Latest news with #AmericanRomance
Forbes
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Lukas Nelson's New Album Is ‘A Love Letter To The Country That Raised Me'
Lukas Nelson performs onstage for day one of the 2024 Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival at The ... More Park at Harlinsdale Farm on September 28, 2024 in Franklin, Tennessee. Lukas Nelson took his first steps on a tour bus. He grew up on highways shadowed by towering grain silos and roads that twisted through ragged hills. He's not sure there's an interstate in the U.S. that he hasn't seen. Sometimes people ask where he grew up. He's not sure how to answer. 'I grew up traveling on the roads since I was a baby,' said Nelson, a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and the 36-year-old son of Willie Nelson. 'I feel like America really raised me." Nelson decided to write about his experience of being raised on the road for American Romance, a 12-song solo album that debuted last month via Sony Music Nashville. A departure from his longtime band Promise of the Real, American Romance comes billed as the solo debut for Nelson, a tenured musician who's worked with Neil Young, Lady Gaga and Lainey Wilson, among others. For the album, Nelson wanted to write 'a John Steinbeck-equse narrtive of my upbringing and travels,' he said. Listeners hear the result on a collection of rich, detailed songs that chronicle restless life lessons and open-hearted adventures. 'The diners and truck stops, Thanksgiving dinners away from home … I wanted it to feel like each song is a chapter in a great American novel. A love letter to the country that raised me," Nelson said. For American Romance, Nelson recorded at Sunset Sound Recording Studio in Hollywood alongside another second-generation song-maker – Shooter Jennings, a sought-after producer who was behind the board for standout releases from Brandi Carlile, Charley Crockett and others. Working with Jennings? It's comfortable, Nelson said. 'He brought out what I feel like what the best sonic quality you can get,' Nelson said. He continued, 'The ideas he had, in terms of how to present the music, and to bring out the best in me, performance-wise … I felt really grateful for his influence.' The album blends shades of undeniable country influence (on the fiddle-drenched number 'Outsmarted') with ambitious heartland rock ("Runnin' Out of Time") and time-tested folk storytelling (none more evident than the title track, 'American Romance'). He enlists guest features from troubadour Stephen Wilson Jr. – on the sobering cut 'Disappearing Light' – and Sierra Ferrell, who harmonizes on 'Friend In The End,' an endearing number where the two sing 'I guess I just found me a friend/ I think I can call you my friend in the end.' American Romance begins with a declaration from Nelson. In the chorus of the robust opening number 'Ain't Done,' he sings 'God ain't done with you" – five words that remind listeners of the highs and lows that come with living another day. Nelson co-wrote 'Ain't Done' with sought-after Nashville songwriter Aaron Raitiere. 'We fleshed that [song] out in an hour or less. It really wrote itself," Nelson said. He added, 'Sometimes, the good ones come quick and easy and you don't really overthink it too much.' And the album ends with 'You Were It,' a tender-to-the-touch country tune that Nelson said he wrote as an 11-year-old learning his way around a song. 'That song, when I wrote it, my dad heard it and Kris Kristofferson heard it,' Nelson. 'My dad loved it so much he recorded it. He put it on his album It Always Will Be. That really got me the confidence I needed to be a songwriter. That and Kris said, 'Are you going to be a songwriter?' I said, 'I don't know.' He said, 'well, you don't have a choice after that song.''
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lukas Nelson Reveals if Dad Willie Nelson Was 'Heartbroken' When He Stopped Smoking Weed
Lukas Nelson, the son of country legend Willie Nelson, revealed he stopped smoking weed during the pandemic He also shared how his father, known for his affinity for weed, reacted understandably Lukas released his debut solo album, American Romance, on Friday, June 20Willie Nelson had an understandable reaction to his son Lukas Nelson quitting weed. During a Tuesday, June 24, appearance on SiriusXM'sThe Howard Stern Show, the "Just Breathe" singer spoke about his father's reaction when Lukas, 36, told him he stopped smoking weed. Stern, 71, asked if Willie, 92, was "heartbroken." "No one loves weed more than your dad," the radio personality quipped. "I did feel at a certain point that it was something, not just with my father, but with my old band, that it separated me from that a little bit," Lukas, whose debut solo album American Romance is out now, said, noting that he stopped smoking weed "around the pandemic." "But at a certain point, my father, of anyone, respects someone for being who they are and their individuality," Lukas continued, claiming "the biggest lie" he once believed was that he was supposed to "make the mistakes that your heroes make." "That you have to live like your heroes or icons," he said, naming Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, both of whom struggled with substance use problems during their lifetimes. This revelation comes weeks after Willie revealed that he "can't smoke weed" anymore in an interview with Forbes published June 7. However, this doesn't stop the country legend from experiencing the high. "My lungs have already said, 'Don't do that,'" he said. "So, I don't really do anything now much except a few edibles." Years earlier, in 2019, the "On The Road Again" singer said he stopped smoking cigarettes. At the time, his publicist clarified Willie did "still taste the flower." "Willie doesn't smoke any more or any less [weed]," they added. Elsewhere during his appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Lukas spoke about wanting to make Willie proud by becoming more independent. "I really wanted to make my dad proud by being completely self-sufficient, you know? I wanted to make him proud by not needing him," Lukas said. is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more! "[So], I put 70,000 miles on a '91 Econoline Ford with my first band [Promise of the Real], and we went out for 15 years and played 250 shows a year straight and built something with ourselves that now I can say I feel like I've earned — and I think that makes my dad and my mom the most proud." The "All God Did" singer also spoke about how the nonagenarian inspired him to become involved in music. "My dad would leave all the time, and I'd be naturally upset as a little kid, and I knew that if I learned how to be a great musician, we would be bonded forever," Lukas said. "It wasn't about being as great as him, it was about speaking the same language [and] being part of the club that understands music." American Romance is available to stream. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Son of Country Legend Gives Fascinating New Details on Relationship with Idolized Father
Son of Country Legend Gives Fascinating New Details on Relationship with Idolized Father originally appeared on Parade. Recently, Lukas Nelson has been on a bit of a press tour. Nelson, who is the son of country music legend Willie Nelson, has been giving a lot more insight into his relationship with his father in interviews. The subject, which undoubtedly has followed him his whole career, seems to be coming up more often, especially with Nelson making more strides as a solo musician. With his newest album, "American Romance" being released, there's been a push to get his name out there a bit more. He just gave another interview on The Howard Stern Show, and a couple of clips have been released before the full interview comes out this Friday. As you can see in this first one, Nelson's father is in the front of the conversation again. Video credit: SiriusXM's The Howard Stern Show 'My dad would leave all the time, and I'd be naturally upset as a little kid, and I knew that if I learned how to be a great musician we would be bonded forever,' he told Stern, adding, 'It wasn't about being as great as him, it was about speaking the same language [and] being part of the club that understands music.' It's clear that music is the foundation of the two's relationship. Nelson goes into more detail in the interview, adding: 'I really wanted to make my dad proud by being completely self-sufficient, you know? I wanted to make him proud by not needing him,' Lukas told Howard. '[So], I put 70,000 miles on a '91 Econoline Ford with my first band [Promise of the Real], and we went out for 15 years and played 250 shows a year straight and built something with ourselves that now I can say I feel like I've earned — and I think that makes my dad and my mom the most proud.' Fans were touched by the honesty of his relationship with Willie, and the hard work he's put into his whole career. Many comments were left reacting to the interview."He's the real deal." "Lukas is already a legend, and well deserved... love Farm Aid each year." "Willie's music will continue through his son long after he's gone." It's great to see the star coming into his own along with honoring his father. They're a great musical family to watch. To see Lukas in action, check out this performance clip from the new interview: Video credit: SiriusXM's The Howard Stern Show Here's to more success from the country star! I'll be looking forward to the full interview, Howard Stern Presents: Lukas Nelson, which airs Friday at 7 p.m. ET on Howard of Country Legend Gives Fascinating New Details on Relationship with Idolized Father first appeared on Parade on Jun 25, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 25, 2025, where it first appeared.
Time Magazine
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Lukas Nelson Is Ready to Make a Name for Himself
Even if you can't name one song by Lukas Nelson, chances are you've already heard his music. The 36-year-old singer-songwriter (and son of country music mainstay Willie Nelson) has not only been releasing country-roots albums with his band the Promise of the Real since 2010, he and his band have been touring and recording with Neil Young since 2016. Nelson has also written for the screen: In 2020, he won a Grammy for his work on a little film called A Star Is Born, for which he wrote and co-produced several songs, as well as appeared on screen as a member of Bradley Cooper's band. Despite all of these accolades and accomplishments, Nelson has a grander vision for himself. He'd love to graduate from behind-the-scenes player—let's say your favorite country artist's favorite country artist—into a top-billed superstar in his own right. There's no reason to think that he won't meet the moment. Nelson's debut solo album, American Romance (produced by Shooter Jennings, son of Waylon), is brimming with universal observations about love, loss, family, perseverance, and the cycle of birth and death. It's all set against a classic American backdrop of diner counters and truck stops, East Coast turnpike exits and snow-tipped Montana mountains. Led by Nelson's acoustic fingerpicking and aching, reedy vocals, American Romance goes down with the familiar ease of a time-worn Townes Van Zandt record while distinguishing itself enough to stand on its own in the modern-country landscape. Ahead of his album's release on June 20, Nelson spoke to TIME about the long road to American Romance, finding the right way to discuss his lineage, and why he's a 'disciple of Dolly Parton' when it comes to politics. Nelson: Well, Promise of the Real was a band that I started when I was 19. I was always the songwriter, and those guys traveled with me through thick and thin. We became Neil Young's backing band for five years. Then we're trying to do both my songs and Neil's songs and straddle that line. But a lot of the fans that we got were fans of Neil and, of course, my father. Eventually I realized, if I don't establish myself as an artist right now, then I won't be able to. So I just decided to go out and play for my own fans and my own generation and figure out who I am. I had to just become Lukas Nelson. I stopped smoking weed, I became sober. I faced my fear of flying by becoming a pilot. And I sort of let go of a lot of the legacy ideals that I had grown up with and felt pressured by. There's a song on the album—it's the first song I ever wrote, when I was 11, called 'You Were It.' I wrote that before I started telling myself a story of who I was meant to be. That song came to me on a school bus. My dad liked it so much that he recorded it. Then Kris Kristofferson said, "I love that song. Are you going to be a songwriter?" I said, "I don't know." He said, "Well, you don't have a choice." That inspired me to become a musician. But now I'm trying to ask myself: What do I mean musically? How do you feel American Romance might begin to answer that question? I'm working with some of my favorite musicians of our time: Stephen Wilson Jr., Sierra Ferrell, Anderson East. 'God Ain't Done,' I wrote with Aaron Raitiere, who just had a hit with 'You Look Like You Love Me' with Ella Langley and Riley Green. I'm writing a lot with Ernest [Keith Smith], who's written all the number one hits on Morgan Wallen's recent album. I've always believed that I could stand toe-to-toe with anyone as a songwriter. I am a songwriter first and foremost—I play good guitar, and I sing well, and I perform well, but the songs are the most important thing, what brought me to A Star is Born and what really, I think, caused Neil [Young] to take notice. You have artists like Kacey Musgraves, Zach Bryan, Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers—these are the artists that I respect, and I want to be part of that conversation and musical landscape. I want to have a career that lasts as long as my father's. And when my father played, he played for his generation, and they followed him now up into his nineties. So in order to have that longevity, I have to be smart and play to my own people. I've always known and respected [Shooter] for his musicality. I'd always wanted to work with him. I think now was the perfect moment, because he's established himself separate from his legacy, as an incredible producer. Now I feel like the conversation is less about, 'Oh, isn't it cool that these kids are doing it and their fathers were friends?' That becomes a little bit of icing on the cake. Those who don't know us will probably still look at it that way. And that's something I deal with my whole life. [But] we've gotten past the idea that we are only just the sons of [ Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings]. We have our own careers that we've built. I respect [Shooter's] work ethic. When I started playing with the band, we did 250 shows a year for a good part of 10 years, just in order to prove to myself. I knew I was going to have to work twice as hard. People who don't know me are always going to have an opinion on whether I got anything handed to me, but I know how hard I worked, and so at the moment of my death, that's what I'm going to look at. I can see that Shooter has the same approach. I can imagine you having so many different internal conversations with yourself. Like on one hand, when Kris Kristofferson tells you that you were born to be a songwriter, that's amazing. At the same time, like with any family business, did you feel like there was ever even a choice? I'm so grateful that he gave me that inspiration because it lit a fire. And I had the confidence to say, 'OK, put my head down, ignore everything anyone else is saying and just work, and I think I have some sort of innate understanding of this songwriting thing that I can actually nurture.' I'm really grateful to that 11-year-old boy who understood that the time that he put in then would pay off now. And it has. It was about just closing my ears to any of the chatter and playing guitar eight hours a day and through the night, much to the chagrin of my mother, and just obsessing over songwriting, not giving a crap about parties in high school. I never had one sip of a beer until I was in college. I just focused. The greatest part about being the son of my father, and of my mother [Annie D'Angelo] too, was the inspiration and support. Like Colonel Tom Parker seeing Elvis and saying, "I'm going to focus all of my efforts on that man," he invested and made him a star. So somebody has to champion you, and I was lucky to have that growing up. Yeah, it's a double-edged sword. Say you have no industry connections and want to make it as an artist, you're going to need someone to take a chance on you. Meanwhile, as you've described, say you do come from a family with every connection—someone will still have to personally vouch for you, because people will make assumptions. Now I've gotten to this place where I think I'm clear-headed enough to understand how to talk about it. I didn't really know how to describe what I was feeling. I was in my Beatles Hamburg days—just playing show after show after show. And when people would ask me [about my father], I'd be like, 'I don't even have time to answer that. Ask me about my record.' You know what I mean? I love my dad and he's a good man, and I love my mom and she's a good woman. And my brother and sisters. It's a good family. I'm lucky. Not because he's a successful musician, because he's a good person and a kind person and is in touch with his empathy. That's what I'm most grateful for. How did you end up settling on the album name American Romance? The title came from the song, [which is] like a portrait. This whole album is a bunch of different chapters, kind of in a John Steinbeck Travels With Charley, memoir-like [way] about different moments that shaped me growing up in this country that raised me. The loves and the losses and the heartache, and then the elation. There were moments where I've spent Thanksgiving dinners at a truck stop having the turkey special, and then having the kindly waitress feel bad for me, although she was working too. It's the Walmart parking lots. It's the sirens at night, the rendezvous in the night. There's a thousand different stories I have in hundreds of hours of travel, but I tried to just put it into an album of 13 songs. At the same time, it's an album about the future. I've got a song called 'Pretty Much' that talks about how I envision the hour of my death and what I hope is in store for me in terms of love and relationships. I'd love to be surrounded by my family and them desperately wanting all the information about how I met the love of my life, who's right there beside me, and telling all the different stories about when I fell in love. It's about the future and the past and the present. You split your time between Nashville and Hawaii now, and between Hawaii and Texas when you were growing up. When people ask, where do you say you're from? I was raised by America, by the United States. The roads raised me. I may have been born in Texas, and I spent some time there. I spent some time in Hawaii. But most of my life was spent on the road growing up from Walmart parking lot to motel, to hotel to diner to stage. It's easier almost to say the greater United States than it is to say anywhere in specific. Country music has such a legacy of storytelling about America, encapsulating the good, the bad, the mundane. But 2025 is such a unique time to release a body of work about the country, seeing as the country itself has rarely been more divided. As someone who has traveled it so extensively, what are some commonalities that you think everybody living in the U.S. still shares? That's a great question. I believe that we all share the heart. There's a song I have called 'Turn Off the News (Build a Garden).' 'I believe that every heart is kind, some are just a little underused' is the first line. I think that when we can connect with our hearts, we can open up empathy inside of ourselves. Now, there are exceptions to the rule. Obviously some people are sociopathic. So barring that, I feel like music has the power to cut through the mind and reach the heart. What we can all relate to is suffering in love and relationships and heartbreak. Those things are really universal. My belief is that I can change people's minds more by doing what I do than by standing and making statements. I can put it in my music. I believe that strongly, and I've seen it work. There's a guy named Daryl Davis who is a Black musician, and he has converted over 200 Klansmen, to the point where they give him their hoods because he sat there and talked to them. This guy has some balls. He somehow reached their hearts. I think the only way to change people's minds, if they have hatred, is to try and reach their hearts. I don't think calling them a monster will do it. Some people are beyond changing, I understand that. But music has the power to open up hearts. I know I'm good at one thing, and I do it. I am not a politician. I have friends that span the aisles, as they say. But kindness and compassion are where I try to live from. I look at someone who's suffering, and I always believe in helping that person out. I'm a disciple of Dolly Parton, let's just say.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lukas Nelson to Perform Songs From His New Album ‘American Romance' With Livestream Set
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission. Just a few days before he drops his new solo studio project, American Romance, Lukas Nelson will commemorate the release by performing tracks from the LP during an upcoming TalkShopLive by Rolling Stone senior music editor Joseph Hudak, Nelson will walk fans through the process of writing his new album, which was produced by Shooter Jennings and features collaborations with everyone from Americana star Sierra Ferrell to country singer-songwriter Anderson East, with a stream hosted on platform TalkShopLive. Nelson is expected to play two tracks from American Romance, including the album's title song and 'You Were It' during the event. More from Rolling Stone Airbnb Kicks Off New Lollapalooza Experiences, From Private Sets to Backstage Tours These Best-Selling Sony Headphones Are Only $11. Seriously. NBA Finals Tickets: How to Get Last-Minute Thunder vs. Pacers Stubs Online Fans will also have the chance to pick up autographed copies of Nelson's new LP on CD and vinyl during the TalkShopLive stream. Nelson's TalkShopLive event will be simulcast on Rolling Stone, including the livestream below, on June 16, starting at 8:30 p.m. ET. 'This album is the first chapter in a whole new era of my life as an artist,' says Nelson in a statement. 'It's a love story to the country that raised me. Diners and highways that carried me through the joy and pain that led to the music you hear now.' Following the release of American Romance, Nelson is set to tour the country this summer, including stops at Summerfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Wildlands Festival in Big Sky, Montana; along with the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival in Alya, Wyoming, in August. Best of Rolling Stone The Best Audiophile Turntables for Your Home Audio System
