We are living in chaotic times. As social animals, we come alive in another’s presence. But with a virus spreading across the country, we are sequestered inside our homes going numb with boredom. But some of our favorite musicians have found a way to pump a bit of excitement into our isolation by doing virtual concerts or simply picking up their guitars and singing us a song on Facebook or Twitter. Since we can’t go to them, they are coming to us and Lukas Nelson is one of those musicians.
In mid-March, Nelson sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” shirtless in a friend’s guestroom, spreading some much-needed spiritual peace to a world almost frantic with worry and confusion. His version of the Simon & Garfunkel classic “Sound Of Silence,” dedicated to New York City, was spine-tingling. Calling them “Quarantunes,” Nelson, as well as members of his band Promise Of The Real, and sometimes with his pop Willie Nelson, provide an escape from the reality of everyday seclusion three nights a week, playing original tunes or covers of favorites from artists such as John Prine and Neil Young.
Nelson, number six of Willie’s seven children, has built a name for himself over the years. His band Promise Of The Real released their first studio album in 2010, they backed Young on tour and in the studio, they’ve played the New Orleans Jazz Fest and Bonnaroo, stood on the hallowed stage of the Grand Ole Opry and rocked out at Farm Aid. “Our trajectory has been similar to that of The Band,” Nelson has said of POTR’s rise in the music world. “They supported so many incredible people throughout their career, but they were also focused on their own music. We’re the same way. We want to see good music and great artists succeed, because a rising tide raises all ships. We’re cheering for our friends, just as they’re cheering for us.” Nelson even found time to appear in A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper and co-wrote several songs on the soundtrack.
Last year saw the release of Turn Off The News (Build A Garden), POTR’s fifth studio album. “We wanted these songs to be fun and upbeat but we also wanted to have something to say. Rock & roll began as a countercultural movement, so in the true spirit of rock & roll, we’re trying to encourage a lifestyle where people can be active in their local communities, rather than glued to a device,” explained Nelson upon the album’s release. “It’s about how you can live your life with your heart leading the way.”
Less than a year later, POTR is offering up a part two, Naked Garden, which dropped on March 27th, at a time when other artists are opting to postpone new music until the fall. Featuring fifteen new and alternate version songs, the whole album sizzles with a fun spontaneity, grooves with R&B and soul, hums on a passionate frequency of calmness and radiates good times interspersed with real messages. “I’ve always been able to lose myself in the music, so to speak, when I’m playing or singing, to the point where whatever I’m singing about doesn’t really bring me down,” Nelson told me in a 2016 Glide interview about writing and then performing songs of a more serious nature. “It’s just a matter of performing it well and singing it well and bringing the emotion into it and having a balance there too.” A good example is the song “Speak The Truth,” where “Have courage, stand your ground,” reverberates through a smooth funky groove (a Corey McCormick highlight).
Amidst all the hunkering down, Nelson & I had a quick chat about the new album and life in the time of coronavirus.
Lukas, what’s happening in your world since you can’t get out and play?
We’re staying safe, hunkered down outside of Austin at the Ranch. I’m doing okay, having a good time. I’m writing a lot and I’m playing music and reading and watching shows and having dinner with the family every night, playing chess and dominoes and whatever we can play, whatever we can do.
You started your Quarantunes in mid-March and it’s pretty obvious why but tell us your story, what was going on in your head about all this?
You know, I’ve been doing Transcendental Meditation every day and really trying to stay always on the bright side of life, as Monty Python would say. And I found an opportunity to hone my skills and to write more and to learn a bunch of new music. I was sitting meditating and I thought of the word Quarantunes and I had to stop my meditation I laughed so hard. I wrote it down and then I thought, oh that’s going to be great, so that’s what I started doing. That’s kind of how I’ve been approaching the whole thing.
Why “Hallelujah” first?
I recorded that before the quarantine started actually. It’s actually at my buddy’s house. You notice that there’s a different bed in that video (laughs). I was in his guestroom and he had this Leonard Cohen biography and I sort of picked it up and I was reading it. The cases [of coronavirus] were getting more and more prevalent in the United States and it was right before we got the order to hunker down. So I don’t know, I was listening to that song and Jeff Buckley’s version of it and his version of it and I thought I should just do a version of it. I know all the words so I set up the camera and did it.
Are you going to continue these?
Yeah, absolutely. Monday, Wednesday and Friday we put new videos out. Sometimes with the band, sometimes we’ll have guests, sometimes we’ll do fun stuff.
Do you have them pre-picked or is it spontaneous by how you’re feeling that day?
We talk about it as a band, as a team, and we figure out what to do based on how everybody is feeling and what’s happening. We have a backlog now. I recorded a bunch of videos and I sent it into the team and we just kind of discuss it.
There are a lot of songs on Naked Garden – new songs, alternate versions. Did you know from the beginning this was how it was going to end up?
Sort of no, actually. We thought we were going to release this originally with everything as a double record but it turned out not to make sense to do that. So we ended up waiting and putting out Turn Off The News (Build A Garden) and this is like part two of those sessions. We had all the music together and we were really happy with how it all came out and were kind of bummed we didn’t get a chance to put it out. But now we’re really stoked that it came out and people seem to really love it.
“Speak The Truth” has this great funkiness that you just don’t want to end. So tell us, who put that groove into your soul?
Oh Al Green, James Brown of course; I love soul music. I’ve always listened to guys like Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers but Al is probably my favorite in terms of combining that groove with soul. But there are many people I listen to that are very soulful. Ray Charles. With funk, James Brown and I guess Parliament/Funkadelic; they’re kind of more who I listen to in terms of funk, I guess.
The song also has a strong message
Yeah, it’s pretty self-explanatory. These days I kind of like to let people sort of interpret songs on their own rather than me talk about their message cause I think that influences the songs for people when they know why I wrote it or where it came from. I’d rather them have their own individual experiences with the songs and not tainted with my own reasons why, you know.
For you, do you think it’s more important to be truthful in a song or creating a fantasy?
I think it depends on why you’re doing it, what you’re writing about. Music is just an expression of how you might be feeling. The whole thing might be a lie but it might be cathartic or something that you need to get out there. Maybe you need to write about why you needed to tell a lie. There’s no reason or rhyme to art. You just have to do it, follow the muse.
“Entirely Different Stars” has like three different sections. How did that song originate?
We did that as one piece of music in three takes. That was the first thing we did when we got in the studio. Our producer, John Alagia, hadn’t even gotten there yet at that time. We recorded it on our own. We just had our engineer, Ben Rice, there, we had the tape machine rolling and we made an arrangement and we did it. It was great. It ends with a song called “Bandera” and it’s from Red Headed Stranger. So in a way, it was a space journey that turned into like a 2001: A Space Odyssey thing because in that movie he goes out so far into space that time sort of like starts going backwards. So you sort of hear that in the song and then the backwards time and then it slips into “Bandera,” which for me is one of the oldest melodies I remember from being at home. So it kind of comes back home at the end, which is similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey when he goes back to like this image of the fetus. Not sure if you’ve seen that Kubrick movie but that was kind of like the trajectory of the journey I had sort of wanted to try with the piece of music where it blasts off sort of into space and then we keep going on this journey through the stars and then all of a sudden you find a home, whether it’s the same home, I’m not sure, but the music is the same.
I noticed last week you were working your way through Homer’s The Odyssey. How did that go?
I’m still working my way through it (laughs). I’m enjoying it. I’ve got a couple of translations of it and I’ve got an audio book accompanying it and doing it with a good friend of mine and it’s just great.
What was it like in the studio working with Neil Young and do you have any more plans to work together?
Oh yeah, if you’ve ever read Kurt Vonnegut’s books, there’s a term he uses called the karass, which is basically a cluster of souls that you meet lifetime after lifetime but is just sort of in your own vibe and I really strongly feel that Neil and my band, Mom and Dad, all these people that we’re surrounded with are part of the same sort of karass. So I know we’ll work together again. We talk pretty regularly for quarantuning and I’m sure when we’re all back on the road we’re going to tour our asses off, you know, alone and with other people.
You played Jazz Fest with Neil a few years ago
Playing with Neil at Jazz Fest was incredible. We played in the rain and there was something he said, I can’t remember, and then a lightning bolt hit like fifty feet away and then we had to stop, I think. But it was like he said some line, and my brother Micah reminded me of it the other day, and I can’t remember what it was but it was very appropriate for right before a lightning strike so it was like, Oh my God! (laughs)
These are crazy times we’re living in right now so what is your philosophy for getting through life right now?
Well, just take it one day at a time and keep busy with being creative. Shakespeare wrote King Lear during a plague and Newton discovered calculus during the plague so there is always great things that can come out of something like this. We’ve got a little reset button that we’ve pushed on the economy and everything and my hope is that we can start afresh with more of an effort to take care of our planet and to take care of each other and recognize our unity as a human culture and not just within our borders. But also take care of the working class and rural communities in this country, which I think have gotten historically forgotten. It’s not necessarily anybody’s fault in other countries; in fact, automation has more to do with that than anything. I just think we have to really figure out how to really take care of ourselves and remember we’re all in this together.
Portrait by Joey Martinez; live photos by Leslie Michele Derrough
Link to previous interview = https://glidemag.wpengine.com/156905/lukas/
