Lumineers shed light on rapid rise to folk-rock fame
LONDON — It is the weekend of the Grammy Awards in L.A. Five indie stragglers in second-hand jackets and dented trilby hats are escorted into the vast Staples Center by black-clad security guards.
At a glass door, one of their scruffy number collides with Sting. “After you,” says the English superstar politely. “No, after you,” says the indie scruff. “Just go,” instructs Sting, firmly. The party moves on, duly chastened.
This is the Lumineers, and they are up for two awards, Best New Artist and Best Americana Album. Arriving for rehearsal, frontman Wesley Schultz contemplates photographic boards indicating where guests will sit. It is a cardboard cut-out A-list of music and movie stars: Adele, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman. And that is just the front row.
“This is a pretty unlikely thing for us,” muses the 30-year-old Schultz.
“When I was a kid, award shows were super-interesting for me. But when I started making music, it was kind of hard to watch because I believed in what I was doing, and yet knew I didn’t really have a shot. We were playing instruments that weren’t really heard on the radio. We recorded in the bathtub in a small house. Our expectations were pretty low.”
A year ago, the Lumineers were unknown. Vocalist and guitarist Schultz and drummer Jeremiah Fraites, 27, had been writing and performing together around New York since 2005. Band members came and went. In 2009, the duo relocated to Denver because the cost of living was cheaper, and the music scene smaller. They found cellist Neyla Pekarek by advertising on the classified website Craigslist. They had originally aspired to adding a double bass but “we did all our touring in a soccermom minivan, and it is such a gargantuan instrument it just didn’t seem feasible,” explains Fraites.
They played an open mike night every Tuesday, worked on songs and established a live identity as a folky, audience-involving band, stamping stage floors, banging percussion and descending into the crowd for their short, punchy anthem, Ho Hey. They released an EP in 2011, and a YouTube video caught the eye of Christen Greene from New York-based management firm Onto Entertainment.
“I asked what they wanted and they said to give up their day jobs,” says Greene. “I thought we could achieve that.”
She struck a deal with tiny independent label, Dualtone, with an expectation that, with a lot of touring and hard work, they might sell 5,000 albums. They released their self-titled debut in April 2012, adding two members to the lineup. “It’s hard enough to get three people when nobody’s getting paid,” notes Schultz. “So we had to find people we really connected with as friends and fans of the band, who wanted to help.”
Less than a year later, the Lumineers are heading for a million album sales and Ho Hey has become a chart-topping staple of U.S. radio and TV. Their first British tour sold out, and they have added venues and dates, returning to London for two nights at the Brixton Academy this weekend. And, in February, they found themselves in a luxurious hotel suite in L.A., with suits and dresses spread out all over, and a stylist explaining to them why it might be a bad thing to end up on Joan Rivers’ Worst Dressed list.
“I’ve been dressing myself for 26 years, so it’s kind of weird to have someone else do it,” sighs Pekarek, trying on her 50th outfit.
“I have, like, one suit I bought in high school for weddings and funerals,” reveals Schultz. “So having 15 choices is a little bit unnerving.”
Ask what motivates him and Schultz says, “I thought music could take you to a place where you didn’t even feel ownership of it, you just felt lucky you were there. It’s like church without God, or something. It’s about feeling, hope and catharsis and things that are nurturing.” He smiles, a little embarrassed. “That’s pretty lofty, I know. But the Grammys is just not something I can take too seriously. It would be a mistake to hinge my happiness on something so completely out of my control.”