I first heard Lucero a few years ago when there album "Tennessee" came out. They caught my ear with rough rock and roll and gravel filled vocals. They sing songs about love and war and drinking and dying and you can feel them sweating through each track, and hear the pain or sheer rambunctiousness in the guitars.

These four guys - Ben (vocals and guitar) Brian (guitar) John (bass) and Ray (drums) - hailing from Memphis really know how to make a song grab you, with a catchy guitar riff, a smooth bassline and sprawling drumbeat or a great barroom chorus.

They released a new album in May on their own label and played the CMJ Fest in Cleveland shortly after that. They were in the middle of a 2 month tour with the Honorary Title, Brian was in the middle of reading a biography about Miles Davis and I went back stage to chill with the boys and get all up in the middle of Lucero.

Hammer: What was the album, it might have been an ep, that had a green and white kinda cover.

Brian: You're probably thinking of the "Attic tapes."

Ben: Yeah, "Attic Tapes." There's the self-titled, there's "Tennessee" there's "That Much Further West" and the new one and the "Attic Tapes" kinda predates all 4 of them.

Hammer: OK. That's the one I was thinking was the first one.

Ben: Yeah, yeah. It basically is the first one. It's the prequel.

Hammer: Was it filmed afterwards? With audio commentary?

Ben: Actually we haven't done that yet.

Hammer: I forget, is Jar Jar Binks on that recording?

Ben: There are a lot of digital effects, for sure.

Hammer: Are you guys a band that would like to use digital stuff? Are you a band that does all the new technology? …… You know what, describe LUCERO for those people who have never heard your band.

Ben: Are we still talking about the digital effects?

Hammer: No, no… I'm actually starting to ask interview type questions.

Ben: For people who never heard LUCERO we started off as pretty much a straightforward country/rock band, and over the years we've just kinda evolved into an indie rock band. Just a rock n roll band. Yeah. Rock n roll with kinda the more roots influenced stuff and indie rock stuff. Yeah, that's us. A combination of rock n roll, southern rock and indie rock stuff.

Hammer: I think the first term I heard tagged on you guys, the first hip term, was Alt-Country, but now I've heard Rockabilly, what do you guys …

Ben: Rockabilly implies old '50s rock n roll type style, and there's not a lot of that in what we do. There are some straight ahead rock songs, but, the Rockabilly has never been that big a part of what we do. The more, the waltzes, the country type stuff is kinda were we started off, real slow. There were a lot of ¾ and 6/8 time signatures and stuff.
But with this last record I wanted to make a real straight forward rock n roll record. There's not a lot of extra stuff on the new record. It's just kinda, 2 guitars, a bass and drums.

Hammer: What's the new record called?

Ben: It's called "Nobody's Darlings." It came out May 24th. So we're on a 2 month tour now, to support it.

Hammer: How much touring do you guys do a year?

Ben: A fair amount. Usually 150 to 200 days a year. This tour has been extremely tough. Cause we're playing 2 or 3 times a day. A lot of times we'll play a radio spot, go to an in-store then come and play a real show. So it's been very long hard days. Cause we're doing that pretty much every day. We're working our asses off on this new record.

Hammer: The new record, everybody always says this is the best record so far, but you said this is your "Rock" record.

Ben: Yeah. I think each one of our records is a different type of experiment. Each time we go in we're trying someplace new, for us.

John: That's part of the fun of taking it to the studio.

Ben: I don't know if they've gotten better and better, it's just, one goes this way and the other goes that way. Maybe one day we will take it all and figure out how to make the ultimate record. But I think each one offers something different.

Hammer: What's the writing process for you guys.

Ben: Usually I start with a couple guitar parts, a couple of nice chord patterns that go well together, and then figure out a vocal melody to go over it. Before I've even got the words I usually know how the vocals are gonna go. Then I bring it to the band, and sometimes I got lyrics and sometimes I don't, but there's usually an entire song there, verse/chorus/bridge, it's a song.

Hammer: Do you say to yourself, "I wanna write a rock song."

Ben: It kinda depends on the song. You pick where you wanna go based on the parts and the basic structure. This last record a lot of the parts were real southern rock and classic rock influenced parts, with big guitar parts.
I take the parts, and I show the band kinda how the main guitar part goes and everybody kinda adds on and figures out what's approppriate to put with it, and then it becomes a Lucero song.
Then I struggle for months and months with the lyrics to make sure they're not too bad and don't mess it up. And it's done.

Hammer: So how long did it take for you to make this latest album?

Ben: It didn't take that long, but there were big gaps throughout the process. We wrote the songs off and on when we were on tour throughout 2004, then we went into the studio with Jim Dickinson, in north Mississppi, in August 2004 and laid down all the basic tracks and all the vocals. We didn't come back until the end of the year to mix it, then it took months and months for the labels to get everything squared away with the labels and get all the preparation work to release the record.

Hammer: What label is the new album on? It's yours right.

Ben: Yeah, we started our own little imprint called Liberty and Lament. So we started our own LLC, opening up a bank account and getting the structure together. It's the first time we've done it. The deal is through a label call East/West, which is actually a subsidiary of Warner Brothers.

The way it works with them is, we've established our own imprint and we own the record, we own all the master recordings we own all the publishing rights. All the other record deals we were looking at they owned the record. This deal though, is pretty much like an indie record deal, it's a 2 record deal, cause basically with that stuff they front the money, to get the record out and get it distributed, and when the record sells, they get their money back. What makes this deal different is that our company is kinda borrowing the money from their company. When the record sells we'll give them their money back, but at the end of the day we still own the masters.

What we have given up in exchange for that - since East/West is a subsidiary of Warner Brothers - is that we can't sign to Sony or Universal or another major label during the term of this contract. And, to be honest, we weren't really planning on it.

Hammer: You didn't think Sony was around the corner.

Ben: No, we didn't. So I all works out, basically Warner Brothers has first call.

Hammer: So, you're not worried about Dreamworks seeing ya on tour and you not being able to sign.

Ben: No, we are extremely satisfied with owning the record outright and working with East/West to promote it and get it out there, and it's a very cool deal.

John: The biggest thing was the distribution part, through Warner Brothers. So, touring as much as we do the record would actually be out there on a much larger level. When we're out there working, people can actually go to the store and get the album.

Ben: Yeah, it's not a bad thing at all.

Hammer: So, the record is done and you're playing it live. What's the main difference between stage and studio.

John: I guess with this record, like you were asking earlier if it was our favorite one yet, or best one yet, this one, it's not totally perfect, but we found more of the medium, the joining together of the two - the live feel thing and the studio stuff. Cause it is two different worlds.

And as far as being different - sometimes you'll hear fans say 'it wasn't like your last record' and it's like 'well yeah, it's a different record.' That's what's so fun about it is just going in the studio, and not necessarily one-upping yourself, but just creating something different.

Ben: I do think the new record sounds more like we do live. Cause there's not a lot of extra stuff on there. Basically we recorded live, each song, 4 or 5 times, and picked the best one, and that was pretty much it. There wasn't a lot of extra stuff added. This one sounds like we do now.

Hammer: Well, now, since you're turning into more of a rock and indie rock band, do have a lot of you indie rock girls coming out to see ya?

Ben: The Honorary Title have a lot of indie rock girls, we have a lot of drunken old people. We've got more of a drinking crowd.

Hammer: Do you like that?

Ben: It suits us just fine.

Hammer: Your music sounds like decent drinking music. You got kinda the voice like an old beat up drunkard.

Ben: Yeah, I think that's kinda what it appeals to. If they're not falling over each other pouring beer everywhere we feel like we're doing our job wrong. Where as the young indie rock girls sometimes just kinda stand there and stare.

Hammer: I guess the drunken old men tend to hoot n holla a little more.

Brian: Well, some towns there are drunken indie rock girls.

Ben: Very true.

Hammer: Does Lucero have a favorite town to play in?

Ben: A couple of our best towns are Louisville and Denver, and Memphis .

Hammer: Ok. Well there are a lot of people in those towns kinda starting or joining the new alt-porn sites, like brokendollz.com, what do you guys think about that stuff?

John: Good music for good people. Good porn for good people. I like it. It's real. It's more real than that airbrushed bullshit, I like it.

Brian: I gotta get a credit card before I can totally appreciate it though.

Ben: Yeah, we can't afford that.

Hammer: Just ask Warner Brothers. Say, you need to do research on your fan base. And tell them we are potential sponsors for your tour or something.

interview by: Mike Hammer