by Lines from Bob Dylan suddenly sprang to mind after speaking with Lukas Nelson.
Dylan’s Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie, a spoken-word epic, contains this excerpt.
Additionally, you have something you want to express that you think someone should hear. However, it’s stuck in your head and stuck on your tongue, and it really annoys you when you’re lying in bed.
Because the desire to go solo while rocking with Neil Young would only come from an artist with a burning singular vision who is experiencing a near-desperate need to get his works out of his brain and into the world.
Although I have a lot of my own music, I enjoy performing other people’s tunes. When I get a lot of ideas, they’re usually for writing my own music. In our most recent phone discussion, Nelson, 36, tells me.
Nelson’s band Promise of the Real was enlisted by Young for recording and touring during 2014.And their faces melted.
POTR is currently on hold. The choice wasn’t controversial. Nelson tells me that he still performs with one POTR bandmate and lives with another.
I just wanted to continue performing my music; it’s not like we broke up or something. For some of those guys, listening to Neil’s music is the pinnacle. And I honor that. However, I’m paving my own way.
Townes Van Zandt’s interpretation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, his debut solo album, American Romance, was released in June.
American Romance, a love letter to the nation he constantly travels through, was inspired by his life on the road, first with his father Willie and then with his own job. The CD, according to Nelson, is a Steinbeck-style book about life on the American road.
As usual, Nelson’s voice has a taut, wavy twang that sounds like a young Willie Nelson, and his writing is smart. Tom Petty-esque Born Running Out of Time is a must-listen.
Nelson, one of Willie’s guitar-genius sons, has been a songwriter since he was eleven years old.Last year, Micah, a legitimate member of Young’s Crazy Horse in Mansfield, completely amazed me. Bradley Cooper’s role in the Oscar-winning film A Star is Born was likewise inspired by Lukas.
Check out his fiery rendition of Willie Dixon’s “Hoochie Coochie Man” from Farm Aid 2010 if you haven’t seen him perform live. Actually, you have to watch it right now. At 2:32, a barefoot Nelson plays with his teeth while holding a guitar to his face. I’ll wait.
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Yes. It would be an understatement to say that his performance is best enjoyed live. Live energy is what he feeds on. He has only become better in the fifteen years since that clip.
I’ve been tuning in to live performances for the past fifteen years. Nelson tells me that’s where my strength is. That enthusiasm is difficult to capture in a studio. The studio’s primary purpose is to record songs that people would like to see and hear live.
I contacted Nelson before his gigs at the Newport Folk Fest on July 26 and in Deerfield on July 28. He was obviously traveling and we talked about being sober, learning to fly, flying alone, Steinbeck, Bob Dylan, paragliding, his father’s legacy, and other topics.
Lukas Nelson: Growing up, traveling, falling in love, and losing love amid the American landscape is what I consider to be my version of a novel. I’m not sure whether you’ve read any of John Steinbeck’s works.
Growing up, I read a lot of his works. Cormac McCarthy, too.
I therefore desired to write a book that included songs. A book about growing up in this nation.
Although I was reared in Hawaii and born in Austin, I was never away from home for more than two or three months at a time since Dad and I were constantly traveling.
[Subsequently] I acquired a vehicle, quit college, and performed 250 performances annually. Therefore, it’s difficult to pinpoint my upbringing. Mobile home along the river is the first lyric of the song’s title. I had my bus stopped on the Jersey side of the Hudson River when I imagined this song.
All of it is an amalgamation, though. The journey from the Midwest to the East Coast is discussed in that song. Other songs concentrate on the vast American terrain, including the West and the South. Fluorescent lights, Walmart parking lots, grain silos, and amber waves of grain I made an effort to depict everything, not just the romance aspect.
It wasn’t very significant. Simply put, I wanted to perform my own songs, and they were out with Neil a lot. I’ve always composed music for Promise of the Real since I’m a songwriter. We were out performing my songs before Neil entered the scene, and I didn’t want to stop. There were numerous instances of [schedule] conflicts. He is our mentor and we all look up to him, therefore those guys had no trouble playing with him. However, I don’t believe that was the point for me. I desired to be my own musician and perform my own music.
I’m now out with Corey McCormick, the bassist from Promise of the Real.The percussionist Tato Melgar, his wife, and their family reside at my house. Actually, I live at the cottage, and they live in my main house. We are related.
Stephen Wilson Jr. will be there; hopefully we ll play something together. We wrote a song for my album called Disappearing Light.Wellesand, Jesse I will do a song together, I think. There s a lot of people there I m looking forward to seeing. And that Deerfield show is going to be great. I hear it s a great spot.
It s possible. I m going to go see my parents in Maui in August. My mom s birthday is at the end of August. So we ll see. I d love to meet them in Massachusetts if I can.
I mean, what a beautiful thing to be able to celebrate him while he s still here in such a beautiful, powerful way. That was one of my favorite shows.
He is. Very much so. I m grateful for him as a human. And for showing me a way of life that s win-win: You go play music, you make people happy, it makes you happy. If you invest in music, it pays back in dividends.
Yeah. In fact, my first song I ever wrote at age 11,You Were It, is on this new album. I wrote it on the school bus. I remember hearing it play in my head, and writing it down, and showing my dad. He said, This is really good writing, and I could tell he meant it. He covered it on his 2004 album,It Always Will Be.But I never actually put it out myself until now. So it s full circle.
I stopped smoking weed, I stopped drinking. I quit doing anything habitually. People have different definitions of sober. There s AA sober, which I don t think I would qualify for, because for example, once a year, I ll do a psychedelic check-in and I ll do mushrooms. But it s not a habit I do that as a medicine once a year to shed layers of bulls . I couple it with my meditation practice and my therapy.
But yeah, I got myself sober and became a pilot around the same time. It was all part of a new journey I m taking to be the best I can be.
Yeah, once I quit drinking and smoking, I figured it would be a good time to do something that I should only do sober like flying airplanes.[laughs]
I got my pilot s license in March after about a year-and-a-half of work. That was hard because I had to study on the road, between soundchecks. I quit golf and started studying for my pilot s license. I haven t flown a lot because I ve been on the road. But I wanted to do it to know that I could. To prove to myself I had the academic wherewithal.
I want to cultivate good habits. I want to not just live a long time, but behealthyfor a long time. I readOutlive, by Dr Peter Attiaand that helped me put into perspective what it takes to age gracefully and healthily. I m 36 now, so I figured, why not try, while I m young, to cultivate the right habits.
I started paragliding for a second, but realized I d rather fly. I like having the airplane around me; wheels I can land on. I can go up with an instructor. It s safer to fly every once in a while, than to paraglide every once in a while. You want to be able to paraglide alotif you get into it. It s easy to break a leg or twist an ankle or do something that will just completely ruin everyotherplan you have in your life.
I ve played with him a few times, and I m a fan of his songwriting, but I don t see him often. He s hung out with my dad a lot, and I ve hung out with him a couple of times. But he keeps to himself.
I own a home in Hawaii I was able to afford it after A Star is Born. It s about 20 minutes from where my parents live. And I rent a place in Nashville.
I have two puppies. Not married. I don t even have a girlfriend right now. I m kind of enjoying being solo at the moment.
Lauren Daley can be reached at[email protected]. She tweets@laurendaley1, and Instagrams at@laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebookhere.
Lauren Daley is a longtime culture journalist. As a regular contributor to Boston.com, she interviews A-list musicians, actors, authors and other major artists.
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