It was an absolute pleasure to chat with Ben Nichols of Lucero, a band that has been on the road for over two decades, evolving with the ever-changing music industry while staying true to their roots. Read on to find Ben’s candid reflections on the ups and downs of touring, the changes in the music scene, and his love for the West Coast. Plus, the need for new superstitions. When you are done, head over to Lucero’s official website to check out upcoming tour dates.
Racket
You’ve been doing this for a good long while now, what’s been the most surprising aspect of all this?
Lucero Ben
We’re just as surprised at the fact that we’re here and still doing it as much as everyone else is, but we’re happy to still be here. Still be getting away with it.
Racket
What’s been kind of the best change and the worst change in how either the music industry or just kind of the whole of it has changed for you guys.
Lucero Ben
Well, it’s been pretty drastic because being around for as long as we have, we’ve kind of spanned, numerous epochs of music industry norms. You know, when we started, it was still everything was kind of a traditional record label system, and everything was CDs and property studios. and then, yeah, and then internet kind of came around, really as we started to grow so did of the internet.
And so file sharing and all that and, and now streaming, and we’ve just kind of, we just kind of been plowing our way through, and doing the best we can as things change. So, there’s good and bad. It’s frustrating in certain ways. and maybe it’s difficult to tell. You know, other than the folks who buy tickets to come to live shows, it’s hard to gauge how many people are listening to your records. Record sales don’t tell the whole story nowadays.
So, there’s certain things that make it trickier. but that being said, having such contact with fans through social media, that has its pluses as well. Being able to record stuff in your basement so easily now, I don’t know. Yeah, there’s guys that do it better than we do. we’re still trying to adapt and adjust.
Our presence on social media? Not the best. We’re old and we’re not good at it, but we’re trying to get better. It’s pretty cool what you can do with it. It’s pretty amazing what you can do in the YouTube channel if you know what you like. Oh, yeah. we’re playing catch up, but, It’s still pretty impressive.
We’ll see if we can survive this next sea change of the industry, whatever the hell that is.
Racket
Yeah, that that’s what throws me off, man. I have a day job working in government, and we do these long-term strategic plans and then have no idea what’s coming down in just a couple of years that can throw them off.
Lucero Ben
Yeah, totally. Who knows what platform or what website or new innovation will flip everything on its head and make everything you know obsolete? And really, all we’ve ever done is get in a van and go on tour, you know? We’ll see. We’re still doing it the old school way, for better or for worse. I think we just don’t know any other way to do it.
But, yeah, we’re coming back to Portland soon.
Racket
Hell, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. So, with the amount of touring you’ve done, you’ve been all over the damn place. Has there been either, like, a meal or a place that you’re just like, “damn, I can’t wait to get back there?”
Lucero Ben
Oh, yeah. Sure. like, I’ve got my favorite cities, just for whatever weird reasons. And Portland counts as one of them. I’ve got a soft spot for the entire West Coast, actually. There’s just something more romantic about getting in the van or the car or whatever. There’s something more romantic about traveling west in my mind.
Racket
That’s just, I don’t know. You’re chasing the sun, man.
Lucero Ben
Yeah, totally. Yeah. And you’re going to the land of, I don’t know, movies and, you know, the wild West and that manifest destiny. There’s something about moving west that is appealing. And, and then ever since I saw, this will sound kind of cheesy, but ever since I, I was in high school and My Own Private Idaho came out, The River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves movie. But I think a lot of it takes place in Portland quite a bit.
I was in small bands, like high school bands, but not a touring band. And that movie, I don’t know, something about it made me want to travel and see the world and specifically the Pacific Northwest. I hadn’t been very many places at the time, and I love that movie.
It made me want to come see Portland. Yeah. and still, every time I pass through town, I think about some of the scenes in that movie, I don’t know, it’s one of those random things that stuck with me.
Racket
Portland gets a bad rap, man. You know, people say, oh, crime this and people that and it’s the same complaints that everyone has about every major city.
Lucero Ben
Yeah, no, I think that a lot of that stuff has been overblown and everything kind of goes in cycles.
Portland is still Portland and it’s still the city that I fell in love with through a movie. I still love it and can kind of get a little bit of that feeling every time I pass through town. I’ve got some good friends there and, you know, I passed through enough now to where it doesn’t feel like a foreign place to me.
I always thought I would end up somewhere out there, but that just wasn’t in the cards. So we appreciate coming through town, for sure.
Racket
Nice. So when I was getting my master’s degree, like, a decade ago now, I would go study at a bar every Tuesday for $2 Tuesdays. And the bartender would always play Lucero every time I went in, every Tuesday without fail. And I got a 4.0, man. I kind of credit you guys with a lot of that.
Lucero Ben
That’s great! Well, you’re welcome.
Racket
So, besides studying at a bar, what do you think is the most optimal time and place for listening to Lucero?
Lucero Ben
That’s funny. I’ve heard very similar stories with people getting tattoos. Apparently, Lucero is popular with bartenders and, tattoo artists. Tattoo artists seem to play Lucero in the tattoo parlors quite a bit. in the old days, it was, BMX riders would listen Lucero.
Like, there was a kid named Ryan Corrigan, who’s now he’s, like, kind of a prolific ramp builder. He’s a great woodworker. And he’s from my hometown, in Little Rock, Arkansas. And we kind of grew up going to punk rock shows together. And then re-met him years down the line, and he was kind of going off in the BMX world.
He was a rider, but mainly got into building ramps, and now he goes all over the place building crazy ramps. But he used, you know, in the old days, the riders would make all the videos, and he used our Tears Don’t Matter Much song in one of his videos. And it really kind of spread like wildfire through that whole scene.
So, so yeah, riding BMX, getting tattooed, drinking in bars, that’s. Yeah, that’s some places to listen to Lucero.
Racket
I think that explains why I’m such a fan. I was just telling people two weeks ago about the Dino Bazooka BMX bike was the first bike I bought with my own money. It had this, like, singular wide tube across the top right and I thought it was so badass. I had a camouflaged one, probably too cool for me.
Lucero Ben
That’s pretty cool.
Racket
What is THE album that you would be fine being your only one? Like, this is THE album that I’m left with for the rest of my life.
Lucero Ben
Oh, wow. That’s a tricky one. Man, I should have an answer for that. I should have just stock desert island album answer. Tom Petty is always a good go-to, like, I could be pretty happy just listening to Tom Petty all the time.
But there’s so much. Of course, there’s so much else. For a long time, I would have said Tom Waits. And I still love Tom Waits, but, in my old age, I’ve kind of gravitated back towards classic rock.
I love Bruce Springsteen, but I know there’s a moodiness to Tom Petty that, that I would find hard to give up, that I would miss if I didn’t have it.
So, yeah, I’ll go with, it’s lame, but I’ll go with the greatest hits of Tom Petty.
Racket
I think that’s a great answer. If your guitar could talk, what embarrassing secrets would it reveal about you?
Lucero Ben
Oh, God. Too much. I mean, the sad part is, most of my most embarrassing moments have probably been, in public. Maybe a little drunk on stage, talking a little too much on stage, just being dumb on stage. So, my guitar has seen it, so have a lot of other people. A lot of people have bought tickets to Lucero shows, they know the same stuff that my guitar does, unfortunately. Although we’ve gotten a little bit better.
After 25 years, I think we’re actually playing better shows than we’ve ever played in our lives.
We’re actually kind of, finding a balance. So, these Lucero shows are still pretty fun and you never know what’s going to happen.
And we’re still… we’re just Lucero.
We’re still just a loose rock n roll band when it comes down to it. But we’re not we’re not blackout drunk anymore before we get on stage. We’ve dialed some of that in. Yeah, we’re actually playing pretty good these days. Yeah, not as many embarrassing moments at shows.
Racket
With that tenure under your belt, do you guys have any superstitions you do or, you know, rituals before going on?
Lucero Ben
No! And that might be part of the problem.
Maybe that’s why our career has kind of stalled out. We might need to get some superstitions for this next run.
Racket
And, I mean, there’s your next album title, too.
Lucero Ben
And it’s not a bad idea. I’ll, I’ll be writing that down in my iPhone notes right now.
Racket
If you if you could have, a signature cocktail based called the Lucero, what would it be?
Lucero Ben
Oof! I mean, my drink is just bourbon on the rocks, usually. So, it might just be Buffalo Trace on the rocks, and, you could call it something fancy and pretend to put other ingredients in it and spend, like, you know, five minutes crafting this cocktail. But in the end, it’s just, it’s just bourbon and ice. Yeah, I think that would be appropriate.
Racket
I like it. God, you must have had hundreds of bands that you’ve played with…
Lucero Ben
Some of them are HUGE now! You know, some of them are some of the biggest names in Americana or whatever genre. But, yeah, we played one of our worst shows ever in Portland. This one didn’t help our career at all.
It was like a chili cook-off. It was a Portland chili cook off. I feel like none of the chili tasted like chili. Like you had your curry chilies and your turkey chilies and your, vegan chilis, of course. There were 25 different chilies, maybe. And we tried them all. it was an all-day thing.
And for some reason, they thought it would be great for us to play a set and then take an hour break and then come back and play again. And in that hour break, I just got I got hammered at the bar, people gave me shots and our second set was nigh unlistenable.
I’m pretty sure Sturgill Simpson opened for us at that show. And, needless to say, we have never opened for Sturgill Simpson. That’s a Portland memory.
I’m not even sure what the question was. I just went off on a tangent.
Racket
No, that’s perfect man. the question was, is there, was there a band that you had not heard before you played with that you’re you still listen to?
Lucero Ben
Oh, wow. One of my favorites right now is The Deslondes from New Orleans. I’m kind of cheating, I don’t we’ve never actually played a show with them. We were supposed to, and it never happened, but like the booking agent and I was like, hey, what do you think about these guys?
And I started listening to them, and they just kind of blew me away. And I’ve been a big fan ever since, and so I want to play with them sometime. And there’s another young band out of West Texas called Rattlesnake Milk. I saw them recently, and they do the traditional thing really well.
I don’t listen to as much new music as I used to, and I wish I could listen to more. But those are a couple of new things that I really like now.
Racket
Happens. What is a strange and or unusual talent about yourself that people might not know about?
Lucero Ben
Uhhhhh, I can juggle.
Racket
Like juggling, chainsaws, bowling balls, bowling pins?
Lucero Ben
I stick with, like, beanbags. Beanbags are good because they don’t roll away. Fruit and balls and that shit, if you drop it, it rolls away, you can’t get it. A beanbag, PLOP, it just sits there. You pick it up and start juggling again. In PE class in like fifth grade, we had a guy from the circus comes in and taught us to ride unicycles and tightrope walk and juggling. It was an arts magnet school.
Racket
This sounds like a great way to come on stage.
Lucero Ben
I’ve never… well, as far as I remember, I’ve never incorporated it into a Lucero show. There might be video out there. I can just see it. Like this interview cuts to a clip on YouTube of me and drunk juggling on stage. But as far as I know, I’ve never juggled in a Lucero show. So again, yeah, maybe. And I’ve got a lot is we need a good superstition and some juggling acts. Yeah, we might turn this all around.
Racket
My last question is, what’s something you’ve never been asked about in an interview that you actually love talking about?
Lucero Ben
Oh, wow. That’s a tough one. I’m not sure.
Racket
Coming at you with the hard-hitting questions, man.
Lucero Ben
Yeah, I’ve been asked plenty of questions, on a ton of stuff. I don’t know, I have a feeling, no matter what questions I’m being asked, I just talk about whatever I want to talk about anyways, whether it’s answering the question or not. So, I always talk about whatever I want to talk about regardless of the question. Again, that’s cheating and not really an answer to your question, but that might be what you get.
Random topic, you know, I’m huge into right now, this archeologist does a podcast, Ed Barnhart. And he did he did some of the great Courses online, and he did one on Mesoamerica and South America and North America. He’s got a series on the Maya and the Aztec and North America before contact with Columbus. So, yeah, I’ve never talked about him in an interview, but I’ve been listening to his podcasts a ton.
If I could invite if I could have a dinner and invite whoever I wanted to, it would be, it wouldn’t be musicians or celebrities, It would be guys like Ed Barnhart. And there’s a guy I follow on Instagram named, Dan McClellan who, he just kind of he’s an expert on the Bible and biblical studies, which, who knew that I would ever be interested in anything religious at all, especially Bible-focused.
But the way he’s when he deconstructs other people’s arguments. He’s amazing. Works for the Mormon church or something. I don’t know, but he fascinates me. My dinner would involve guys like that. So, yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever actually mentioned any of that stuff in an interview. You got the hot scoop.
And, and just the fact that he speaks Hebrew and Greek and Spanish in numerous other languages, and it’s just his knowledge of different translations of the Bible. When people say, oh, the Bible says this, he’s like, “well, actually”, and so, yeah, I love watching his stuff.
Maybe I’ll find a few more folks talk about, and I’ll put together some kind of dream dinner wish list. So, that started here.