Exclusive Q and A: Lukas Nelson Talks "Wasted"

posted in: Country • Exclusive Interviews

Dismiss Lukas Nelson at your own peril.

Sure, he’s the son of Willie Nelson. And yes, he arguably inherited a huge dose of his dad’s voice and talent. But Lukas Nelson is no imitator. He’s proven so by carving his own musical path that started in earnest when he left college, against the wishes of his parents. When they cut him off financially, he raised cash around Venice Beach, California while living in his car or sleeping on friends’ sofas.

Fast forward to today when Nelson and his band Promise of the Real are ready to release their next album Wasted, on April 3, which Nelson wrote last year when he was on the Willie Nelson Country Throwdown Tour.  A lot has changed for Nelson since he penned the songs on the album. Not only has he and his band developed a solid and rapidly growing fan following, but Nelson is sober and engaged in all aspects of music.

He took time out recently to chat with us about his fans, his music and what he hopes listeners realize about this next album.

OS: People always debate if your music is country or rock. What do you think of that discussion?

LN: It’s fine. I think that, at the risk of sounding cliché, putting labels on things takes away from the kind of infinite nature of them. [That’s especially true of] music because it can be interpreted in so many different ways. A lot of times a song that seems very simple can be looked at in many different ways. But basically how people [classify] my music doesn’t affect me at all. That’s the bottom line”I go out and do what I want to do and play what I feel I was meant to play. And I want people to listen, to hear it. However they [define] it is their choice.

OS: The songs on your new album Wasted were all written when you were, literally, wasted. How did you manage to write them when you were in that state?

LN: After everyone was asleep, I’d still be full of energy. I’d go sit in the back of the bus and just write. I’d write what had happened or what was happening then.

OS: Are you the kind of writer who keeps a notebook or jots down different lines or phrases you hear?

LN: I’ve never been much of a record keeper of any sort. I’ve tried to keep journals and things like that and I can’t. I live too much in the moment. I don’t take pictures too often either just for the same reason. If I’m writing down what happened, I’m missing what’s happening now. I just write what I feel. Shoot, it’s not a big process.

OS: You make songwriting sound so simple and we all know it’s not!

LN: (laughing). Well, it’s just the way I was raised, around it all the time. It just comes really naturally.

Tom Waits talks about it a lot. Songwriting is like fishing, you are fishing when you write a song. It’s not coming from you, it’s coming from an ocean of musical ideas. You put a little feeler out there and sometimes you catch something, sometimes you don’t.

OS: Do you ever go back and look at your songs and think what you could have done differently?

LN: Once a song is done, it’s done. When you get the album, you’ll see all the little notes [that are my original versions of the songs]. You’ll see all kinds of weird stuff because I left it exactly the way I put it down. I mean, one word might be different on a song than it was on the lyrics [that I wrote]. But I wanted people to see what I wrote at night when I was drunk or whatever.

OS: So you’ve really changed a lot since you wrote this album; I know as a rule you don’t drink anymore. What do you do before shows to get in the zone?

LN: I try to meditate before the show and really get into the vibe, but what keeps the shows fresh are the audiences. It’s different every time; I don’t play the same notes on my guitar every time. I play everything a little differently. That’s what happens when you don’t have pyrotechnics or special effects!

I feel like the music we playing makes people happy. A lot of fans and friends tell me that my music changed their lives. I realize that music is not really coming from me. It’s coming from a different source. It’s coming from wherever my dad [and other musicians] get it. People have to feel a live show to understand that.

OS: Is there one very poignant fan moment you remember?

LN: One fan came up to me [after a show] and said he was gonna end his life and heard [my song] “The Awakening” on his radio or I-Pod and he decided not to do that. To me, that is what music is supposed to do and represent and I’m working on really trying to make the music sound as good as it [technically] can. Neil Young and Bob Weir and the Foo Fighters and others out there are really working toward helping digital music sound as good as analog.

Right now, digital music has been scientifically proven to cause stress in the brain. You don’t feel it [when you listen] because your ears can’t tell the difference.

OS: It’s interesting because music is really it’s own spiritual language.

LN: Absolutely. Anytime I have something to say, I can’t say it as well as I can sing it.  A lot of times I’ll be at a party or I’ll be at a social setting and I’ll be more comfortable playing my guitar. People spend a lot of time talking to get to know each other but it takes so long that way; it takes such a long time to really get to know somebody. When I play guitar, it’s kind of like you’re exposing everything right there. I can feel like I know someone more through music than through words.

OS: Is that something like a response to growing up leading such a public life?

LN: I really didn’t grow up living a public life at all. I grew up in Hawaii and I was away from everything. I grew up with my mother and then I would go on the road with my dad. People would say hello to me, but I had a pretty normal life despite traveling. It was just enough and I was never spoiled. My mother never spoiled me. That kept me grounded. I can still hear her voice everywhere I go. We always regarded our family as the most important thing in our lives. Even if we don’t have anything else we have each other. I appreciate the values instilled in us.

OS: You are very brave to expose how wasted you were when you wrote the album.

LN: It was kind of how it was. I just think some people will relate to it. A lot of the songs are about being away from home, being on the road, knowing that you left the ones that you love behind, being self destructive because of it and the dangers of that [behavior]. Hopefully people won’t think of this as a celebration of [alcohol].

Find out more about Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real, their music and upcoming tour dates on their Web site.