Hometown Homage

Memphis rockers Lucero seemed to take an eternity to finally make the long trip down to Australia, but now that they're heading our way again courtesy of the Soundwave behemoth the affable Southern gents couldn't be happier.

“I'm stoked,” enthuses bassist John C Stubblefield. “We were there for the first time as a band in early-2011 with Dropkick Murphys, and all the shows were great and the people were just so lovely, it was really refreshing. Touring's our way anyway – we'd rather be playing music than not, and we're more comfortable onstage than anywhere else. We tour hard and our live show is our bread and butter so to speak, but it's also what we love – just connecting with the crowd is really the only way to spread the word.”

Since that last visit Lucero dropped their excellent eighth studio album, Women & Work, which continues their recent experimentation with the Memphis soul sound that's so synonymous with their home city.

“On our last album 1372 Overton Park (2009) we added the horn section in there, but that happened mainly in the studio, but then they went out on the road with us for a couple of years and became part of the band,” Stubblefield recalls of the band's transformation from their alt-country roots. “They were actually part of the writing process this time, so that made us explore even more the regional influences of where we're from such as the Stax Records catalogue and the Hi Records catalogue. It's a homage to our hometown for sure.

“We're definitely informed by the regional location of Memphis, and I think the older we get the more we appreciate it. When you start out as kids it's part of the human condition to a certain degree – no matter where you're from – to grow up and rebel against your folks and rebel against where you're from and wish that you were from anywhere but there, but then at a certain point your parents become your friends and you start appreciating your surroundings.”

Lucero even recently released a seven-inch recorded at Memphis' Sun Studios, the place which figures so prominently in the early careers of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash (amongst countless others).

“It was a series of tunes for PBS, for TV, and we took a couple of songs from that and released a seven-inch for Record Store Day,” Stubblefield tells. “I've done several different sessions in Sun Studios over the years, and it's definitely a magic room, you can definitely feel it. You can't quite put your finger on what it is, but there's definitely something electric about the air there. All of Memphis really, it's a pretty magical place.”

And while Lucero aren't a band you would necessarily expect on a Soundwave line-up, their versatile history attests to them feeling at home in these heavy surrounds.

“That's kind of why we started and it's been a bit of a running joke, 'Hey, let's start a country band to piss off the punk rockers!',” Stubblefield laughs, “but then they all ended up loving it, and we wound up playing all sorts of crazy hardcore shows just doing what we do. Last time we were [in Australia] we opened for Dropkicks, and Mike Ness from Social Distortion loves us and takes us out on the road, and we went on a whirlwind three month tour with Against Me! back in the day – it's always wild finding out which other bands are into Lucero. Even the guys from Metallica invited us to play their festival last summer – it turned out that they were big fans, that was pretty random. It goes to show that it takes all kinds!”

Lucero will be playing the following dates:

Wednesday 27 February - Palace Theatre, Melbourne VIC
Friday 1 March - Soundwave, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 2 March - Soundwave, Adelaide SA
Monday 4 March - Soundwave, Perth WA