Lucero (Photo by Dan Ball)
Memphis alt-country quintet Lucero recently released their celebrated new album Among the Ghosts, their first for Nashville indie label Thirty Tigers. The gents roll into 9:30 Club for a show on Sunday, Oct. 14.
Ben Nichols (vocals), Brian Venable (guitar), Roy Berry (drums), and John C. Stubblefield (bass) played Lucero’s first show in Memphis on April 13, 1998, so the band marks 20 years in 2018. Lucero added keyboardist Rick Steff in 2006, rounding out the modern incarnation of the group.
Lucero recorded and co-produced Among the Ghosts, their ninth studio album, with Grammy-winning engineer/producer and Memphis native Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, Drive by Truckers) at the historic Sam Phillips Recording Service.
Watch the official music video for “Long Way Back Home,” actually a short film starring Michael Shannon, by Lucero on YouTube:
Why so cinematic? On the new album, Ben Nichols took inspiration from his younger brother Jeff Nichols, an acclaimed filmmaker whose movies include Loving, Mud, Take Shelter, Midnight Special, and Shotgun Stories.
“We are very proud of where we are from and we’ve spent the last 20 years trying to bring a bit of our version of home to the rest of the world… It may have taken 20 years, but everything has fallen in place right where it needs to be. There were some dark days in those middle years, but we’ve learned how to do this and survive. We still write heartbreak songs, but now, with a family at home, it’s a whole new kind of heartbreak,” said Ben.
Lucero
w/ Brent Cowles
9:30 Club
Sunday, Oct. 14
Doors @ 6:30pm
$25
All ages