Lucero is a bona-fide, homegrown, Memphis music success story. Since their first full-length album in 2000, the band has built increasingly devoted followings throughout the United States and abroad (they recently competed their first tour of Japan and will return to the United Kingdom this fall) while maintaining a rabidly dedicated base of support here at home in Memphis. On September 15, Lucero will headline the main-stage of the Cooper-Young Festival, marking one of their highest profile local gigs in recent memory.

Over the course of five albums, including last year's Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers, the band has gained surer and surer creative footing, expanding their instrumentation--most notably with the addition of touring keyboardist Rick Steff--while remaining rooted in the whiskey-soaked, smoke-cured country rockers and ballads that are their forte.

Singer and principle songwriter Ben Nichols famously specializes in stories of love and late nights, some sadly forgotten, some even more sadly unforgettable. Since the band's inception (aside from a brief hiatus in 2002-2003), guitarist and co-founder Brian Venable's fiery leads and fist-pumping riffs have helped shape their evolving sound. His stadium-ready solo on "The Mountain" from Rebels was that arguably the highlight of that album.

The Lamplighter spoke to Venable at his home in Memphis, recently returned from yet another stint on the road.

LAMPLIGHTER: Most people familiar with Lucero associate your music with bars, drinking, and late nights. Lately however, you've been playing more and more festivals, like Oxford's Double Decker Festival, the School of Rock Festival in Philadelphia, and now the Cooper-Young Festival. How is that working?

BRIAN: They're new to us, within the last year or so. I think it's just a summer time thing. We spend 150 days a year playing bars, so they're fun to do because you get to play with a million other bands, and they're good paying gigs.

It is weird though. Sometimes I'll be onstage and look up, and I'm thinking, "it's two o'clock in the afternoon, and I am ridiculously sober. And I'm getting sunburned."

 
It sounds like you're having fun with them though.

Oh yeah, they're great. We did this thing called the "Rocks Off Cruise," where we actually played with a bunch of other bands on this ship that was in the East River in New York. The School of Rock Festival was amazing. We just got back from playing a showcase gig in Denver, where we were flown out to play with Dinosaur Jr.

As far as the crowds go, you know, they are there to see their favorite bands, but [they'll] pay attention to you because they paid some money to be there. So they are a little bit more willing to stop and check you out.

 

Lucero is one of the biggest acts we've had headlining the Cooper Young Festival. How does it feel to be playing such a high-profile show in your hometown.

Well, it's exciting for me, because I live on Blythe Street, so I'll just be carrying my amplifier up to the show. (laughs) People with kids will be able to come to see us. Our fans who already love us will be there, and the people who used to love us but who can't see us now because we always play in bars until four in the morning. Plus, you've got normal people coming in from East Memphis or wherever who will check us out because maybe they read about us somewhere. So it's great.

 

How did the Lucero Family Picnic (September 1 at Riverside Park in Batesville, AR; also featuring Cory Branan, Glossary, and Two Cow Garage, among others) come about?

Well, we knew we wanted to do a big show somewhere, and we thought about Batesville because we knew we could get a big crowd. Then it became, "Let's try it outside." So then we were wondering who we could get to open. Then it was, "How hard would it be to get six or seven bands to play?" So one thing just kind led to another. If it works out to be an annual thing, that would be great. We'd love to have 45,000 people come to Batesville every year, just our fans and bands we'd like to see.

 

Since 2000, you guys have managed to get release a full-length album almost every year, in spite of your heavy touring schedule. What's coming up next for you?

We working on stuff now. We've tried to make a conscious effort to skip a year [recording a new album] so we could rest. It's tough to take a whole year off, because it's not like we're rich.

We had been talking about putting together an acoustic record, maybe like an EP or something, and then doing another "real" record, but I think now the acoustic record may have become our main thing. It may turn out to be a concept record about Ben's grandfather. Ben is the primary songwriter, and we all help with the music, but I've been threatening to write a few songs from the point of view of his grandmother. We'll see. We've become more rock over the last couple albums. It's time to put the brakes on and just go back to more Attic Tapes type-stuff, and just do more songs.

I think in the early days, we just got excited, because the stuff we did with MadJack (Records, which released 2001's Lucero and 2002's Tennessee), we never knew when the recod was coming out. We'd record something, and then like a year and a half later, the record would come out. Since we've been dealing with Tiger Style and East West [Records], it's like "We need to have a record out every year--that's just what bands do, they put out an album every year." At a certain point though, you just have to stop and have some more life experiences so you have something to write about.

 

Lucero headlines the Main Stage of the Cooper-Young Festival on Saturday, September 15. Admission is free. For more information on this show and the Lucero Family Picnic, visit www.LuceroMusic.com.

Goner to release Harlan T. Bobo’s second album July 17 “A man is least himself when he speaks in his own person. Give him a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” Oscar Wilde It’s doubtful that Wilde was anticipating the peculiar career and music of Memphis’ Harlan T. Bobo with these words, but the statement suits the singer/songwriter perfectly.

Harlan’s first album, 2005’s “Too Much Love,” was one of the most critically-lauded local releases of the year by everyone from National Public Radio to the Memphis Flyer (which called it the best Memphis record of the past five years). A dark song cycle which chronicled the dissolution of Harlan’s relationship with one Yvonne Bobo, “Too Much
Love” drew the deep-voiced troubadour favorable comparisons to everyone from Ryan Adams to Leonard Cohen. Over the course of the next two years, both in Memphis and abroad, Harlan’s live performances garnered a cult following. His sense of theatre and art-student background have placed him in makeup,in costume, and always in character when on-stage. To-date, he has never stated the exact circumstances which brought him to Memphis.

For an artist who keeps so much secret, Harlan’s songs are known for their painful,sometimes uncomfortable, naked emotional candor. “I’m Your Man,” Harlan’s eagerly awaited sophomore album, will be released on July 17 by Cooper-Young’s Goner Records. The album moves erratically among garagepunk workouts, sweet country-rock laments, and moments of pure cabaret—united throughout by the rhythm section of Jeremy Scott and Paul Buchignani and the strings of Jonathan Kirkscey and Chang Lee. Midtown veteran Alicja Trout even lends her guest
vocals to the album stand-out “So Bad?”

It is on a suite of aching, southern-soul ballads (including “Pragmatic Woman,” “Last Step,” “One of These Days,” and “Pretty Foolish Things”) that Harlan is at his most blunt and confessional, and delivers most richly on his promise as one of Memphis’ most notable musicians. “One of these days, you’ll wish you’d stayed,” he tells a long-departed lover on the penultimate track. It doesn’t get any more honest than that.

RFD recently spoke to Harlan at his Midtown home.

What are three things that the general
public wouldn’t know about Harlan T.
Bobo?
1. I own a one man submarine which I keep
at Arkabutla Lake.
2. I plan on giving up music for a late career
in the Cirque du Soleil. I have a balancing
act I do with a ladder.
3. For my first music lesson I helped my
teacher slaughter a pig. That experience
shaped my playing more than all subsequent
lessons.
In the press for “Too Much Love,” you
described it as being about the breakup
with Yvonne Bobo. What is the new
album about?
It’s about aftermath. The aftermath of Yvonne
thing. But it’s about no one specifically.
Was your approach to writing this
album different than for the previous
record?
No, not really. Just laying in bed a lot. It didn’t
take that long to write it, but it took a long
time to record it and finish it.
Why?
Getting people, including
myself, in town at one time.
Trying out different places (the
album lists no fewer than six
recording locales, including
First Congregational Church
and the homes of Harlan and
producer Doug Easley.) We
thought it was done, and then
it sort of sat there for a long
time. I took about four of five
months of not listening to it
before I decided to kill three or
four songs. Then we rerecorded
three songs. Then it
made a little more sense to
me.
How did your relationship
with Goner Records
develop?
Well, I met them just by
going to the store. I would go
in there and sell them records
to sell, and eventually they
asked me if I wanted them to
put it out. They’re more of kind
of a punk rock label, so I
would never have considered it, but it’s
working out well.
Are you planning to tour a lot again for
this album?
Yeah, we’re going again [to Europe] in
September. I’m going with Jack [Oblivion]; he
and I will do a set together. He’s pretty well
known over there, so that helps.
Why did you choose to have an anatomical
drawing of a guy with his neck muscles
exposed for the cover of “I’m Your Man”?
(pause) I guess the album was a dissection to
me, in a lot of ways.

“I’m Your Man” will be released on July 17
on Goner Records with a CD release event
scheduled for July 21 at the Hi-Tone Café.
For more information, visit www.myspace.
com/HarlanTBobo.