Nelson will open for the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience on Friday, ahead of headliner Brandi Carlile.
Photo by Bo Ngan
History will be made on Friday at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience, featuring Lukas Nelson in what will likely be the 35-year-old musician’s first solo acoustic concert of his career.
Nelson has performed solo shows before, but not before announcing the following on his website on June 5:
“After 15 unforgettable years, Promise of the Real has decided to take a well-earned hiatus to begin a new creative chapter in all of our lives. Lucas plans to continue writing, recording and performing live, while the remaining members will continue to pursue their own projects and artistic ambitions. You can expect to hear much more great work from all of us in the near future.”
Nelson and his brother Mika, 34, are the sons of Willie Nelson and Annie D’Angelo, who married in 1991 (Willie’s fourth marriage). They have five stepbrothers and sisters, one of whom died in 1992.
“I was born in Austin,” Nelson told the Aspen Daily News in an interview, “I grew up in Maui and Austin, I grew up on the streets. So I grew up in America. I grew up on the interstate. I grew up in diners and truck stops and hotel rooms. I grew up on the streets with my dad. My dad is everybody’s dad, so I’m just an American son.”
When asked what his earliest memory of playing music as a child was, Nelson replied, “It’s hard to pinpoint an exact moment, but I remember the moment I knew I was a musician, and that was when I wrote a song called ‘You Were It’ when I was about 11 years old.”
Lukas Nelson and his band, Promise of the Real, are taking a break from each other for a while. Nelson will open the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Aspen Experience on Friday, before headliner Brandi Carlile’s solo acoustic set.
Photo: Shervin Lynes
“It was such a good song that even when I listen to it now I think, ‘That’s just as good as the one I wrote.’ My dad liked it so much that he put it on his album. That’s when I realised I was a songwriter. That’s been my dream ever since I was a kid, and the dream of writing good songs has always been in me.”
Nelson formed Promise of the Real (POTR) in 2008 at the age of 19. He had just moved to Los Angeles from Maui when he met drummer Anthony Loguffo. The two bonded over their love of Neil Young. Nelson soon dropped out of school and, together with Loguffo, recruited bassist Marlin Kelly (soon replaced by Corey McCombrick) and percussionist Tato Melgar.
“The band’s name comes from a lyric in the Neil Young song ‘Walk On’: ‘Some people get drunk and they act weird, but sooner or later it all comes true,'” Nelson said.
POTR recorded their first EP, “Live Beginnings,” in 2008 at Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, California.
In 2010, they recorded their first studio EP, Brando’s Paradise LP. If there was one song that declared POTR to be the second coming of Young’s seminal rock band (and grunge pioneer) Crazy Horse, it was the opening track from The Brando’s Paradise EP, “The Awakening.” The electric guitar-laden rock anthem (Nelson was already a top-tier shredder) could have easily slipped in with “Rust Never Sleeps,” with its Neil-esque lyrics about love, redemption, and nature.
“When I wake, the eagle will call my name for all eternity. When I wake, your tears will be medicine for my pain. My soul will shine like the aurora, the path my life is meant to take. My heart will play a melody that will weave us into the web our hearts have sown. When I wake, I will start all over again.”
Lukas Nelson will open for Brandi Carlile and perform stripped-down versions of his own songs.
Photo: Shervin Lynes
“Country, soul, funk” became the words often used to describe POTR’s music. “The Promise of the Real was kind of a Batphone for Neil,” joked Nelson.
After releasing two more albums and playing hundreds of shows, POTR seemed to fulfill their destiny in 2014 when they joined Neil Young as his backing band.
Over the next five years, Neil Young and POTR played dozens of shows off and on, including a legendary two-night run in Telluride in 2016.
The band also worked with Young in the studio on the 2015 albums The Monsanto Years and 2017’s The Visitor, and appeared on Young’s 2016 live album Earth.
POTR continued to tour and record independently throughout their time with Young. The band has released multiple albums, with their 2017 self-titled album being their breakout album, debuting at number two on the Billboard Country Albums chart.
The album was released shortly after Nelson worked on the remake of A Star Is Born with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.
Cooper used The Promise of the Real as his backing band for the film, and Nelson helped produce the soundtrack, for which he won a Grammy.
After production on A Star Is Born wrapped, Nelson collaborated with Cooper’s co-star in the film, Lady Gaga, on the songs “Find Yourself” and “Carolina,” the latter of which remains the best of Nelson’s career.
Perhaps no song captures the “get it together fast or I’m out of here” vibe better than “Find Yourself.”
“I know the love I deserve,” the song sings. “I hope you find yourself before I find someone to be my lover.” Gaga’s backing vocals give the song crucial depth.
In an interview with Grammy.com, Nelson acknowledged that Gaga is not only “incredible” on “Find Yourself,” but that she has “transformed it into a universal relationship song while still maintaining a feminine balance.”
It’s one thing to say to a lover, “I hope you find yourself before I find someone else,” but when the other person in the relationship says the same thing at the same time, the tension of that dynamic makes this a rare breakup song.
When performing “Find Yourself” live, Nelson often employs a dichotomy of male and female singing, having the men in the audience sing a verse and then have the women do the same.
In fact, when asked what song he never gets tired of singing, Lucas answered without a moment’s hesitation: “‘Find Yourself.’ It’s a fun song to sing because we can all sing along.”
Nelson also cited “Just Outside of Austin,” “Set Me Down on a Crowd,” “Forget About Georgia,” and “Carolina” (another collaboration with Gaga) as personal favorites.
When it was pointed out that these songs were taken from their 2017 album of the same name, he said, “That album is what got people listening to our music. We’d been putting out music for almost 10 years before that but it didn’t make much of an impact commercially. We were known as a great live band.”
“I’m glad that this record has reached a wider audience. It’s got some really great songs.”
Nelson said after 15 years of performing more than 100 shows a year, it was time for him to take a break. “Personally, I need to spend more time with my dad, spend more time at home and just take a little break.”
As for the future with POTR, Nelson said, “We just need to take some time away and breathe so we don’t burn out on the music or each other.”
“I love playing with them and I want to keep playing with them. They’re always the first people I ask when I write songs. But now I also want the freedom to play with other musicians.”
Nelson used an analogy from Young’s catalog to explain where he is at musically.
“I’m not at the ‘Keep on rocking in the free world’ stage of my career, I’m at the ‘Only love can break a heart’ stage,” he said.
“I want to dig back into my roots and really dig into who I am as a songwriter and an artist. Right now I’m focusing on simpler songs. I’m falling back in love with the short story in the form of songwriting. I have 300 songs in my archives, but I’m sifting through them all and writing new songs every day. I’ve written three in the last few days, so my creativity is exploding.”
Lukas Nelson will bring his stripped-down acoustic sound to a solo set to open the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Aspen Experience on Friday. Nelson recently parted ways amicably with his backing band, Promise of the Real.
Photo by Bo Ngan
Nelson said he’s watched Tyler Childers, 33, and Zach Bryan, 28, skyrocket to fame and draw huge audiences that led to stadium tours. Nelson wants to build a similar large fanbase, and the way to do that is by writing songs “that people remember the lyrics to and that impact their lives.”
When asked what he wants people to take away from seeing his live shows, Nelson replied, “I want to make music that makes people feel good, that makes them feel like they’re seeing something special. I want them to tell their friends, their brothers, their sisters, their mothers, their fathers, their kids about it and want to see it again. Because I want to be working when I’m 90 years old. I hope to be able to make a living playing music for the rest of my life.”
“For a long time, fans of Neil and my dad looked at me as, ‘He’s a second coming of this, or a second coming of that.’ But I don’t want to be a second coming of anything. I want to be the first second coming of myself.”