Speaker 1: Pushkin, You're gonna waste your house and home doing your
Speaker 1: money was so long? Good back to love you, Thank you,
Speaker 1: gambling woman, don't let your love run dry. Growing up
Speaker 1: with a family full of musicians, Lucas Nelson was basically
Speaker 1: raised on stage. Lucas started playing guitar and his dad,
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson's band when he was just eleven years old.
Speaker 1: In those early days, he spent all of his time
Speaker 1: practicing and made a point of earning his stripes instead
Speaker 1: of just coasting on his dad's success. Beautiful bis, I
Speaker 1: see your Hi don't make good colors. That hard works
Speaker 1: paid off. In two thousand and eight, Lucas formed his
Speaker 1: acclaimed band, Promise of the Real, who've also spent the
Speaker 1: last six years as Neil Young's touring band. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Lucas and the band were cast and a Star was
Speaker 1: born as Bradley Cooper's backing band. Cooper learned how to
Speaker 1: embody a rock star on stage through working with Lucas,
Speaker 1: who also wrote the opening riff for Shallow and co
Speaker 1: wrote some other songs on the soundtrack sung by Cooper
Speaker 1: and Lady Gaga. On today's episode, Lucas Nelson sings some
Speaker 1: songs from his latest album, A Few Stars Apart. He
Speaker 1: also talks to Bruce Headlam about the very relatable experience
Speaker 1: of quarantining with his parents and talks about how the
Speaker 1: first song he ever wrote saved him from getting evicted
Speaker 1: from an apartment after leaving college. This is broken record
Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's
Speaker 1: Bruce Headlam and Lucas Nelson. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing this. You've got this new album, A Few
Speaker 1: Stars Apart with your band promise of the reel. Can
Speaker 1: you just start by telling me a bit about this album. Yes,
Speaker 1: the record was recorded at OURCA Studios in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: It's a historic place. Elvis and my father and so
Speaker 1: many others have recorded there. You can feel that history
Speaker 1: when you go in the building. Dave Cobb was the
Speaker 1: producer on our record, and he has produced many fantastic
Speaker 1: artists including Chris Stapleton, Brandy Carlyle. And he's just a
Speaker 1: really cool guy and was really happy to work with
Speaker 1: him because he tends to work the way we like
Speaker 1: to work, which is sort of analog, live in the studio,
Speaker 1: a little bit old school. You might say, but he
Speaker 1: can produce a fresh sound with that process. You know,
Speaker 1: we were really happy to be with him. Was this record?
Speaker 1: Was it written while you were in lockdown for COVID? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we looked. We looked through a bunch of
Speaker 1: the songs that I had written in the last few years,
Speaker 1: and a good portion of the songs we picked to
Speaker 1: be on this record were written during quarantine. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: you're from a great musical family. Your father, Willie or
Speaker 1: your aunt has been his piano player for a long time.
Speaker 1: Got other musicians in your family. Were you able to
Speaker 1: see them at all during quarantine? I was with my
Speaker 1: mother and father during the beginning the first six months
Speaker 1: of quarantine, which was great. It was It was really
Speaker 1: nice to be able to be with them. One of
Speaker 1: the greatest pains in my life before the pandemic was
Speaker 1: the fact that we my father and I had separate schedules,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, him being in his later years,
Speaker 1: I want to spend as much time with him as
Speaker 1: I can, and my work was taking me away from him, which,
Speaker 1: even though I knew that he was proud and happy
Speaker 1: that I'm out doing my own thing and on the road,
Speaker 1: I felt pained not to be with him as much
Speaker 1: as possible, and so when when the pandemic hit, we
Speaker 1: just happened to be in the same place and I
Speaker 1: couldn't leave anywhere anyway, So we got quarantined together, and
Speaker 1: it was the greatest five or six months I'd ever
Speaker 1: spent with them. Now, I mean most people I've been
Speaker 1: away from my family. Your father, as you mentioned, is
Speaker 1: he's I think eighty eight. Now, you did a very
Speaker 1: lovely version online of Hello in there when John Prime
Speaker 1: first got sick, and of course very sadly he died
Speaker 1: of COVID. Yeah, was your family okay through all this? Well? Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean we were. We were relatively fine. Absolutely. I
Speaker 1: think that you know, when you look at how many
Speaker 1: people were suffering, I mean we were just sitting up
Speaker 1: on a hill in Austin, you know, with horses and
Speaker 1: eating food together and having family dinners and you know,
Speaker 1: things that we hadn't done in years, and so I
Speaker 1: suppose we were very grateful. I mean there were challenges,
Speaker 1: especially challenges and in living together after so long, you know,
Speaker 1: some childhood things came up, and you know, there's a
Speaker 1: funny there's a famous quote, and I can't remember who
Speaker 1: said it? Could have been Ramdas or or or Rinpoche,
Speaker 1: one of these these famous Buddhist monks. They say, if
Speaker 1: you think you're enlightened, spend a week with your parents.
Speaker 1: And I, you know, I can't stress enough. A lot
Speaker 1: of us, I was having a conversation the other day,
Speaker 1: a lot of us really feel like as adults, we've
Speaker 1: sort of become well, hopefully those of us that feel
Speaker 1: this way feel that we've become the most peaceful version
Speaker 1: of ourselves, and you know, our ability to let things slide,
Speaker 1: you know, at least for me, I feel like in
Speaker 1: my entire life, the most challenging experiences have been when
Speaker 1: I've been forced to spend them all that time with
Speaker 1: the people who've been able to trigger the darkest parts
Speaker 1: of my personality. And so it really is a great,
Speaker 1: a great lesson and test in mastering oneself in order
Speaker 1: when you're spending time with people who know how to
Speaker 1: press your buttons and who you know how to press
Speaker 1: their buttons, and so to to not to not say
Speaker 1: the wrong thing that will set them off, you know,
Speaker 1: And I don't I don't know anybody who hasn't experienced
Speaker 1: that at this you know, even at very enlightened levels.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that we're all in that same
Speaker 1: boat together. Even the Dalai Lama probably gets annoyed at
Speaker 1: some point, you know, but then he's able to he's
Speaker 1: got the tools to not let that show or not
Speaker 1: let that affect how he responds. The difference between reacting
Speaker 1: to something and then responding is that one is sort
Speaker 1: of unconscious reaction and the other is conscious response. And
Speaker 1: so that that lesson has been great, and I think
Speaker 1: I've learned how to do that a lot better. These days.
Speaker 1: I have to ask, what would trigger your family? When
Speaker 1: you're at home? What would you do to trigger your family? Oh?
Speaker 1: My goodness, Oh, there's so many triggers that we have. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, we're we're all flawed human beings.
Speaker 1: You know, we've we've got we've got these cracks in
Speaker 1: us that but they remind me of the cracks in
Speaker 1: the bulls in Japan where they filled the cracks up
Speaker 1: with gold, you know, because there is no imperfection. Really,
Speaker 1: it's all perfect. But you know, we have tempers. I mean,
Speaker 1: the Nelson, the Nelson family has has never been accused
Speaker 1: of being impassionate. We are very passionate people. Uh, we
Speaker 1: we have strong opinions about things, and we have a
Speaker 1: difficulty not expressing those opinions. I'll commit the question one
Speaker 1: other way, and it reminds me. You're in Texas, where
Speaker 1: I guess trigger should be left for that should be
Speaker 1: the name of a horse, not something people do to
Speaker 1: each triggers the name of my dad's guitar. That's right.
Speaker 1: It is completely forgotten that, all right, I am wondering,
Speaker 1: and it can, especially if it was in a musical opinion.
Speaker 1: Oh no, you know, none of that. No, you guys
Speaker 1: don't argue about music, and we don't argue about music,
Speaker 1: and I don't really argue much. It's oftentimes small things
Speaker 1: like you know, when you're when you're stuck, you know,
Speaker 1: in a room together, and you know, maybe someone feels
Speaker 1: unappreciated for the work they've been doing or pulling their
Speaker 1: weight in the family, you know, and then you know,
Speaker 1: somebody says something and it triggers something else. But listen,
Speaker 1: all of these things are universal. They're not unique to
Speaker 1: my family. No, I know, because you're describing my family. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, we may have different views. You know. I
Speaker 1: don't like to watch the news. Then they they like
Speaker 1: to have that news on twenty four to seven. So I,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, I don't like to you know,
Speaker 1: walk into a room and I'm all, I'm just like
Speaker 1: boom right there, it's in my face all these headlines
Speaker 1: and you know, and for me, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I prefer to get my information very quickly. I get
Speaker 1: notifications on my phone, I see the general headlines, and
Speaker 1: I turn it off. But you know, for some reason,
Speaker 1: that generation, my father's generation, my parents' generation, they love
Speaker 1: to just have the news on. And I, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven, I wrote a song called turn
Speaker 1: off the News and build a Garden, and that was
Speaker 1: so you know, we have differences in there, and and
Speaker 1: that's okay. You know, you know, it's their house. At
Speaker 1: that point, I was staying at their house, so you know,
Speaker 1: I can't complain when I when it's you know, on
Speaker 1: every TV. Well, despite what you're describing, Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things that struck me about this album. It's
Speaker 1: a very very full albums. Togetherness may have been tough
Speaker 1: at points, but it's very much an album about togetherness.
Speaker 1: Do you see it that way? Oh? I do? And
Speaker 1: after a couple months of rediscovering the tools to live
Speaker 1: with each other. You know, we've been gone, We've been
Speaker 1: we hadn't been with each other. We'd been sort of
Speaker 1: in and out of contact and talking all the time,
Speaker 1: but really spending time together. We hadn't done that a lot.
Speaker 1: And so once we did, once we sat down, once
Speaker 1: we started hanging and I've rediscovered these beautiful people that
Speaker 1: were my parents, I felt so grateful and hopeful, and
Speaker 1: it gave me a stronger sense of peace than I'd
Speaker 1: ever had a stronger sense of contentment, of being comfortable
Speaker 1: in my own skin, of security, because you know, the
Speaker 1: insecurities that you carry with you from the relationship with
Speaker 1: your parents throughout life are very strong, and if you're
Speaker 1: lucky enough to be able to sort of confront those
Speaker 1: insecurities firsthand with the tools that I mean, I had
Speaker 1: learned how to do meditation, and I'd learned the tools
Speaker 1: that you need in order to respond and not react.
Speaker 1: And so even though I failed many times, towards the
Speaker 1: end of that period of time where I was stuck
Speaker 1: with them, we were really getting along and we worked
Speaker 1: through a lot of stuff, and it was really a
Speaker 1: necessary time for all of us. Well, you're giving hope
Speaker 1: to an entire country that's coming out of COVID. I
Speaker 1: hope you know that. Well, listen, what better gift could
Speaker 1: one hope to give? Well? You are. One of the
Speaker 1: gifts on this album is will Be all Right, which
Speaker 1: is the first song. Was that written with anybody in mind?
Speaker 1: That was written with everybody in mind, that was written
Speaker 1: with the whole world in mind. It's a pretty heavy
Speaker 1: song in some ways because it's you know, talks about
Speaker 1: empires falling and understanding that everything's impermanent, but you know
Speaker 1: through it all through the world. I write a lot
Speaker 1: about sort of the outside world collapsing and yet love being,
Speaker 1: love being what keeps us strong through that. I would
Speaker 1: say that I'm a classic liberal, classical liberal, uh not
Speaker 1: a not a neoliberal, but a classical liberal, in which
Speaker 1: I really believe in the strength of individuals, knowing that
Speaker 1: things around will be at times very very very difficult,
Speaker 1: and so giving people the tools. Instead of saying, you know,
Speaker 1: let's let's eradicate bullying from the world, maybe instead say
Speaker 1: let's learn how to not let bullying affect you. You know,
Speaker 1: let's learn how to take people's words and let them
Speaker 1: slide off and not really let them affect you, you know,
Speaker 1: spilled the strength from within so that we learned to
Speaker 1: be strong people instead of relying on or trying to
Speaker 1: just say, well, let's eradicate negativity or let's let's take
Speaker 1: this bad thing. And because you're never going to do that,
Speaker 1: there's always going to be a new thing that pops up.
Speaker 1: So rather than campaigns against the thing itself, maybe the
Speaker 1: thing should be learned how to deal with inside. And
Speaker 1: that's sort of a theme that I think recurs in
Speaker 1: a lot of my songs. You are the image of
Speaker 1: love encased in this moll moment, suspendedible, and we can
Speaker 1: hold on through struggle and strike despite all the darkness.
Speaker 1: We'll be all right. Solved as the river flows, bowl
Speaker 1: in water is silence delivers the goal. You can jump
Speaker 1: in any time. Just see you're ready, I'll say, your mind,
Speaker 1: and we will be all right. If we land on,
Speaker 1: our love will guide us where we belong. Oh, and
Speaker 1: empires will fall and everything don't work. Theyly we'll be
Speaker 1: all right. That's will be all right From Lucas Nelson
Speaker 1: and promise of the reels new album A few Stars apart,
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from Lucas Nelson. After
Speaker 1: a quick break, we're back with more from Lucas Nelson
Speaker 1: and Bruce Headler. Your father had a difficult relationship with
Speaker 1: Nashville when he was a songwriter there, Sure, and he
Speaker 1: returned to Texas. Some of you, some of your experiences
Speaker 1: remind me a bit of Rosanne Cash, whom we've interviewed,
Speaker 1: whose father also had a difficult time with Nashville, sure
Speaker 1: and didn't want to be there. What's it like for
Speaker 1: you to go to Nashville, which is not just a city,
Speaker 1: not just a place with great studios and great great musicians,
Speaker 1: but a kind of industry that represents a certain way
Speaker 1: of thinking about country music. I think Nashville has changed
Speaker 1: quite a lot since those times, especially in that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of quality music coming out of Nashville now,
Speaker 1: separate from what the radio stuff is, you know, separate
Speaker 1: from what the new country you know that comes out.
Speaker 1: There's really good stuff coming out of Nashville. But there's
Speaker 1: there's great stuff coming all over the place now because
Speaker 1: we have the Internet and we don't need to be
Speaker 1: in a specific spot really to you know, there is
Speaker 1: no hub but Nashville itself has an energy and going
Speaker 1: there it can help inspire I think good music to come.
Speaker 1: But and the level of musicianship that is condensed into
Speaker 1: Nashville is incredible. Some of the best musicians in the
Speaker 1: whole world. It's sort of one of the last places
Speaker 1: where people really appreciate musical talent in terms of proficiency
Speaker 1: at an instrument and not like proficiency at you know, programming.
Speaker 1: And speaking of which, you did this whole album on analog.
Speaker 1: You did it on tape, didn't you? We did, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: did you edit it digitally but just recorded on tape
Speaker 1: or well, we didn't do much editing at all. It
Speaker 1: was all live for the most part. There were hardly
Speaker 1: any overdubs, I don't think. And it's funny because you know,
Speaker 1: people don't really know that, they don't notice that because
Speaker 1: everything has been edited that they listened to to the
Speaker 1: most part for the most part. So a lot of
Speaker 1: times people think that our music is really slick, when
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's just that, you know, this
Speaker 1: band is really really good. They're really good, and so
Speaker 1: they sound like it's been It sounds like it's been
Speaker 1: produced and edited or whatever, but it is. It isn't.
Speaker 1: It hasn't. And these guys are just good and they're
Speaker 1: good musicians, and so I'm proud of them for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of auto tune on your voice.
Speaker 1: I noticed. I wish I could sing better and tune,
Speaker 1: but you know, I try. I've heard that you don't
Speaker 1: like your own voice. Is that true. It's not that
Speaker 1: I don't like it, It's just that I'm it's a
Speaker 1: work in progress. I mean to say, I actually liked
Speaker 1: my voice. But I can hit any note. You know.
Speaker 1: I can hit high notes, I can hit low notes.
Speaker 1: It's just a different sound, a different timbre, and but
Speaker 1: it's getting more character to it as time goes by,
Speaker 1: as I go through more things in life, and it
Speaker 1: gets a little more weathered, and so you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to judge it yet. I think your
Speaker 1: mother said that she thought you'd found your voice on
Speaker 1: this record. Yeah, what do you think she meant? There's
Speaker 1: certain songs where I'm actually really happy with the sound
Speaker 1: of my voice. She said that specifically regarding a song
Speaker 1: called Throwing Away Your Love, which is sort of a
Speaker 1: more conversational sort of tam or as a lower register
Speaker 1: of my voice, and I like that lower register that
Speaker 1: a higher register. You know, I couldn't sing that lower
Speaker 1: when I was when I was younger, but I'm able
Speaker 1: to sing it now. You know, get a little lower
Speaker 1: down there. Do you want to play a song for us?
Speaker 1: And we'll keep talking after sure? Time wasted again and again,
Speaker 1: criminal intentions. I sense a deeply rooted network of confusion
Speaker 1: in my brain. My pain is so very elementary. I
Speaker 1: think the child and me is banging on the wall
Speaker 1: that separates me from the light on the other side.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to remember why I might have left
Speaker 1: your love behind. Oh, and I like to testify me
Speaker 1: half of my word mine for the crime of throwing
Speaker 1: away your love, throwing away your love, throwing away your love,
Speaker 1: throwing away your love. Exhibb it ain't, mama. I've got proof.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of pretty memories I can show you.
Speaker 1: Dust them off, fancy that you're the perfect girl for me.
Speaker 1: But somehow he slipped away for reasons I can't see.
Speaker 1: I'd like to boy ahead plead insanity. My mind is
Speaker 1: not my friend. I think it wants me to be lonely,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to remember why I might have left
Speaker 1: your love behind. Oh, and I'd like to testify on
Speaker 1: the half of my mind for the crime of throwing
Speaker 1: away your love, throwing away your love, throwing away your love,
Speaker 1: throwing away your love in my life. Oh, the sit
Speaker 1: you vision is beyond my control of you gone me too,
Speaker 1: hundred thousable. I'd like to testify be have of my
Speaker 1: word mind for the crime of throwing away lowe away,
Speaker 1: throwing away your lie. That was fantastic. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell all our listeners now to run out
Speaker 1: and listen to the album version because it's got a
Speaker 1: very full it almost sounds like the band. Yeah, band
Speaker 1: like that descending bass, and it feels like Rick Danko
Speaker 1: singing it. And that's just such a different, wonderful version.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Oh, thank you. Can you tell me about
Speaker 1: writing that one? Yeah, that was one of the ones
Speaker 1: that I wrote a while ago, and I just I
Speaker 1: can't help but just feel like it was sort of
Speaker 1: written like a band song. It's very like, you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to write a song it was that was
Speaker 1: groovy but mellow and and and it is sort of
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the more fun lyrical songs
Speaker 1: I've written. I was having fun playing with words on
Speaker 1: that song. You know. It just felt like I was
Speaker 1: tangled up in my emotions, you know, and I was
Speaker 1: sort of like trying to write about leaving this girl behind.
Speaker 1: And maybe I was watching some law and order show
Speaker 1: or something, or I felt like, you know, I was
Speaker 1: using a bunch of legal terms. Yeah, and this album
Speaker 1: is more for people who have followed you. It's a
Speaker 1: more country album. You and your band are. You're a
Speaker 1: kind of very heavy guitar driven California style band, but
Speaker 1: this one feels a little more Austin to me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know where that California style got thrown into
Speaker 1: all those articles. I mean, you know, we we we did.
Speaker 1: The first record was in Austin. We've actually only recorded
Speaker 1: one record in California, or two records in California. But
Speaker 1: most of the time I grew up listening to Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas musicians and Seattle musicians. There's no there's no bands
Speaker 1: that I was influenced really from California, unless you include
Speaker 1: like Buck Owens or or you know, the sort of
Speaker 1: the Bakersfield sound, Merle Haggard, that kind of thing, or
Speaker 1: in Neil Neil Young. I guess supposedly, you know, made
Speaker 1: his real sound down there in California. But we called
Speaker 1: ourselves cowboy hippie surf rock when we started out, so
Speaker 1: maybe California was just sort of grandfathered in. At that
Speaker 1: point I mentioned you're from this storied musical family. Not
Speaker 1: only you grew up in your musical family, you joined
Speaker 1: the family band pretty early, didn't you. Yeah, I started
Speaker 1: playing when I was thirteen fourteen in the band. How
Speaker 1: long have you been playing? By that point a few years.
Speaker 1: I really got proficient, at least good enough to hang
Speaker 1: By the third year I was playing. Because I spent
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours and hours and hours playing,
Speaker 1: I didn't stop. I wanted to be an Olympic athlete
Speaker 1: when I was a young kid. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a swimmer, and I knew what it took, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to give that same amount of focus and attention
Speaker 1: and practice to music. To stand out as someone who
Speaker 1: definitely made their life about music, to stand out as
Speaker 1: someone who loves music and embodies music and isn't just
Speaker 1: writing on coat tails or something, you know. I feel
Speaker 1: like I had a little something extra to proof and
Speaker 1: to myself as well as to others, but mostly did
Speaker 1: myself that I was okay on my own and that
Speaker 1: if my father hadn't been famous, I would still be
Speaker 1: capable of putting in the effort required and working hard
Speaker 1: enough to stand and be heard. No matter what what
Speaker 1: happened to Swimming Well, I got distracted by music. At
Speaker 1: a certain point. I started putting more into music than
Speaker 1: I did to swimming. Music has taken me all over
Speaker 1: the world. Music has taken me to loves in my life.
Speaker 1: It's given me confidence, It's given me strength. If there
Speaker 1: is a God, I think God is music, you know.
Speaker 1: So when did the songwriting start for you? When I
Speaker 1: was eleven years old, I wrote a song called You
Speaker 1: Were It, and my dad liked it so much he
Speaker 1: put it on his record It Always Will be At
Speaker 1: the time, I was probably about eleven years old when
Speaker 1: that happened. So you're eleven you start to get royalty
Speaker 1: checks from one of your dad's albums. I have a
Speaker 1: funny story about that too, because when I was older,
Speaker 1: I was living in California. I went to Well. I
Speaker 1: went to Loyal and Merrymount University. Briefly I dropped out,
Speaker 1: but as I went after I dropped out. I was
Speaker 1: paying rent at this place in Venice, California, and month
Speaker 1: to month it was kind of difficult. I was going
Speaker 1: on the road and making money, but there there were
Speaker 1: times where I was not almost going to make my rent.
Speaker 1: And I remember one day the day of the rent
Speaker 1: came due and I didn't have the money. I didn't
Speaker 1: have hardly any money at that point. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if anybody realizes, but I'd never take money from my parents.
Speaker 1: I just I'm just kind of I don't know. I
Speaker 1: forced myself to separate from that because I again, it
Speaker 1: was my own thing, so I couldn't pay the rent.
Speaker 1: And I was driving down the PC and something just
Speaker 1: came over me, like, Okay, I'm gonna be okay no
Speaker 1: matter what. I'm just gonna trust you know that life
Speaker 1: is life is going to be okay. And I got
Speaker 1: a call. As soon as I had that thought, I
Speaker 1: got a call and it was that I had a
Speaker 1: package at FedEx, and so I drove to FedEx and
Speaker 1: I opened up the package and it was a check
Speaker 1: from writing that song for exactly what was due or
Speaker 1: my rent, the exact to the dollar amount. And I said, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, and that point. At that point on I
Speaker 1: just started. I just sort of said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna keep trusting that is fantastic story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll play that song. Let's see if I can remember it.
Speaker 1: You were it, the one, the only one one who
Speaker 1: onderstood it all when we fought out loud. You be
Speaker 1: the one who made me feel so small. You could kill,
Speaker 1: you could hurt and bring out the worst inveryone you,
Speaker 1: but no one could ever bring the worst out of you.
Speaker 1: But now I'm fine. All the pain is gone. I
Speaker 1: once had a heart. Now I have a song that
Speaker 1: was fantastic. Thank you. That's pretty heavy for eleven year old.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was a pretty heavy eleven year old
Speaker 1: for sure. We'll be back after a quick break with
Speaker 1: more from Lucas Nelson and Bruce Hedler. We're back with
Speaker 1: the rest of Bruce's conversation with Lucas Nelson. Tell me
Speaker 1: about meeting Bradley Cooper and how your work on A
Speaker 1: Star Is Born came around. Well. At first, I was
Speaker 1: hired because he saw us that desert trip with Neil
Speaker 1: and he's a huge Neil fan, and he hired me
Speaker 1: to be an authenticity consultant. He wanted to basically, uh,
Speaker 1: he wanted he wanted me to let him know what
Speaker 1: looked authentic on stage and how to be you know,
Speaker 1: a rock and roller on stage, and what kind of
Speaker 1: guitars to use. And but we ended up singing. I
Speaker 1: ended up having helping him sing, learned to sing, and
Speaker 1: I ended up being the guitar and the music. And
Speaker 1: I ended up bringing my band in and then writing
Speaker 1: a bunch of songs with them, and producing U and
Speaker 1: having brought the band in, and and and we you know,
Speaker 1: I mean one of the great experiences were I mean
Speaker 1: he was just sitting with him and watching his voice
Speaker 1: progress and then having him you know, really get pretending
Speaker 1: to play down pretty well. But but it was cool
Speaker 1: seeing our music come off the big screen and you know,
Speaker 1: here my lick, you know here. And so you know
Speaker 1: that working with Stephanie with Gaga was great too. You know,
Speaker 1: it gave us a lot of validation. I think as
Speaker 1: musicians we felt like we're we could hang with with
Speaker 1: with these you know, pop stars as well as we
Speaker 1: could hang with you know, the legends. It was great.
Speaker 1: What's it like to write with some of New N't
Speaker 1: because he he did write some of the songs or
Speaker 1: co wrote some of the songs. Yeah, we wrote black
Speaker 1: Eyes together and a couple other ones. Yeah, he has
Speaker 1: great ideas. He's really musical. And then Stephanie Lady Gaga.
Speaker 1: You didn't have to teach her how to sing. She
Speaker 1: was didn't have to teach her how to saying no,
Speaker 1: she could sing her ass off, but you know she
Speaker 1: you know, it was nice to h to have the
Speaker 1: band in there, and she was a great producer, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad that she chose to keep my version of
Speaker 1: you know, the band's version of shallow pretty much you know,
Speaker 1: on the record as well. It's a trip to hear
Speaker 1: your guitar out there when all of these you know,
Speaker 1: young kids are singing along to it and they don't
Speaker 1: know that promise of the real is the band they're
Speaker 1: singing too. You know, you know, one of the people
Speaker 1: you've worked with a lot, and I want to talk
Speaker 1: about different people in your life that have helped you,
Speaker 1: but he's a good example of someone who has so
Speaker 1: much material you're never sure when it's coming out. And
Speaker 1: that's Neil Young. Yeah, you've been his backup band, you've
Speaker 1: played with them, or can you tell me a bit
Speaker 1: about how you guys first met and how that all
Speaker 1: came about. Well, Neil and I had known each other
Speaker 1: just peripherally because we did farm aide every year, but
Speaker 1: I was always kind of you know, I'd never really
Speaker 1: spoke to him until maybe I was sixteen, and I
Speaker 1: wrote a song called American Dream, which I have I
Speaker 1: have to go find that. I don't know where it went,
Speaker 1: but it was like a farmer's song. And I wrote
Speaker 1: that song and then I got the courage to to
Speaker 1: go up and play it for him and uh, and
Speaker 1: to play it for with my brother, and we went
Speaker 1: and played it for him and he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's great, sounds good. We were out by the buses
Speaker 1: and farm Maide. I remember clear as day. That was
Speaker 1: the first longer conversation that we had with him, and Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Part of me thinks that maybe he
Speaker 1: was he was impressed that we had the courage to
Speaker 1: come up and do that. And then so over time
Speaker 1: I think he started to pay attention to what we
Speaker 1: were doing. And Um, we covered one of his songs
Speaker 1: at a farm Maide in two thousand and ten in Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: covered a song we were doing a song called la
Speaker 1: Uh it's like from a record that kind of didn't
Speaker 1: come out, time fades away. It wasn't like, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of if you're a die hard fan, you know it.
Speaker 1: It h and he really liked it, and so he
Speaker 1: came and said something after we played, said we did
Speaker 1: a good job. And then then we just sort of
Speaker 1: kept in touch his pen pals, and he started to
Speaker 1: give me some feedback and ideas and over the years,
Speaker 1: and then one day he invited us into the studio
Speaker 1: to record and we did the Monsanto Years, which actually
Speaker 1: aged quite well. I think, you know them having been
Speaker 1: found guilty of a number of different things involving glyph
Speaker 1: estates specifically, and so that that was our first foray
Speaker 1: into into his world. And we ended up going on
Speaker 1: the road extensively after that. And we still love him.
Speaker 1: He's our great captain. So what is it like to
Speaker 1: play on stage with him? It's like the fullest expression
Speaker 1: of our dreams as as a children. I mean, when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I dreamed about playing rock and
Speaker 1: roll like that on a stage for eighty thousand people.
Speaker 1: I mean, your trip was quite quite an incredible show.
Speaker 1: And you know, if I do say so myself, I
Speaker 1: thought we'd made quite a statement on that show. A
Speaker 1: lot of people saw that show and really loved it.
Speaker 1: You know, he's this character who always seems a little
Speaker 1: never out of control, but on the verge of being
Speaker 1: out of control is Do you feel that way when
Speaker 1: you're on stage with him? Yeah, but I relate to it.
Speaker 1: We all sort of exhibit a sense of abandoned we're
Speaker 1: out there. It's what we love about being on stage
Speaker 1: with Neil because that's where your rock and roll spirit
Speaker 1: can really shine. What about songwriting? Has he influenced you
Speaker 1: in that way? Sure? Yeah, I mean in the same
Speaker 1: way that my father has. You know, we wrote a
Speaker 1: little bit together, and you know, he's got great feedback
Speaker 1: on the music. And another guy you knew. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you knew him growing up, but you've talked
Speaker 1: about him in the past is Chris Christofferson. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: another one of the great songwriters of our generation, if
Speaker 1: not ever. Yeah, you see the kind of guy you
Speaker 1: ever went to and said, I've got this song was
Speaker 1: inspired by something you did? Can I play it for you? Sure?
Speaker 1: He was really a fan of art music. He is
Speaker 1: a fan of art music. He's writing something you do
Speaker 1: every day, or do you write just when it comes
Speaker 1: all write often every other day, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: there there it comes in bursts where like one week
Speaker 1: I'll write eight songs or something. You know, I might
Speaker 1: not write again for a month. But you know, that's
Speaker 1: how it works. You never worry it's not going to
Speaker 1: come back. You always no. And at this point, I
Speaker 1: have enough material for five records before I have to
Speaker 1: write another song, so I you know, it's actually kind
Speaker 1: of like it's kind of annoying because I have all
Speaker 1: this material and I don't know you know when it's
Speaker 1: going to come out, you know. And sometimes you write
Speaker 1: something and you want it to come out right away
Speaker 1: because it's how you're feeling at that moment. But like
Speaker 1: in the case of Perennial Bloom, which is a song
Speaker 1: from our record that's that's sort of been on the
Speaker 1: radio a lot, and it's uh, that song was written
Speaker 1: May of twenty twenty, and there's a line there this
Speaker 1: was like right when the pandemic had hit, but the
Speaker 1: summer was supposed to be when you know, the virus
Speaker 1: maybe would go away because of the heat, and we
Speaker 1: were feeling really hopeful and it was like Summer's healing
Speaker 1: coming soon, and somebody, someone beside me actually smiled without
Speaker 1: a mask, and it was more of a metaphor for
Speaker 1: someone smiling without, you know, the metaphorical mask because of
Speaker 1: being themselves. And yet that song didn't get released until
Speaker 1: a year later that same time in May, in May
Speaker 1: of this year, and the same thing applied, and so
Speaker 1: it was almost like it was meant to come out
Speaker 1: a year later and not at that time, because we
Speaker 1: had a more hope for the summer this year than
Speaker 1: we did back then. Even songs. It was interesting how
Speaker 1: how songs can maybe be written and not be meant
Speaker 1: to put out until later, which I'm being forced to
Speaker 1: accept that. Listen, thank you so much, it has been
Speaker 1: just fabulous talking to you. Yeah, Tess. Thank you. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Lucas Nelson for playing a couple of songs off
Speaker 1: his new album and sharing his story with Bruce. You
Speaker 1: can check out all our favorite Lucas Nelson and Promise
Speaker 1: of the Real songs at Broken Record podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
Speaker 1: dot com slash broken record Podcast. We can find all
Speaker 1: our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: broken Record. Broken Record is produced helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrell,
Speaker 1: Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help
Speaker 1: from Nick Chafee. Our executive producer is Me A Little
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