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Lucero.
 It was with great trepidation that I even listened to 'That Much Further West', the third album (but first in Australia) for Memphis band Lucero. I closed my eyes, and thought kind thoughts. My trembling was most likely quite visible. After all, I had been warned: I was told that this was a country record.
In fact, it's really not. And as a record, it's quite good. Sure, there's a bit of a country influence, but nowhere near as much as, say, even The Sleepy Jackson. To that fine band from Perth, country is the broad basis for some quite intriguing pop experimentation; for Lucero, country is the layer underneath some quite appealing rock'n'roll. Even lead singer Ben Nichols acknowledges that, perhaps, the 'country' tag has worn off his band by now.
"We did start the band to see if we could write country songs," he explains. "Our first two records, which there's no way in hell you'd have down there, they were much slower, kind of sadder stuff. And then we became more of a touring band, and it became more of a band. There are a few of those country tinges, but it's not a country record, not by any stretch of the imagination."
Nichols says that the band has undergone a very natural progression away from country, aided by a range of new influences on Nichols, from all sorts of genres.
"Basically, I wanted to be the Pogues from the American south. And it turned out to be more of a straight rock and roll band. It's all still there, but then you've got a much more modern influence, like Modest Mouse and newer bands, and classic rock, like Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. A lot has gone into it now."
So it's the classic case of the too-cool-for-school indie kid suddenly finding gold on mainstream radio. "That's exactly what I went through over the existence of this band. Bruce Springsteen's one of my favourite songwriters now, but I never considered myself a big fan until my mid-twenties. There's a lot out there [in the mainstream], and you grow up with these prejudices, you've got a preconceived idea in your head, because all that stuff is out of context now. But [Springsteen's] 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town', when it was released, it really stood out on its own in a way that we don't really consider. It's hard to appreciate this stuff for what it is. Now I'm not saying that all mainstream music is great - I think Bruce Springsteen is an exception - but there's stuff back there that shouldn't be overlooked."
I agree entirely. But that doesn't mean Lucero have also found themselves in the mainstream - having chopped and changed over the last few years, the band are once again shopping for a label. And it's going to be an indie.
"When we were growing up, we'd hear all those horror stories," Nichols tells me when I mention major labels, "about bands in the past. Their record gets shelved, or they get stuck in a deal that's extremely unfair. All of our options are on independent labels. But, I don't know, the whole record industy's changing quite a bit. The majors might have to make big changes."
Like, I suggest, embracing technology. "There's a whole 'nother way that people get to make music. I think for most smaller bands, the more people that can download your stuff, the more people that can find out about you, the better off you are. For us, whether it's a big label or a small label, even if you're the biggest band in the world, you're not living off the royalties, not unless you're selling a whole lot of records. We're a touring band, and we can barely pay our rent from the money we play for live shows."
To end, I ask him whether his band, with its new mainstream rock influence, and in particular his gruff, heavily accented singing voice, has ever had him confused with some of America's most sinful vendors of musical venom. "When people are trying to insult me, yeah. 'Nickleback for indie rockers,' I think is what the Village Voice actually called us. They don't like us; actually there's a lot of people in New York that don't like us. But we're only put in that category when it's meant as an insult."
Ben Revi
 | 'That Much Further West' is out now through Rogue/Inertia. |
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