At the 2013 American Association of Independent Music Libera Awards, The Lumineers, then a new group in a category that included such better-knowns as Bob Mould and Taylor Swift, took home the award for “Hardest Working Artist of the Year.” Six years and two platinum albums later, they’re working as hard as ever. Today The Lumineers are one of the world’s top concert draws, and may see a million-selling threepeat with the September release of their groundbreaking new album, III.
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III isn’t thusly titled just because it’s the band’s third album. It’s so named because nine of its songs are split into three chapters that focus on members of three generations of a fictional family adversely affected by substance abuse: mother and grandmother Gloria Sparks, her son Jimmy, and her grandson Junior. Three videos were created for each chapter of the family tree, with the first video introducing Gloria and the alcohol addiction that holds sway over her.
The new album, and Gloria’s character, were inspired by a family member of Lumineers frontman Wes Schultz who was caught in the insidious spiral of alcoholism. But during the writing and recording of III, Lumineers co-writer and multi-instrumentalist Jeremiah Fraites was reminded of a painful loss in his own family, one that inadvertently created a bond between the two Lumineers founders that has lasted for nearly two decades.
“When we were writing this album in Denver,” Fraites says, “I remember working on the song ‘Donna,’ which, if I remember correctly, was the third song we had written that dealt with the topic of alcohol addiction, where she couldn’t sober up enough to hold the baby. I remember thinking that it was something that we almost laughed at, that we were writing so much about this topic, writing so much about this experience. And it was so heavy on me. It was really therapeutic for me, it was making me feel like I was having a cathartic experience. Now that I think back it all makes sense.”
“When I was 13 or 14,” Fraites continues, “my older brother Joshua died of a heroin overdose. He was 19. Wes grew up with Josh, and I actually grew up with Wes’s younger brother Sam, so we knew each other. Me and Wes kind of met each other years later to start this band in a roundabout way. I had dealt with so much, with my brother’s death and all the stages of grief, anger and sadness and pain, getting to the point of acceptance. It was definitely the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and I pray it to be the worst thing that everhappens to me. So I think all these lyrics about addiction and how it destroys lives was just very heavy for me. Now that time has passed and we’re going to release the material, I think I’d be lying if I didn’t believe maybe some people are going to feel this album is too heavy, but I think it’s a very raw, very honest album. Me and Wes have seen a lot of what can happen to a family, what can destroy a family.”
Schultz, who writes nearly all the band’s lyrics, says that the subject of alcoholism was something that just inexplicably became a common thread as he wrote for the album. “For me, the issues of these characters and the recurring theme of someone in this family battling an addiction somehow kept coming up,” he says, “and at one point I sat down and very emotionally said I was sorry this keeps coming up in song after song. I think for Jer this may have brought up his feelings about his own brother and his family. So I think initially it may have been like, ‘Can we move on to something else?’ But now that we look back I think both of us are happy that we stayed the course with whatever was on my mind while I was writing that. I have to give Jer credit that he started sharing the loss of his brother with people, basically with the world, and I think that also helps a lot of people relate who may feel pretty alone. He’s been really open about it and I’m just thankful he is. I’m really proud of him.”
Many artists and labels today are focused on releasing singles as opposed to full-length albums or even EPs. Schultz says that the concept of III is somewhere in between. “We really loved bands that released whole albums and you never had to skip a song,” he says. “But it made sense to me that, whether it’s songwriting or in this case trying to put together an album, breaking it up into chapters or EPs, or however you want to describe it, is something I actually enjoy as an artist. I like those smaller doses starting things out.”
“I’m also sympathetic to the idea that a short attention span is something real,” Schultz says. “And maybe if you wanna get someone to listen to the whole thing it’s kind of like something that has to be done slowly, almost microdosing, giving them a little bit, then giving them more and more. Maybe I’m expecting an attitude toward music that isn’t that common anymore. I think people are capable of listening to an entire album, but the attitude toward it today [seems different]. We joke that you can get someone to watch three or four Game Of Thrones episodes in a row, but you can’t get someone to listen to a 35-minute album. It’s a funny phenomenon. But I think that people will respond well to this [chapters] idea, I actually think that they’ve already started to.”
The band worked with producer Simone Felice on III, as they did on their previous album, Cleopatra, at Felice’s studio in the Catskill Mountains in southeastern New York. In addition to the nine chaptered songs, the recording contains an instrumental and three bonus tracks that aren’t part of the Sparks family narrative. The album sees violinist/vocalist Lauren Jacobson becoming an official member of the band after the departure of cellist/vocalist Neyla Pekarek. “Lauren has been great,” Fraites says. “We’ve known her for years and she played violin on album one and album two, and now on album three, and we were just happy that she was free and available because she is such a phenomenal musician.” Jacobson joins the band’s touring lineup that includes multi-instrumentalist Brandon Miller, pianist Stelth Ulvang and bassist Byron Isaacs.
When Schultz and Fraites first got together they played cover gigs around New York City under such monikers as Free Beer and Wesley Jeremiah, performing music of different genres without a real definite direction. Songs by Bob Dylan were part of the mix. “We did that for a few years, and I think it’s something that musicians should do, learn and play other people’s stuff,” Schultz says. “When you cover Bob Dylan’s songs, other people’s songs, the more and more less likely you are to want to hear your own stuff. It was really helpful to learn those songs, maybe by osmosis to try to understand why they work. ‘Boots Of Spanish Leather,’ ‘Don’t Think Twice (It’s All Right)’ – I think [Dylan’s] melodies are brilliant, and creative. I think his voice is beautiful. I also like how Kurt Cobain had this way of singing that was so beautiful, and how hurt and grimy it sounded that you forgot how beautiful those melodies were. I saw a guy who sang like Elvis and covered Nirvana this year at Glastonbury, and you realize that these songs are just universally well-written.”
The Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England was only one of the spots The Lumineers hit in 2019, playing material from their first two albums while giving audiences a preview of the new material from III. With the IIIinsignia on Fraites’ bass drum head, the band performed this year at KROQ radio’s 2019 Weenie Roast in California, the Hangout Fest on the Alabama coast, and several other international events besides Glastonbury. Fraites says that there was one show this year, though, that may stand out above the others.
“Bonnaroo this year was unbelievable,” Fraites recalls, “one of my favorite shows we’ve ever played I think. We were told we played in front of 72,000 people. It wasn’t too hot, it was just a sea of people. The last time we played Bonnaroo (in 2013) it was like one or two in the afternoon on a smaller stage, but this was something else. It was really cool to be able to play [the What Stage], just an incredible experience. It’s been a busy year with all those dates but it’s been very fun. It’s given us the opportunity to play some new songs in front of new crowds, so it’s been pretty exciting.” The band jammed at Bonnaroo with singer-songwriter Rayland Baxter on a cover of the Talking Heads’ “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody).”
The Lumineers are in the enviable position of being signed to Nashville’s Dualtone Records, an independent label that allows them the artistic freedom to create something different, like an album with separate chapters and accompanying videos. “I first met Wes and Jer at (Atlanta entertainment venue) Eddie’s Attic in 2011 before we signed them,” Dualtone president Paul Roper recalls. “There were probably 50-75 people in the room but the band brought it. Got in the crowd, in their face, and while it was early the songs were the songs and you could see the potential. They were in a van grinding it out across the country. That work ethic is still present today, they just have more freedom in how they tour and what promotion makes sense, given they are one of the biggest bands in the world now.”
“The concept of releasing the new album in chapters is all Wes and Jer,” Roper continues. “When an album is released today few people pay attention to the whole body of work, and this was their way to almost ‘trick’ fans into listening to the whole record while also trying to focus people on the thematic narrative of the Sparks family. The accompanying videos really draw fans into the story. No one in this genre is making videos on this scale around a concept. Even outside of the genre, the only one coming to mind is Beyonce. The album lyrically and musically is darker and more adult and complex thematically. They have never made, and we have never wanted them to make, ‘Ho Hey Part II.’ They are a career band now, making records that matter much the way their heroes did … Petty, Springsteen, Dylan, Talking Heads, The Band. So many acts these days have a big album and then disappear. The Lumineers are here to stay.”
Of those heroes, Tom Petty was someone The Lumineers had the chance to spend some time with, opening dates for Petty and the Heartbreakers not long before he died in 2017. “I wouldn’t say I got to know him well,” Schultz says, “but I got to talk with him, and that was enough for me, him being a hero.”
It’s hard, however, for Schultz to accept the fact thathemight be someone’s hero. “I was at a venue at another person’s show not too long ago when [someone from the audience] says, ‘Hey Wes,’ and I turned around and he says, ‘You’ve really inspired me a lot,’ and it seemed very premature, like, maybe in 20 years it’ll make some sense and I’ll feel okay about that. I didn’t quite know what to say so I just said, ‘Thank you so much.’ You’ve gotta remember that six or seven years ago we were bussing tables. We really feel lucky, and because we feel lucky that anything broke our way we want to work to meet that luck halfway. We’ve just tried to set a good example by writing songs that we can stand behind.”
