Lucero headlines 2007 Cooper Young festival.

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.