Connect Savannah July 11th, 2007 www.connectsavannah.com
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Vibes
MOROCCAN RESTAURANT & BAZAAR
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to play “The War,” and he was about fifteen minutes’ into it when the soundman pulled the plug on the PA. Ben got pissed, smashed his guitar and ran off the stage. Do you worry at all about the band’s rep? Brian Venable: Sometimes we’re staring at each other playing the wrong thing. The problem is you’re still sorta sober and you think, “Hey, this is a spectacle.” But ninety percent of the crowd is as drunk as we are! I figure most people who don’t drink as much as us see eighty minutes of the gig and go home thinking, “I wonder how long they played after I left.” They see us at our best, playing a great show, and miss the part where the alcohol kicks in. There’s a moment when things start to come apart, but generally the audience is hammered too and they say it’s the best show they’ve ever seen. I guess that’s a long way of saying we do have a rep as a drinking band. You just completed a two-week tour of Spain. What about Americana appeals so much to Europeans? Brian Venable: I don’t really know. It’s weird. We were pulling in between a hundred and two hundred people each night in Spain, and it would just be folks who’d heard of us through Cracker or Jim Dickinson. Then we did four days in London, and it was almost exclusively young BMX-riding punk rock kids. Then we went to Italy, and it was almost exclusively twenty-eight to fortyeight-year-old men wearing boot cut jeans and checkered shirts who dig Springsteen. They loved us every bit as much as the kids, but they didn’t try to burn the place down! We’re going back to do a tour of the whole U.K. in November. Cracker’s playing here this Wednesday, and your last album was produced by their singer David Lowery. When you listen back to that record, what stands out to you as something he brought to the table artistically that wouldn’t be there otherwise? Brian Venable: I think we don’t need a producer as much as a mediator. Even with Jim Dickinson, we go in there pretty much knowing what we want to do. We don’t work with the kind of producers who tell us how to completely rewrite our songs, or act like they’re in charge of the band. We wanted to go away from Memphis for a few weeks and concentrate. David had this amazing threestory studio complex with everything you’d need to live there. You basically didn’t have to leave the building if you didn’t want to. As far as his production style goes, he’d just sit there playing with the internet while we’re recording and it looks like he’s not paying attention. You start thinking, man, I gotta be a producer. That’s good money for nothing! Then the song would end and he’d hum the whole thing back to us and offer all kinds of solid suggestions to make it better. Turns out he was paying a whole lot of attention. When everyone is arguing about their parts,
you need that fifth voice of someone not in the band that everyone can listen to and do what they say. Alan the engineer was as much a part of producing the record as David. They were both bouncing ideas off one another, helping the creative process. Lowery’s a hero to many because he’s been around for decades and stayed fairly true to his indie roots. Does Lucero have the potential to craft that sort of a career for itself? Brian Venable: We’re lucky in a way, because we were a bit older than most when we started the band. Our songs aren’t based around some rash, bold statement we made in our youth that we’ll regret later. We could still be singing these songs when we’re sixty. It’s like Crosby Stills Nash & Young or any of those old guys playing hippie rock. We might play a lot slower when we get older, but it’ll still translate well. We don’t have to be a balls-out hard rock band getting beer thrown on us! We can just play the songs in an “age appropriate” fashion. You see these metal or hardcore bands trying to change their style late in their careers, but it’s really hard to write something when you’re seventeen that you can sing with a straight face forever. It’s like The Who: “I hope I die before I get old.” Well, you are old, you know? So, do you guys play many weddings?
Brian Venable: I’m pretty sure we’ve played a total of four. We’re not what I’d call the best choice for a wedding band, in that we’ve got a lot of songs about cheating and leaving! However, someone told me that Susanne was having a Star Wars themed wedding, and I hope that’s true. That’ll make it all worth it! The last three weeks of this tour have been so crazy. I got a tattoo from Mat Hoffman, who’s a BMX racing legend. He’s like the Tony Hawk of that sport. He’s broken every bone in his body twice and is just a ridiculously gnarly dude. Getting to meet him was just as exciting as getting to meet Dinosaur Jr when we co-headlined a bill with them in Denver, or seeing the Bad Brains when they closed out a festival we just played. I’m hanging with Mat and he’s dancing at our show. Then I’m in a hotel room and he’s giving me a tattoo! Then, I’m right next to a 2,000-person mosh circle in front of (Bad Brains frontman) H.R. To be able to wrap that up with a Star Wars wedding might go down as the most amazing series of life experiences I’ve had in the past several years. Those will be the four stories I’ll tell for the next decade, and they will have all happened in the past three weeks. w Lucero play The Jinx Saturday night with openers American Gun. The 21+ show starts at 11 pm. $12 advance tickets are on sale now at the club. For more info on Lucero, see: www.luceromusic.com
