Creative Catalyst

Photo by Jess Foley
Article Originally published in SPF V5 I1 Jan/Feb 2017

Neon, indie, alternative, pop – however you want to describe it, the music by singer/songwriter Lukr is just plain brilliant. Through various collaborations and stylistic explorations, the Nashville-based artist hopes to shatter the stereotypes and blur the lines that used to define what made a great pop song.

Lukr takes us through his transition from band member to solo artist, the value of working with others and the emotional rollercoaster that is being a musician.

JA: How did you get started in music?
LF: I started playing music around the 9th grade. I played the piano when I was in middle school and then I started to learn guitar. When I was 17 I started a band called Farewell Flight. We did a lot of DIY touring and hustled around the country in a van trying to make it.  We did that for a few years, then I moved to Nashville. I moved here with my band because we did the band thing for a while but it never really translated to the next level for us.  I was getting to work with a lot of cool artists here and after a while I wanted the opportunity to do my own thing, like ‘what would I do if it was just my voice.’  When you have a band you’re restricted to a particular sound. When you’re a solo artist you can do whatever you want. It has been really liberating to experience that.

JA: This is your first time as a solo artist – what has that transition been like?
LF: Change is always scary. It’s feeling every spectrum of the human emotion. It’s a lot of heartache because when you’re in a band you have this comrade together and you miss that in a way.

Transitioning from the band to doing a solo thing was a natural progression. We were all kind of working on different pursuits, like two of the guys were playing with a country artist, writing songs. We were all doing different stuff and we realized it made sense to focus on that instead of letting the band be our main focus just because that was what we started off doing.

JA: How has Nashville influenced your music?
LF: Nashville transformed me as a person and as an artist and songwriter. I was so protective before I moved here. I never wrote with other people. I pretty much only wrote by myself. I thought that was more pure somehow. I wanted to be some sort of creative genius like I was going to go off to a cabin somewhere and write all by myself or something. I was afraid to let go. I think my songs were okay but I think the work suffered overall because of it.

When I moved to Nashville I started co-writing with other people and collaborating. Art is so much more amazing when you start to work with other people. The whole purpose of art is communication. With being an artist there are two sides of that equation – there’s the

person that makes it and also the people that consume the art; the person that receives it.  It’s all about that connection between the artist and the audience.

JA: It’s always nice to be able to feed off of other people’s creativity too.
LF: Yeah, working with other people has really been a huge thing. I just learn so much by working with others.

When I was in Farewell Flight I would only focus on writing one style of music in whatever genre I thought my band was but when I started writing with other people I was trying to help someone else accomplish their goals or help them find a particular sound that I would not naturally do. You get a lot of chances to be wrong then and that’s an amazing gift.

When I started co-writing I still thought about writing as this mystical thing that would come, like you had a finite amount of ideas and then you run out, but writing with other people and what you can create with them, its exponential. It inspires creativity.

You get to work with other people who may have this sort of hip-hop flow or something that I would have been afraid to use before because it was too radio, too urban, too pop or whatever. Now it’s like, who gives a shit! Is it cool? Just make a cool song that people connect to.

It doesn’t matter what styles you mash           together. ‘It is real? Does it feel authentic?’ People want authenticity.

JA: Your first singles have already blown up on the Internet. How does it feel to see that kind of response so early on?
LF: It’s crazy. Again, it’s like every emotion that you can imagine. It’s really exciting but in some ways it’s kind of scary. You get so used to working towards something and then all of a sudden your art is exposed to a huge amount of people. I mean it’s a big amount to me, but in the world of the Internet it’s a drop in the bucket compared to Drake or somebody like that; but just the fact that you’re in Canada and I’m talking to you about some songs that I wrote and released. It’s an amazing feeling but it’s also really scary. It feels very exposing. It feels like it’s happening really quickly. Sometimes that can be a little bit stressful. It’s weird how you can want something for so long and then it all of sudden starts to move so fast, and you’re like, “Uh, I don’t know if I’m ready!”

It’s weird because there’s no road map. We live in a really cool time where there’s no set way to do anything. I feel like the lines of art are blurring in how you release stuff. You can be creative and do whatever you want to do. I’m just trying to explore. I feel like someone has given me permission to do whatever I want to do and that’s what these first two songs were for me. These are songs that I feel represent me and are personal to me.

JA: What do you have planned for the new year?
LF: I’m going to be releasing a lot of new music and  playing around Nashville. I also plan on playing SXSW. A bit after the summer I might be doing some touring but I mainly want to focus on releasing more music. I’m going to be doing a series of mixtapes. I just want to release a lot of music and not be worried, you know, you start to think “Is this the final version of the song? Is this the album?”

JA: Can you take me through what inspired your musical style?
LF: I pull influences from all over the place. I like songs, ideas and feelings that grab me. I know at one point I felt obsessed with “Time” by Hans Zimmer from the Inception soundtrack. He did the Batman, Dark Knight and The Gladiator movies. I love cinematic ideas and big emotional feelings in a song, so that would be what I would say influence me.

My favourite artist would probably be Kanye West. I think our generation is lucky to have somebody who is that much of a genuine creative artist. He does some crazy stuff. I know he is a guy who people either really love or really hate but I think he’s saying so many important things, and creatively he is such an amazing producer.

One of the very first albums I liked was August and Everything After by the 90s band Counting Crows. That’s just this amazing album but I also love Chance the Rapper. He’s probably my favourite hip-hop artist right now. I think he’s incredible.

It’s such an exciting time for ‘pop music’ because I feel like anything goes for pop-radio. For a while you heard a lot of the same stuff. When I was first coming up and playing music it was almost cool to not like the radio. Radio sucked and it was cool to like alt-rock bands like Taking Back Sunday. Now, with the radio it doesn’t matter. It’s just like, ‘is the song good? Does it make you feel something?’ It doesn’t matter what styles you mash together. ‘It is real? Does it feel authentic?’ People want authenticity. It’s a really fun and exciting time to be making art.

Stay up-to-date on tours, video and  song releases at IAmLukr.com. Like Lukr at Facebook.com/IAMLUKR.

Keep an eye on his upcoming mixtapes and single releases at Spotify.com.