Photos courtesy of Danny Clinch
The Lumineers will be coming to Columbus on Feb. 4 at the Schottenstein Center for III: The World Tour.
HO!
......
HEY!
If you haven't heard those lyrics pulse through your radio, a bar stereo, the grocery, a retail store or in your brain repeating over and over just when you're trying to fall asleep, you're lying to us all.
The Lumineers have been around since 2005 and originally consisted of founding members Wesley Shultz and Jeremiah Fraites. The two met Neyla Pekarek in 2010, who was a member until 2018.
Fraites and Shultz first began playing together around New York City under a few different names. Their current household name didn't stick until a club emcee mistakenly introduced Fraites and Shultz as The Lumineers when a band called Lumineers never showed up for the gig.
The two moved to Denver, Colorado and Fraites immediately was attracted to the music community there.
"Everyone was welcoming and warm and, to this day, really tries to help each other out," he says. "It was a totally different mentality to NYC, which felt like a dog-eat-dog world."
In the early 2000s, and possibly today, much of the world assumed musicians could only achieve success in places like L.A. or NYC. The Lumineers rising from the roots of Denver proved otherwise.
"You need to be in a place, in my mind, that eliminates distractions," Fraites says. "The biggest distraction in life is money. So, if you move to a big, expensive city, then you probably need work two or three jobs to make rent. How much time are you going to have to work on music?"
To him, a little bit of a struggle can make a musician great.
"Ugh, I hate this band."
Arguably The Lumineer's most viral hit is Ho Hey -- the band's first single released in 2011. But there was a lot of nail-biting and sleepless nights when the song was played five months before release on a T.V. show called Nashville.
"Me and all my friends in Denver watched it and freaked out - it was really cool to see that," Fraites remembers. "Someone texted me and said people were on Yahoo Answers asking what the song was called and who the band was. I literally had to respond online and say 'That's a song called Ho Hey and it's by a band called The Lumineers!... and I'm in The Lumineers."
Photo courtesy of CBS
The problem was, the album wasn't coming out for another five months. There was no digital tracing of Ho Hey online, so the band worried their chance might have come and gone. However, the album was released and the song skyrocketed to the top of the charts. Determined not to be a one-hit-wonder, the band worked hard to come out from underneath the song's shadow.
"Today, when there's a single, everyone murders it into the ground so much that people are like 'Ugh, I hate this band.'," Fraites laughs. "When that song started to be repeated over and over literally everywhere, I went 'Aw man, that's how people probably feel about Ho Hey."
That's not all, folk (music)
When you think of The Lumineers, you might attach "Indie" or "Folk" to the name, but Fraites doesn't exactly agree.
"I sort of hate genres. I get why they're around and why they work, but for us, we've seen success that might not be considered an indie band success," Fraites says. "It hurts my brain when I try to box ourselves in. When we sit down, we don't think 'We gotta hold true to this indie-folk!'"
The band certainly stepped out of the box when asked to contribute to Game of Thrones compilation album. Nightshade was something entirely different for them.
"I was a massive fan of the show, which has a very strong identity," Fraites says. "To try to write a song that has those limitations is very interesting. It's almost like a very fun homework assignment -- the lyrics have to be about the show."
He particularly liked the icy piano on the track, as it made him think of John Snow on the Wall. It's a very deep, woeful and dark song -- or shall we say -- stark?
Nobody likes you when you're 34
Sometimes musicians clutter headlines with drama, gossip and controversy, so it's pleasant to find that such a long withstanding band like The Lumineers has never delved into that realm of entertainment.
"I think we just don't appeal to that audience anymore. I just turned 34, and I don't think we have outlandish lives offstage," Fraites says good-naturedly. "The only time we've had an intense paparazzi experience was when we played for the Grammys. And even then we were like 'This is so cool - why are they taking photos of us?'"
He pauses and then suggests that if the band resided in someplace like L.A., maybe things would be different.
"Maybe if we all lived in L.A., we'd get some random TMZ run-ins at the airport," he says laughing. "I don't think they'd be interested in us walking around eating a chicken sandwich. We're just not appealing enough, which is fine for me."
Rapid Fire Questions
Concert pet peeve?
"Taking out cell phones."
Go-to pre-show meal?
"Chicken Ceasar salad."
It's karaoke night and you're up next. What song do you sing?
"Oh god... I've never done karaoke. Maybe I'd pull out an instrumental song."
Exact thoughts running through your mind when you met President Obama?
"Holy shit I can't believe we're meeting President Obama."
Do you remember the smallest concert you ever played?
"In the Biggest Little City Club in Reno, Nevada, and there were four people on stage. ... and there were more people on stage than in the crowd."
Favorite song off III?
"Salt and Sea."
Mallory Arnold is an editor. Feedback welcome at marnold@cityscenemediagroup.com.
