LOCASH Finds Freedom in Being on Their Own With ‘Bet the Farm’

LOCASH is making its mark on country music in a way neither they nor perhaps the entire genre has experienced before. Preston Brust and Chris Lucas have been releasing music together since 2008, first as LoCash Cowboys before rebranding as LOCASH with their The Fighters album in 2016. But it’s their next chapter, with a new record on their own Galaxy Label Group, which has LOCASH more excited than ever about their music and future as a duo.

“We’re excited about this album,” Lucas tells American Songwriter while he and Brust are pulled over in a van on the way to their next gig. “We’ve been working on it since before we even launched the label. We knew we were gonna do this. We started the contract negotiations with BMG back in May of 2023. So we had to be really patient, and that wasn’t easy for us. We didn’t sign the deal and launch the new label until November 2023. So then we had all of 2024 to get things rocking and moving. We were already writing, we were already recording and holding songs aside for the next album. And we’ve got 11 songs that we’re fired up about.”

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Included on their Bet the Farm album is their hit single, “Hometown Home.” The song, written by Brust and Lucas, along with Zach Abend and Andy Albert, made a quick ascent up the charts. Its success is made even sweeter since LOCASH initially hesitated to even write the song.

“Andy goes, ‘Man, I got this idea called ‘Hometown,’” Lucas recalls. “I was like, ‘Oh no, not another hometown song. There’s so many of them.’ But then he is like, ‘No, no, no. It’s like we could go anywhere she wants to go, but you’re gonna try and push her. Like, ‘Hey, if we stay here, let’s make our hometown home already because we have it here. We could build grassroots here. We have everything that we built right here in this hometown.’”

“Hometown Home” was written at the height of the pandemic, when home took on an even deeper meaning. For a duo that has released plenty of songs over the last decade, they both knew that “Hometown Home” was likely to be a career song for them, an instinct that is already proving correct. 

“I told Preston, and I’m not trying to be cocky or anything like that, but we’ve been around a lot of songwriters,” Lucas says. “We’ve written some good songs. I knew this one was gonna be big. It just felt great. I couldn’t wait to get this out. This was the first one that we wanted to put out on this new label and our record. We turned it into BMG a long time ago, and it just sat there because they wanted us to record it, but we didn’t know what we were doing.”

LOCASH has enough history to rely on themselves more than any outside influences. But even they were pleasantly surprised when BMG Nashville President Jon Loba echoed their excitement.

“I remember as we were leaving BMG, we played it for Loba, and he was like, ‘Where has this song been?’” Lucas remembers with a smile.

Brust laughs, recalling all of the songs LOCASH has previously released, songs that Lucas predicted would be big hits. They weren’t, but in hindsight, it’s clear, at least to Brust and Lucas, that the fault was never their own. But now, with them both helming the proverbial ship, they have confidence in their next chapter, rooted in the foundation they have established for themselves.

“Chris was right. These were hit songs,” Brust concedes. “But when ‘Hometown Home’ came out, we had everything locked and loaded. We always wanted to have our own label. Loba knew that, and he gave us the opportunity to do this, and here we are. Are we surprised in some ways? Hit songs are always a beautiful surprise. In other ways, not surprised at all because we’ve worked our asses off to get to this point. And we know every single step of the path that we’ve lit in the past. And so that’s the path we’re following. We’re not trying anything new. We’re just following exactly what happens with a hit song.

“We have our own team,” he continues, mentioning the names of top-level Nashville executives, people they hand-picked ahead of their next album, like industry veterans Skip Bishop and Butch Waugh. “We have an incredible team. And so, we’re just really proud that we’ve all just stayed true to the plan. “

Their new album has plenty of other hits and potential future singles, like “Things We Love,” a feel-good track reminiscent of “I Love This Life,” plus the nostalgic “When I’m Older,” the party-tinged “Buzzin’” and more. But while they certainly don’t need any star power to add to the record’s likely success, they added it anyway. Kane Brown joins them on “Isn’t She Country,” a take on one of Stevie Wonder’s classic hits.

“We did an interpolation of a Stevie Wonder song, ‘Isn’t She Lovely,’” Brust explains.  “We took that, and we rewrote an interpolation of that song. It’s called ‘Isn’t She Country,’ and it’s a lot of fun.”

LOCASH has been on more than one record label over the years, including Average Joes, Wheelhouse, and Reviver. It was while on Reviver that LOCASH had the most success—success that also became their downfall, through no fault of their own. It’s a lesson they don’t plan on repeating.

“I mean, there have been a lot of ups and downs,” Lucas acknowledges. “I think we were really on a roll there with Reviver. ‘I Know Somebody’ comes out. No. 1 song, and a great song. ‘Ring On Every Finger.’ It’s climbing. It’s Top 15. And that label gets too big for their britches. They wanted to sign more artists and just pull that song and try something else when that song, according to Loba, should have been No. 1. And then me and Preston had to sit and think that this is not right. We can’t just sit and wait for the label to decide what they want to do when we were the flagship artist. I remember sitting down with the head of Reviver, me, and Preston in a hotel room, and we’re telling him, ‘We gotta do this. We’re on a streak right now. We have three in a row. Why would you want to pull this and wait?’”

LOCASH didn’t get their way that time. But the result of that disappointment is what led them to starting their own label, and a brand-new chapter in their promising career.

“We just washed our hands from it and moved on,” Lucas says. “Knowing that Loba was around the corner, BMG wanted us, and we had a song called ‘Feels Like a Party,’ just to get us to break into, so we didn’t leave for a year. We put out ‘Feels Like A Party,’ which went Top 20. We wrote that with Tyler Hubbard and Corey Crowder. That was fun. That got us over to BMG. And then we put out ‘One Big Country Song,’ and that goes No. 1 during a thing called the pandemic.”

Like every other artist, LOCASH was forced to stay home at the height of COVID. Fortunately, the duo emerged stronger through that challenging season and even more convinced of the kind of music they wanted to make and what they wanted for the next chapter of their career, even if they had to do it on their own.

“The world changed. It went to a lot of streaming. We couldn’t be pushing it out there on the road,” Lucas says. “When we came back from COVID, we had a discussion with BMG. They were going more towards this way, and we wanted to go that way. Loba listened to us, and we started our own record label eight months later.”

Being on their own, for some artists, is a nightmare. For LOCASH, it’s a dream come true because it gives them the chance to prioritize their own creativity above anything else.

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“It’s awesome,” Lucas says. “We get to hire the team we want and be the number one focus right now. And, obviously, it’s working because it’s Top 15 already, and it’s fantastic. We have a master team. We got the people that we’ve picked and brought together, and now we’re gonna be signing some other artists.”

Now fully in charge, LOCASH has even bigger plans for their label, ones that go far beyond their own careers. Brust and Lucas are already talking about developing other artists, and expanding what they can do beyond country music.

“We needed ‘Hometown Home’ to climb the charts and do what it’s doing,” Brust says. “That brings a lot of integrity to Galaxy Records. And so now that we’re getting that integrity, now that we’re getting that hit on all formats, now it’s time to really dig into this talent that has been submitting their demos. We’re getting really excited about some of these acts because we know we’re about to sign maybe a handful of acts. And not just country. Christian. too. There are a bunch of things and some TV stuff that we’re working on right now, too.”

If LOCASH’s career has been a roller coaster since they began, it’s one they are proud to have been on, together. Each married, with six children between them, the relationship between Brust and Lucas is much more like brothers than business partners.

“It is cool to have a duo where we can count on, rely on each other,” Lucas reflects. “And we went through it. I mean, everybody went through it. Everybody has a story and some are worse, but we went through it. We had each other. We have great families, we have great wives, we have great kids. Everyone’s healthy. We have great friends who totally believed in us from the beginning and have given us the opportunity. And radio has just been great to us.”

Watch the interview below:

Photo by Josh Beech