Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Outlaw Attitude
Music more about fun, free spirit than a genre or brand
Micah Nelson counts himself lucky it was his brother Lukas who took up the mantel of country music like their father, the legendary Willie Nelson. In a way, watching his older brother take a similar road as his father cleared him of any pressure to follow that path — which is good, he says, because it likely wouldn’t have made a difference.
“I can really just dive deep into all of my influences and express all of these sides of myself and not feel like I’m expected to do anything else. And honestly, even if I was, I would probably still be doing what I’m doing,” Micah says with a laugh. “But I love that I get to play music with my brother and my dad, and I think we all understand what each other does and respect it. We’re all very different artists, but we’re the same because we’re artists. My brother’s got a little bit of an avant-garde side to him, and I’ve got a little bit of a pop side to me, and we get to channel those things through each other. It’s all good.”
Some of those family influences will likely manifest on the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion stage on Thursday as Micah and Lukas join Willie on the Outlaw Music Festival Tour. What started as a festival last year in Scranton, Pa., is now a touring production of rotating Americana and country acts — and whatever you consider Micah’s sound to be.
“A lot of my songs kind of tend to have an experimental edge to them. You can’t really call it country, but it’s hard to call it just rock ‘n’ roll too,” he says. Lukas’ band, Promise of the Real — some of the musicians played on Micah’s new album “Particle Kid” — will be backing him during the tour, and he couldn’t be more excited to jam with them again. “They’re one of the best bands in the world; they’re like family, so it feels really natural and comfortable. I think we bring things out of each other where there’s definitely more of a kind of ragged, punky element to [our set]. Every show is very different, and I like that about it — even I never really know what’s going to happen.
“There’s definitely room for jamming,” he goes on. “So the songs are suitable for not just telling stories, but also allow for some improvisation and abstract sonic experiments — kind of pushing the envelope a bit and pushing the three-chord structure to some alternate dimensions, but always being rooted on the earth and rooted in song. It’ll be rock ‘n’ roll, for sure. It won’t be polished. But I like that.”
And for Micah, that kind of embodies that essence of “outlaw.” Though the term has come to be a moniker for the style of country music musicians like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash made famous, Micah relates it more to a way of being — a spirit, an attitude, fun, freedom.
“Ultimately, to me it’s about creative expression, and giving negative-one-thousands f***s,” he says. “Being yourself as an artist and having integrity in what you do and believing in that, regardless of what you’re expected to be doing.”
In that sense, beyond the familial connections, Micah fits right in on the Outlaw Music Festival Tour, which offers audiences the song-celebration of a festival without the competing stages and timemanagement issues that can happen with a multi-day event. As is common with festivals, Micah anticipates there will be a fair amount of collaboration between acts as well. Musicians sitting in on each other’s sets combined with the rotating lineup will make every performance completely unique.
“It does make it feel even more like a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Micah offers. “I’m hoping it will feel like a big family by the end of it and will be something that we’ll all get to have forever.”