The Lumineers Can't Comprehend Success

23 March 2013 | 10:05 am | Staff Writer

No one was more surprised by their sudden rise to fame than the band

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Considering their breakout song Ho Hey has reached 50 million hits on YouTube, The Lumineers are kind of a big deal at the moment. It's that level of success that has drummer Jeremiah Fraites scratching his head.

“It's incredible, I'll never forget my math teacher who said you can comprehend the numbers five or one thousand but you can't comprehend the number one million. You really can't comprehend one million of something so 50 million is way beyond my comprehension.”

There have been a couple of key factors to the band's success according to Fraites. One of them is having plenty of support from US radio.

“Radio is still huge and we've found that wherever we go, whether it is Boise, Idaho, Omaha, Nebraska or Los Angeles and New York, radio has really been driving us along. We've had two fantastic singles and once people have heard those it has translated into them coming along to shows. I think overall radio has been the biggest bait to get people onto The Lumineers.”

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The other is a little band by the name of Mumford & Sons, who have been somewhat of a pioneer for the modern folk pop movement.

“Mumford & Sons were the biggest band all of a sudden and bands like Avett Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show have been doing it for a long time and getting more attention. We're part of that too, I guess, alongside bands like Of Monsters & Men and Fleet Foxes, and it feels like that has all been pretty sudden. I think that there's a storytelling quality to what all these bands are doing but there is also a pop sensibility to these bands with drums and a heavy pulse and catchy melodies so I'm not surprised it is in vogue right now, because it has that pop sensibility.”

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