Tony Lucca is an innately gifted singer/songwriter with a resume any musician would find gratifying. He’s written and self-produced five studio albums, three EPs, several live recordings and a popular DVD. He’s won the L.A. Music Award for Best Male Singer/Songwriter. His music has been featured in film and television (including Friday Night Lights, Brothers & Sisters, Shark, Felicity and Kevin Costner’s “Open Range”). Lucca has been seen on E! Entertainment, A&E Biography and performed numerous times on NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly. He’s performed with notable artists including pop icons *NSYNC, Marc Anthony and Joss Stone, as well as indie favorites Josh Kelley, Jason Mraz and Bob Schneider. He’s galvanized an international following and has sold out premier venues coast-to-coast, including Joe’s Pub in New York and the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles.
Lucca, however, isn’t just any musician. He’s an earnest, diligent artist who consistently strives to grow and create music that he and his listeners can find both meaningful and entertaining.
He’s been in bands since he was 10, recording in the studio since 13, then started touring and performing for fans around the same time he got his first drivers license. It wasn’t until the Michigan-native turned 18 and moved to Los Angeles that he realized his true potential as a legitimate artist. After familiarizing himself with the landscape, Lucca began writing and recording music with some of the most talented artists and players around.
Tony’s work has spanned a wide range of genres and musical styles: from a jazz-infused pop sound (reminiscent of Steely Dan’s Aja period) to a very woodsy, Laurel Canyon style (influenced by Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne), all while maintaining a consistency of texture and tone entirely his own. His lyrics and vocal quality are instantly identifiable, even to those who have heard his music once or twice.
Lucca’s latest offering is a robust collection of rock-n-roll rhythms, soulful vocals and thought-provoking lyrics that keep you listening start to finish. Come Around Again is as fresh and emotive as it is classic and familiar. From the titillating opening track, “Foxy Jane” to the sweeping and inspired “Maybe We,” Lucca shows the depth and breadth of his creative musings. In “Close Enough,” he displays an astute sense of awareness of the goings-on in today’s social and political climates. “Father Time” and “Pretty Things” reflect Lucca’s appreciation for a well-told story of heartbreak in the same vein as Jackson Browne or the Black Crowes. Finally, he closes the record with a simple, haunted rendition of the late Chris Whitley’s “Wild Country,” taking aim at what can only be assumed to be his relationship with the recording industry as he bemoans the “compromises I can’t comprehend.”
Come Around Again is a must-have for any Tony Lucca supporter and quite possibly the best introduction to his brilliant ongoing career.
http://www.myspace.com/tonylucca
Ernie Halter also has an ongoing cover video series on YouTube.com (http://www.youtube.com/erniehalter), popular with his fans who submit requests on an ongoing basis. It was this, as much as Halter’s penchant for performing covers during his live shows, that prompted him to include three covers on the album: “Just Friends” (Musiq Soulchild), “Pretty Girl” (David Ryan Harris – a song that Halter wishes he had written himself and calls it “the most beautiful song ever”), and “Cyclone” (Baby Bash). Halter explains: “‘Cyclone’ is a hip-hop song, you hear it in clubs, and it’s not the kind of song you’d hear an acoustic songwriter singing. I basically flipped it – added some chords and arrangements that weren’t there, rather than just trying to copy it. There’s no skill in that. Incidentally, I noticed it was getting a lot of traffic on YouTube. One night, I was looking on MySpace and Baby Bash had written me a message there just to tell me he dug it. And I found out later that a radio station in Phoenix had picked up the song and had put it in rotation. People were telling me they heard it on the radio. I just decided have some fun with it.”
For an artist four albums, one dvd, a handful of live records into his career, having had songs placed in several prime time TV shows, (including the critically acclaimed ABC series, Brothers and Sisters and NBC’s Friday Night Lights) and having shared the stage with everyone from *NSYNC to Marc Anthony, Joss Stone to Chris Whitley, you would think Tony Lucca might be a household name by now. Instead, Lucca manages to stroll casually under the radar, patient though persistent and seemingly content with his place in today’s ever-evolving music business.
The formation of The Band of Heathens is as natural and organic as the music they create. In early spring 2006, the three principle songwriters, Colin Brooks, Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist, were sharing the bill every Wednesday night at the venerable Austin club Momo’s. Originally, it started as each songwriter performing his own set. But in a short time they started sharing the stage equally and collaborating on each other’s songs, with bassist Seth Whitney as the anchor of the rhythm section. The Wednesday night series was billed as “The Good Time Supper Club.” Largely improvised and unrehearsed, the shows quickly gained in popularity and word spread throughout Austin that if you wanted live music on Wednesday night, Momo’s was the place to be.
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