THE LUMINEERS

Support: Andy Shauf

It took four years for The Lumineers to follow up their platinum-plus, multi-Grammy-nominated,
self-titled debut – which spent 46 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at #2 -- but Cleopatra
is well worth the wait. After exploding onto the scene with their monster single, “Ho Hey”
(which spent a staggering 62 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #3) and its follow-up,
“Stubborn Love” (recently featured on President Barack Obama’s Spotify playlist), The
Lumineers spent a solid three years touring six of the seven continents. During that time, The
Lumineers – whose original members Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites founded the band in
Ramsey, New Jersey back in 2002 -- earned a pair of Grammy nominations (Best New Artist,
Best Americana Album), contributed two songs to The Hunger Games franchise (including the
hit Jennifer Lawrence/James Newton Howard collaboration, “The Hanging Tree”) and sold an
impressive 1.7 million albums in the U.S., and 3 million worldwide.
Cleopatra proves Schultz and Fraites – along with cellist/vocalist Neyla Pekarek– are neither
taking their good fortune for granted, nor sitting back on their laurels. With the help of producer
Simone Felice (The Felice Brothers, The Avett Brothers), the man Wesley calls “our shaman,”
the band ensconced themselves in Clubhouse, a recording studio high atop a hill in rural
Rhinebeck, N.Y., not far from Woodstock.
The Lumineers then set about trying to make musical sense of their three-year-plus roller coaster
ride. Their skill at setting a visual story to music comes through amidst the delicate, deceptively
simple acoustic soundscapes. This time, though, bassist Byron Isaac provides a firm, low-end on
the apocalyptic opener “Sleep on the Floor,” a ghostly tune about getting out of town before the
“subways flood [and] the bridges break.” It’s a densely packed, cinematic song that echoes Bruce
Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden – which were models for the
record alongside Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
Nest.
“We took the same approach this time as we did with the first album, recording demos in a small
house we rented in the original Denver neighborhood where we first moved,” explains Wesley,
contributing the lyrical ideas while collaborating on the music with Jer, who tackled a variety of
instruments, including guitar, the very prominent piano and trademark tribal drums.
“Wes handles all the lyrics”, says Jeremiah, “and Wes and I come up with all the rest together -
music, melody, and structure. There are no rules or titles in our writing process, just merely
chipping away slowly until we both agree we have something fantastic.”
“The record is our greatest hits reflecting what’s happened to us over the last three years,” added
Wesley. “We tried to come up with the best possible version of every song, so we recorded a lot
of different iterations, changing the tempos, dressing ‘em up, stripping ‘em down. It took a lot of
work to make them sound so easy. We’re very passionate about the process. It was a very
intense and beautiful experience. There was a lot of battling, a lot of tears, but some amazing
stuff came out, and at the end, we were much better off. It transformed our relationship.”
Cleopatra is named after the title track, inspired by a woman from the Republic of Georgia, an
acquaintance of Wesley’s wife’s best friend whom he met while visiting there. The hard-bitten
woman drove a taxi with a can of beer between her legs and a cigarette dangling from her mouth,
having survived a hard-scrabble life, pining for the man who got away after her father died.
“There was this level of defiance about her,” nodded Wesley. “She was accepting her fate, but
still felt misunderstood.”
Cleopatra also deals with what Wesley terms “the elephant in the room,” the band’s success and
the way it can sometimes put a target on your back. The syncopated piano rolls in “Ophelia” (“I
got a little paycheck/You got big plans/You gotta move/I don’t feel nothin’ at all”), the organic
sound of fingers squeaking on guitar strings in “Angela” (“The strangers in this town/They raise
you up just to cut you down”) and the Faustian bargain described in “My Eyes” (“Oh, the devil’s
inside/You open the door/You gave him a ride/Too young to know/Too old to admit/But you
couldn’t see how it ends”) consider the perils of getting what you wish for, with everyone
knowing your name, and your songs.
Schultz demonstrates his keen literary eye and ear for narrative description in “The Gun Song,”
in which he recalls rummaging through his mild-mannered, progressive, intellectual,
psychologist father’s sock drawer after his death and finding a “Smith & Wesson pistol,” making
him wonder what other mysteries his dad kept from him. “Long Way from Home,” its 5/4
signature reminiscent of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice (It’s Alright)” or “Shelter from the Storm,”
tells of hope and desperation, a double-edged sword which can both sustain or ultimately, “fuck
you up,” Wesley noted ruefully. The title phrase repeats three different times at the end of the
individual verses, each carrying a different meaning. Sings Schultz: “Held on to hope/Like a
noose/Like a rope/God and medicine take no mercy on him…” The characters in Cleopatra are
hanging on for dear life, trying to find reasons to believe, or creating some on their own just to
survive with some sort of grace.
With four years between albums, The Lumineers are excited to get back out on the road and, as
Wesley puts it, “connect with the new record and have people connect with it.”
The band had total artistic freedom in writing and recording the album, so Wesley and Jer
pushed the envelope on experimental tracks like the stream-of-consciousness, purposely lo-fi
“Sick in the Head,” the yearning, piano chord build-up of “In the Light,” or the closing orchestral
instrumental, the aptly titled coda, “Patience.”
There is something timeless about The Lumineers that links their songs to 18th century pastorals,
19th century work songs, 20th century folk narratives and 21st century post-modern cinematic
soundscapes. It sounds familiar, but take the time to dig below the surface. Listen carefully and
layers of meaning reveal themselves, just like that gun Wesley discovered in his dad’s drawer,
intimating all sorts of intrigue and sharp observations. Success hasn’t spoiled The Lumineers;
rather, it’s inspired them to follow their muses even further.
“We continue to make the kind of records we want to,” says Wesley. “We believe in this music.
It’s a true labor of love. We just want to keep reaching more people with our songs.”
Given the evidence on The Lumineers’ eagerly anticipated sophomore album Cleopatra, that
shouldn’t be a problem.

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