Off the Record feature our podcast in conversation with LANCO, after their epic London show.
Congratulations, it’s been a bit of an epic few weeks for you guys with the ACM win! Has it sunk in yet?
BL: Thank you. Yeah, it’s surreal for sure.
ES: I think I’m going to have another round of surreal-ness when we get that trophy.
You haven’t got your trophies yet?
CB: No they send them to you in the mail.
BL: You take pictures and then they take them away from you, because they know that we’ll go to all the afterparties and be holding it…
And suddenly your ACM gets wrecked or lost…
TH: Ours may be at home, we haven’t been home in like a month.
CB: Yeah sitting on our front step.
I saw you guys last at C2C last year. That was such an amazing show, but now coming back and headlining it must just be the biggest transformation in your journey. Was the UK ever something you factored into that journey and process?
BL: Yeah it’s funny, I remember coming over last year and we’d never come over here – none of us had ever been here. I remember before we’d played any shows, we started off playing in the States years ago, we knew 5 people might show up, 10 people might show up, but we were going to play like it was 10,000. We got a little spoiled over there, we’d been playing a lot of good shows and playing to lots of people. We’d just got over playing a big tour, playing to arenas and playing to 10,000 people. Then coming over here, we were thinking it’ll probably be 10 people showing up again, but let’s play like 10,000 people, but actually a ton of people showed up at C2C.
It was packed every show and that was really surreal. That set the tone, we thought we have fans here that are singing all the songs, we’ve got to get back.
Is that a weird thing, because obviously you’re going from headlining huge states and it’s mad… Then you come over here and it’s almost like going back to square one?
ES: I’d say we were pleasantly surprised though because you know you play for a lot of people there, but you go into any place and you’re not expecting a huge crowd. Also, I don’t think you know what you’re expecting or how the crowd will be and whether there’s a cultural difference…
We’ll pronounce all the words back to you slightly differently when we’re singing them back. Y’all doesn’t sound quite as good in English…
ES: (laughs) Well it was awesome. I think what we found is we have a really loyal, engaged audience that’s also excited. I mean we’d never been here before but they knew all the deep album cuts, so I think it was odd in a good way.
It’s nice when people know all the songs not just the singles, the whole body of work.
CB: I feel like I’m just now getting used to the idea back in the States of being a headliner, and now I’m coming over here and we’re headliners. We played to a full venue last night, and I just think ‘what are we doing?’ What? What’s happening?
In those really high energy moments it must be surreal. Last night, one of those was your cover of ‘Mr Brightside.’ Your influences are clearly so broad..
BL: Yeah definitely, we all grew up in the 2000s listening to every kind of music. When we started making music, we didn’t really sit around and have this moment of ‘we’re going to be a country band.’ You just make music that’s reflective of you. I remember early on and writing music, I was in a rock band and it was with a bunch of rock people and they say ‘all your lyrics are just too country.’ But that was all I knew. I grew up in a small town in Tennessee. When I sang about my experiences, it just reflected that culture, so I was comfortable writing about that. If I’m writing, it just happens to be a story of a small town boy in Tennessee.
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Who’s most likely…?
To forget the words/their part on stage?
Jared.
To turn up late to rehearsal?
Brandon.
To drunk-tweet and be asked to take it down?
Chandler.
To win the lottery?
Brandon.
To embarrass themselves on the red carpet?
Tripp.
To survive the zombie apocalypse?
Eric.
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So the new single is ‘Rival,’ which is all about being brought down by people and the underdog rising. Were there any times in the past that you had thought about giving up and giving into the ‘Rival’?
ES: I guess most of us left where we grew up to move to the Nashville area to pursue music. A lot of us went to school there, to get a degree whilst figuring out music to meet people. There were at least two major times during that process when I thought in my head ‘this is a waste, this is never going to work, you’re crazy.’
In the country way of life we grew up in especially, in the States you need to get a job, you need to do something assuring that you can make a living doing, you need to raise a family and be safe and not throw away your entire twenties chasing your dream. You’re kind of battling that.
CB: I definitely had a bunch of moments when we were on the road. I loved it, but there were moments when we were in a van and we’d just played to like 6 people and I thought what are we doing here? But that’s the cool thing about being in a band, when one person is feeling that way, you’ve got 4 other guys to keep the energy and spirits up. You’re not doing it by yourself.
You said last night you’re all friends first, this wasn’t a manufactured band. I can imagine that’s really important for those moments of self-belief?
CB: Well you can celebrate the big moments together because you went through all those not so great moments.
BL: It’s funny when you think about it, if it was manufactured, you might not have as much doubt. I think sometimes it’s harder when it’s just five friends. You look around and you all have the same look in your eye, ‘man I don’t know…’ A song like ‘Rival,’ I know for me personally, I don’t think you could be in a band or make music, without having an aspect of being extremely stubborn. We had so many no’s, we had record deals offered to us and then backed out of, people that said they’d manage us and then backed down. There’s that moment of, ‘if we back down now they win’.
It’s funny where ‘Rival’ comes from, because music can be your friend a lot of times. We had each other, to think we’re not quitting, so to put a song out in the universe that reminds people you’re going to face the nos, but to keep going.
You’re going into the second project now, and to have ‘Hallelujah Nights’ do so well, was it hard to figure out what to lead out with next?
BL: Yeah, because we have a bunch of stuff we’re really proud of. Our show is really high energy and we have this anthemic thing going on, we definitely wanted a song that portrayed that and we wanted a song going into radio and going up the masses to kind of display that. We wanted to come out swinging. I think you also start paying attention – it’s weird when you first start getting used to the idea of having fans – to your fans and caring about what songs they need and want. You start getting people messaging you and listening to your stories.
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Do you have a pre-show ritual?
We’ll get together a few minutes before going on stage, we’ll huddle up and say a little prayer. We all put our hands in the middle and do a cheer. Then Mark will take us to the stage, we’ll follow the little flashlight.
Do you have a tour-bus jam?
I feel like it changes, probably whatever’s on Tripp’s phone at the moment.
Music is… L-Y-F-E
Country music is… The Truth
LANCO are… the best band in the world (laughs).
