Frontman Wesley Schultz of The Lumineers joins Southern Craft Radio for an interview with Joy Williams to talk about the spontaneity behind the new Lumineers album ‘BRIGHTSIDE,’ finding confidence and freedom in the studio, and trying new things. Tune in and listen to the episode in-full this Sunday (January 16) at 12pm PT / 2pm CT / 3pm ET or anytime on-demand at apple.co/_SouthernCraft
Wesley Schultz on the spontaneity behind The Lumineers new album BRIGHTSIDE
A lot of it was just left to chance. We just ended up making really bad, low-level voice memos. In the past, we’d have done ProTool sessions and spill it out. And this was not fleshed out in the least. Part of what’s different about this record, and it wasn’t necessarily like a conscious choice, it was that it seemed a lot more exciting. And for lack of a better word, fun. We don’t usually associate the studio with fun. It’s more like toil. All of a sudden, we were like, “That seems like fun. Let’s try that.” And I think that came from a level of confidence. It’s almost like we decided… We went from being movie actors to improv actors all of a sudden. Like the script wasn’t written. And it was like, “What do you got?” And then I say something, and you say, “Yes, and. You don’t say, “No, but.” And it was like that over and over. And then the record spilled out that way. I think there’s a different energy just naturally when you do it that way than if everything is so plotted and planned out.
Wesley Schultz on their producer, Simon Felice, putting a picture of Oasis in the studio to help them find confidence and freedom
Wesley Schultz: Like when we went into the studio, actually, Simon, our producer, he put a picture of the Liam and Noel Gallagher playing…
Joy Williams: That’s right, from Oasis.
It’s a beautiful picture of them and black and white facing this giant crowd. It’s just two of them. And I think he was trying to do two things to us, Simon. He said to us, “I’m tired of this fake, humble, bull**** about, Aw shucks, like this, that. You guys are the Lumineers, you write the songs and you need to start embracing that. You need to sort of own that. I’m tired of like it being this you’re removing it kind of from yourself. Like you’re part of that and own it.” And the second thing he did was he wrote the word free on the wall. And I think unbeknownst to him, we were weirdly on that path.
Wesley Schultz on “A.M. RADIO” off their new album BRIGHTSIDE and how a walk with chocolate mushrooms helped him finish the song
Wesley Schultz: I had these chocolates with mushrooms in them, and I took some of those, and I just went for a hike. And all of a sudden, it was like, standing on the corner, I could listen to the radio when the savior sang from the fire escape on the second floor. It was like this savior sang from the fire escape on the second floor. That came out while walking around. And so I have all these voice memos of different iterations of that, because I had different ideas, but I had this idea that… Remember that feeling of a song that changes your life, you know? So that’s the savior. I had this idea that there was an open window with a breeze blowing the blinds outward and that it was pushing the music out. And either it was a guy on a fire escape with his stereo, or it was inside blasting so loud that the guy could hear it as he is waiting for his crosswalk. It was just this, burned in my brain. And in the past, I probably wouldn’t have done it that way. And I think I would’ve maybe gone more intellectual. You know what I mean? Because that was the previous line. I can’t even remember, it was bad. I just remember it was really literal. And so those are the types of things that I was going into this. I’ve never tried this, and I always despised musicians who were like, “I’m doing acid in the park,” and I’m like, “I wrote this in the bathroom.” And I’m not encouraging anyone to go out and do a bunch of drugs because it’ll make your album better. But in this case, I took a little bit of mushrooms and good things happened, so you never know.
Joy Williams: Yeah. You never know. It took your editor down. That’s part of it.
Wesley Schultz: Yeah, exactly. I was trying to get rid of that OCD editor and just let things flow.
Wesley Schultz on how The Eagles’ “Desperado” influenced “BIG SHOT” off their new album BRIGHTSIDE
With “BIG SHOT,” though, we kept trying to force a square peg in a round hole. It was super fast. And then, that song “Desperado” popped in my head. And I was like, “Man, I love that song. And that song is so slow.” But it’s epic. But he leans into the slow. “Desperado”… And you’re just like, “Man.” And then I started thinking about all these other songs that I love, like Adele songs. My favorite’s the slowest ones you’ve ever heard. And I was like, “Why are we so afraid of this?” So we slowed it way down, and all of a sudden it’s like the spirit animal came out of it. So, I feel like “BIG SHOT” was this… you appreciate it because it just keeps building and coming at you in that way that’s subtle.
