Lukas Nelson has been forging his path in music for over a decade. He originally made waves with his band Promise of the Real. More recently, though, he stepped away from that band and started his solo career. While his debut solo album is closer to classic country than anything he has ever done before, he isn’t trying to follow in his dad, Willie Nelson’s, footsteps. Instead, he’s doing his best to be his authentic self in all aspects of his life.
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Earlier this year, Nelson appeared on the God’s Country podcast to talk about his solo album, American Romance. During the discussion, he also talked about his life and growing up around legends like his dad and Kris Kristofferson. More importantly, he shared some hard-won wisdom with the show’s hosts.
Lukas Nelson on the Most Important Lesson He’s Learned
At 36 years old, Lukas Nelson is still young. However, he has lived enough life to learn some important lessons and gain some wisdom he’ll carry with him for the rest of his days.
“I think the greatest lesson I ever learned, recently, is you don’t have to become your heroes,” Nelson said. “You don’t have to live like them in order to be a hero. I look up to my dad. He inspired me to become a musician. I started playing music so I could be closer to him. Then, I think, subconsciously, I grew my hair long, I had a beard, and it wasn’t like I was trying to be him. But I was, in a way,” he explained. “I wanted to be like him because I look up to him. Everybody wants to be like their dad, if they look up to their dad, or their mom, if they look up to their mom,” he added.
However, he wasn’t just trying to be like Willie Nelson. He was also following the lead of his other musical heroes. “Even with like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan and all these musicians that really touched me and inspired me growing up, I started living like them. I was smoking weed, I was doing those things,” he said. “You don’t have to live all of the mistakes at the same time that you take the inspiration,” he explained.
Nelson on Authenticity
Lukas Nelson isn’t the only one who thought he needed to live like his heroes. ”A lot of people that I see out there, I think they feel like, ‘In order to do this music thing, I gotta act like the icons that came before me, otherwise it’s not real.’ What’s more authentic to me is like, ‘Do I have to be f**ked up to be a musician?’ No,” he added.
“Most of the songs I ever wrote were in moments of clarity and epiphany,” he revealed. “They were in moments where I got through what I was going through, and I was clear enough to put it into thought.”
Featured Image by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM
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