future. And for some reason, that made it just fine and not awkward, and not, I was playing them, you know, I was performing the songs for me and Rick. And knowing that if I thought the performance was good, that would probably translate onto the album. Whereas, yeah, during those COVID live streams, you know that the internet’s not working. (*both laugh*) And you know, there’s glitches. You’re freezing. And the audio is not matching up with the video. And as you’re playing a song, not only, do you not have that live interaction with the audience, you know, that it’s a shit show, and that everything is screwing up. And that yeah, those were terrible, horrible moments for me. (*both laugh*) I’m glad it helped. I’m glad we had some kind of connection with our audience.

Yeah, I wish it would have been a smoother, more polished connection. But those kept us alive; they kept us afloat. But those were not my preferred ways of doing things. I would rather have the full live show, 100% or this kind of live-in-the-studio album where by the time the audience hears it, we know that they’re gonna hear the right thing. 

Yeah, I mean, I kind of liked both. I didn’t care. Like during COVID… if it’s glitchy, fine, it’s glitchy. If it’s good, because they recorded it ahead of time, fine. Good. Because we were just so starved for anything, you know? Like, sure, I could see it being frustrating on your end, absolutely. But like, we were just so starved for anything. And not just from you, but like, literally anything that anybody did… like, wherever you want to do a live stream in a barn, fine, do it. Like, here’s my 10 bucks.

Yeah, it was. I got to remember it was tough on everybody. It was tough on the audience, and the fans as well as the bands. Yeah, it was tough on me as a music fan. I mean, I’m with you. When Joey Kneiser or Cory Branan would do a live stream, someone I’m a big fan of, I’d want him to just play all night. I’m like, “don’t stop! Like, an hour is not enough.”

Yeah!

Just keep going. I don’t care. I was like, I don’t care if it’s a little glitchy. I don’t care if you’re a little drunk. Just keep going. 

I’d rather watch that than Grey’s Anatomy or some shit. (*both laugh*)

No, I hear you. So yeah, that’s not necessarily a bad way to view this album. This is just like, the way I would have wanted it to sound with no glitches. That’s kind of what you’re getting here too.

I want to…I know we talked about him a little, but sort of give Rick his flowers a little bit. And I wonder if you could talk sort of about how now that you’ve been in a band with him like 18, 19 years, does that change the approach of how you write a song, knowing that you have like, that bullet in the chamber to go to all the time? Thinking about how Rick has got…even if you can’t necessarily quantify it, like knowing that, oh, Rick playing piano on this or whatever keys on this is going to sound a certain way. And does that change even how you write songs for your solo record? Like, do you hear stuff that’s like, ah, this, this one needs Rick, so that’s in the Lucero pile. Or this one needs Brian…

Right, right, sure. Yeah, that definitely has happened in the past, because I haven’t done that much solo work over the course of Lucero’s career. The only other solo album I’ve ever done was The Last Pale Light in the West. And that was, Rick was brand new still kind of back then. And Todd Beene was kind of brand new for me back then. And so it made sense to do (that record) with those two guys, just to make it kind of separate. And obviously, since those songs are based on a novel, it was easy to keep that batch of songs separate from the batch of Lucero songs. And yeah, since then, yeah, I’ve mainly just focused on Lucero. And so, yeah, the question about whether it changes the way I write, I don’t, I don’t know if it does. I think, as a writer, as a songwriter, everything’s so, what do you call it when it’s an accident, but it works out? Serendipitous. I just fumble around on a guitar, or I’m just tuning a guitar, and then I play a couple of random chords to see if it’s in tune. And sometimes those chords are like, “oh, wait, I haven’t played those chords in that order before.” And that’s where a new song starts. Everything is so unintentional with my songwriting, that I just kind of end up with what I end up with. And so I feel like the songwriting is going to be the same. I’m not smart enough to factor in Rick into the songwriting. (*both laugh*)

No, but you might be open-minded enough, right? Like, you might be open-minded enough so that if you bring it to him, and he’s like “no, put that there, like that chorus should be a bridge, or that chorus should be the verse, or it’s like… “

Right, right. And I do. I would take advice on that. One great example of something that really kind of altered the song was I’d written “Always Been You” off of Among the Ghosts. And, you know, I played it by myself, and the chords were nice. It’s an A minor, which is one of my favorite keys. And I took it to the band, and then Rick came up with his piano part. And we listened back. We actually kind of wrote a lot of Among the Ghosts in the studio. And so we listened back. And I really heard his piano part. And I was like, “oh, yeah, just take all the guitars out. Like, that’s, that’s the song, that piano part.” And so, so yeah, that song got kind of completely transformed. It was still the chord arrangement that I’d written out, and the vocal pattern was there. But the focus became the piano just because the part was so good.

And so when I’m writing, I don’t necessarily write with Rick’s parts in mind. But I’m always excited to take the songs to the band and see what Rick can surprise me with. And yeah, it’s funny. There’s some songs where, yeah, he’s not hearing it the same way I do. And sometimes it’s interesting to watch him struggle for a part, which is rare. But every now and again, watching his process of working through a problem, and it’s like, you know, kind of like doing a math problem and figuring out what the keys aren’t doing that the song needs, or vice versa, what the song’s not doing that the keys need. And so just as a musician and watching somebody that’s that good work, it’s actually kind of cool to watch it work, even when it’s not working. But like I said, that’s rare. Usually, he just sits down and plays it perfectly on the first take.

Do you miss that part of it? I know it’s not probably cost-effective to write in the studio now, and obviously Covid changed a lot of that too, but do you miss that part of it…

Oh man…I do. Sometimes I wish we could make every record like Among The Ghosts. On that one, we’d go into the studio at Sam Phillips, and we’d work for a week and just throw stuff at the wall. We’d just kind of record whatever parts I had. Maybe we’d get some rough mixes while we were out on the road and then we’d come back and do another three or four days, and then leave again. Over the course of ten months, we were in and out of the studio whenever we could get in there, and that gave me a lot of time to listen to rough mixes, think about song arrangements, think about lyrics. That might not work every time you wanted to record an album, but it worked really well for that album. I think it benefitted from that kind of unique recording situation. Most times, you’ve got a producer, you’ve got two weeks, maybe three weeks, whatever it is, to get in the studio and get everything down, and then once that’s done, you’re done. That’s how we did 1372 and Women & Work and All A Man Should Do, and I like those records too. It can work either way. But yeah, as times have changed, the band doesn’t hang out together as much as the band used to hang out. We’re all over 50 now, which is insane. (*both laugh*)

It’s a badge of honor for sure, but yeah that is crazy.

Yeah! And we do all have families and lives outside of the band, and we used to not. Very literally, the band was our only thing going in our lives. That’s not the case anymore, so things have to change because of that, and you adapt. You figure out the right way to make the next Lucero record…which I’m still figuring out.

You haven’t taken to emailing or Dropboxing song ideas and riffs to each other yet?

Not yet. Not yet.

That’s got to be such a weird process to get used to for bands that started before all that. 

I guess we did that some with When You Found Me and Should’ve Learned By Now. We did it a little bit, because you’re trying to limit your time in the studio as much as possible, so you try to get as much work done outside the studio as you can. So we did some of that, but that’s not the best way for us necessarily. We might benefit from a nice balance, where maybe you start like that but then I’ve got to get to Memphis and we’ve got to get face to face and work in the rehearsal room, and then hope for a little bit of that serendipitous magic once again in the studio. But we’ll see. We recorded this unplugged record about a year ago. So I’ve been waiting for it to get mixed and then work out a deal for release and wait for release day to come. It’s such a long process. And now I have the solo record, which is a whole other beast. All of the songs are there, I’ve just gotta finish up mixing it and make a deal for that to get released. 

I’m excited for that. I’m excited to see what you came up with. Obviously, I feel like I’ve seen you a few times occasionally play an idea for a new song – like in Garwood, which is the only place I’ve really seen you solo – 

Yeah, you’ve heard a couple of snippets. There’s a couple of things floating around, some live clips of some of those. But final mixes are…I’m curious to see what people think. I think they’re real special. I recorded with Todd Beene on pedal steel, MorganEve Swain from The Huntress And Holder Of Hands on violin and backup vocals, and then Cory Branan on electric guitar and acoustic guitar. I’ve got a cool, acoustic-centric band put together. I’m real excited about that. I still don’t know who is going to release it or when it’ll be released, but I’m hoping this year. And then that means I can work all year on the new Lucero record. I’ve kind of gotten these acoustic things out of my system. I can’t wait for them to come out. I’m not sure how this year is going to pan out. I would love to do a lot of acoustic shows around the releases of these albums, but we’ll see…

I can imagine balancing five guys and a crew in a band that sort of rely on that, so then does that take a back seat or do you work double time? It’s tricky. 

We’ll see what I can get away with. But then it’ll be time to make a new Lucero record. Maybe if I get a couple of songs together we can start working on those immediately and then maybe do it like Among The Ghosts, where we do a couple days here, a couple days there, and then go our separate ways or go on tour or whatever, then come back and do a few more days or a week. We’ll see. Still planning out the rest of the year. I’ve been living with these unplugged songs and these solo songs for so long; for the last year or year-and-a-half, that I’m ready for them to be out in the world and then focus on new Lucero.

I’m excited. The official release date is what, the 24th?

Yeah, January 24th. Another week or so, and then all twenty tracks will be out. I’m really stoked to see what people think about it. There’s some cool stuff on it. I want people to hear “Tell Me What It Takes.” I want them to hear Rick’s solo on “Diamond State Heartbreak.” And there might be some bonus stuff that pops up here and there. I’ve got a couple more videos to go with this stuff that we’ll post. It should be cool.

I think people are going to dig it. It’s a cool way to reimagine some of The Attic Tapes’ stuff. It’s a cool way to reimagine some of the Tennessee stuff, and some of the songs that, like I said, I’ve been around for a while and I’ve never heard them more than once or twice. It’s fun. 

I’m hoping that it’s a stripped-down record that old-school fans will appreciate. But I’m also hoping that it’s maybe a different palette that might be appealing to new folks? Or to folks where Lucero might be a little too rough around the edges? Or a little too…whatever?

“Whatever” is a good word.

Yeah, whatever Lucero is. It’s still a little undefinable. (*both laugh*) Even to me. But they might find this more appealing. I’m hoping it’ll seep out into the world and maybe grow a few more Lucero fans. 

I think it will. I mean, what do I know. (*both laugh*) But I think it will. I’m excited to hold the physical copy of it. I was excited to hold the physical copy of the calendar in the mail yesterday, because I have a picture in the calendar and that was a cool feather in my cap.

Oh hell yeah! Man, that’s great. I don’t have a calendar yet, I have to get one myself.

February is my month! I sent Brian a shit ton of pictures. It was sort of last-minute…

Everything we do is last minute…

And I love Brian. I love him to death. He was like “do you have anything we can use” and I was like “yeah, what’s your timeline?” and he’s like…”uh…how’s tomorrow?” (*both laugh*)

Sounds about right.

I sent him a big Google folder broken down by like year and city because I’m totally OCD about that. And then Brody was like “hey can we use this picture?” and it was totally not a picture I expected. I’ve taken probably 4000 pictures mostly of the whole band or of you and Brian because of where I tend to situate myself, and I have like 10 decent pictures of Roy because he’s always in the back and there’s not much of a riser and it’s dark…so February is a cool picture of Roy that I got. I thought that was cool.