Bridge City Sinners: From the misty, pine-covered hills of the Pacific Northwest come the Bridge City Sinners, who trace the arc from Prohibition-era jazz to Appalachian death folk. This traditional string band bends the meaning of the word “genre,” playing festivals like Punk Rock Bowling, Muddy Roots and the Bluegrass String Summit in Oregon. They began their journey playing sidewalks across the country, and now this super group of musicians is on the national touring circuit. The Sinners stay true to the DIY mentality, releasing their albums on their self-founded record label, Flail Records.
The band around icon Libby Lux, which has become downright internet hype, is already scratching the Billboard charts in the U.S. – here in Europe they have already toured with bands like Days N Daze
Interview conducted on June 17, 2021
By Dan Locke
The album “Unholy Hymns” of the dark folk musicians from Portland will be released on August 13.
What is your upbringing?
Lightnin’ Luk: I was fortunate to grow up with two unbelievable artists as parents, who always encouraged and supported my love for music. Because of them, I was able to get violin lessons starting in elementary school, and my life as a musician really grew from there. In my early teens, while most of my friends we’re obsessing over the Top-20, I fell in love with early folk and roots music. I started writing my own songs before I started high school and played with a few bands — mainly a group with the goofy name “The Backyard Blues Boys.” We’d play anywhere that would book us, from dive bars to jazz clubs to literal backyards. I wouldn’t say we were all that successful, but what I would say is that we were completely DIY, from booking our own gigs to recording our own album, one thing I was always proud of that band for was that we always decided to figure things out ourselves rather than hire somebody else. That early experience gave me the skills and resume to spend a couple of years attending Berklee College of Music. Now, given its reputation, you’d think that would kind of be a peak for my musical education, but I feel like it was the years I spent playing in various working bands after my time at Berklee where I really started to get to know myself as a musician. Country, bluegrass, jazz, folk, rockabilly — you name the style, if it needed fiddle, I was after the gig, and it was at that time that I met and started working with a scrappy local band called the Bridge City Sinners.
How did you discover music?
There are a couple of stories my parents like to talk about how I first discovered the violin. But I wouldn’t say I “discovered” music, so much as it was always there. My grandmother on my mother’s side was a cellist, and everyone in the family has played music at one point or another. I learned how to play music with others just by visiting my family. We’d sit around trading songs and jamming until early in the morning. When you’re first learning to improvise, there’s really no way around it — you’re going to be bad. But my family was patient and supportive, and from them, I learned one of the most valuable lessons about playing music in a band: how well you play is not nearly as important as how well you listen.
How did you start to write music?
It would be hard to put an exact date on it. When I was just able to walk, I would sit down at the family piano and makeup tunes. Either that or I just used to drive my parent’s crazy playing nonsense. I remember making up songs with my mother, who is a songwriter herself. My father is a poet, so similarly to “discovering” music, I’m not sure there was a time I “started” writing music. But I remember grabbing a ukulele that was around the house and learning a few chords when I was 12, and from there I wrote a few “albums” of music that I recorded on my dad’s desktop computer, using the internal microphone that was on the cutting edge at the time. I think if I ever listened back to those recordings, they’d probably sound exactly like what you’d expect from a 12-year-old being shown GarageBand for the first time! But eventually, the songs got better. At least I hope they did.
How does someone form a band by using Craigslist?
I wasn’t a part of the original Sinners lineup, so I don’t know the exact TikTok with them. But basically, you just put an ad out there hoping someone will respond. If you’ve seen School of Rock, there’s the scene where Jack Black is putting up posters that say “Dewy Finn wants YOU to play in his band” or something like that. It’s basically just that, but on the internet. In terms of the Sinners, it’s basically how Michael found Libby. Scott knew Libby and was brought in to play bass, and Clyde and I found our way to the band later.
How did you get your band’s name?
Again, I wasn’t in the first iteration of the band, so I just know the stories. But I’d imagine it was like any band, where a bunch of names comes up, and you agree on the one everybody hates the least! I will say that they were one of several bands that included “Bridge City” in their band name at the time, and I thought it was a clever nod towards that. While the other “Bridge City” bands were upstanding, respectable students of jazz, the Sinners represented the underbelly of the jazz scene in Portland. To the degree, they were even a part of it. The Sinners were not really accepted by the actual jazz scene. So, they threw in with the folk and punk kids, who accepted them anyway, and that’s how I found them.
Describe your music.
Well, now we’ve come to the difficult questions! One thing I’m personally very proud of with the Sinners is that we’ve blended our styles into a new sound, rather than just trying to mimic someone else. An old drummer friend of mine used to say, “why would I want to listen to you try to sound like Buddy Rich when I can just listen to Buddy Rich?” I also think the way we think about genre is backward. Genres were created by labels who were trying to market music, not by musicians trying to describe their sound. In the early days of recorded music, there was some music played by white people in blackface that was marketed as “Jazz,” while any and all music made by black artists was referred to as “Race Music.” Now how much more racist does it get than that? Not only did the industry appropriated black music in order to target a white audience, but it also lumped all of the amazing black artists — the founders of American music — into one category. Go listen to Leadbelly and tell me that’s the same genre as Bessie Smith. Even worse is that musicians are taught music based on these marketing labels and believe that they’re genres. And you end up with “traditionalists” who are really just reinforcing bad stereotypes. I think we try to combat that in Sinners, and because we do, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find another jazzy-satanic-folk-metal-horror-power-vocal-punk-band. Especially one with banjos.
What was your first performance like?
I played my first actual show in the last days of the legendary Portland dive The Satyricon when I was 14, but at that point, I’d spent years playing recitals and various performances as a violinist. The first show I did with the Sinners was at the White Eagle Saloon, and all I remember about it is that I had two other gigs that night and was in a hurry all night! The first show I saw the Sinners play was at the Laurelthirst Pub, and I was playing with another local band on the bill called King Columbia. I was struck by the energy of the band, and they had a stage presence a lot of other local bands didn’t have. Libby said something similar about my performance after the show, and I later started sitting in with the Sinners during rehearsals, and eventually played a few other gigs with them when their clarinet player was unavailable. Including the Witches Wrath live session, which I think was my 3rd time actually performing with the band.
Are you still doing sidewalk shows?
The band together hasn’t busked in a while, just because we’re spread out and living in different places now, but I just busked yesterday in downtown Portland! After over a year away from performing, it was really great just to play in front of anybody. I’m fully vaccinated and ready to go!
Royalties never appear like magic. Royalties are only sent to you through work undertaken by a PRO to ensure that their members are getting paid. If you’re not yet signed up to a Performing Right Organization like ASCAP, BMI or SESAC, you may not be receiving all the royalties you deserve. Do you belong to any to songwriters’ organizations like the International singer-songwriter association, SESAC, BMI or ASCAP?
Yes.
What makes a good songwriter?
To me, songwriting is about connecting with people. It’s a balancing act between opening up about your own feelings and experiences, and writing something that people can relate back to their own lives. Musical talent really has very little to do with it.
What was the title of your first original song? Did you record it?
It was called Alone, yes I did record it, and no, I will not show it to you!
Tell me about your album “Unholy Hymns” which will be released on Aug.20th?
It’s a tale of two albums. Side A, which we’ve been calling Book I, is an original homage to our jazzy, street music roots. The songs deal with depression, addiction, heartache, and the mental health struggles we all face. Book II is an intentional stylistic change for the band, as we shift to what is thematically best described as “the invasion.” The Legend of Olog-Hai is a two-part introduction that serves as a hat tip to J.R.R. Tolkein, and sets the stage for what we hope will be just the beginning of the Unholy Hymns saga. The music is even darker and dirtier than before, and I’m personally very excited for everyone to hear the strings we orchestrated for Book II. If you liked Lightnin’ Luke before, just wait until you hear FIFTEEN Lightnin’ Luke’s all at the same time!
What is the backstory of your first single “Pick Your Poison”, which came out May 14th?
Libby wrote the lyrics for Pick Your Poison, and the song is a reflection of the constant struggles we all have with substances and depression. The song is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek “celebration” of substance abuse, and our way of saying, “you’re not in this alone.”
What is your favorite track on your album?
Well, it’d be easy for me to say “Departed” as it’s the song on the new record that I wrote! Or maybe Devil Like You, which I sing a verse on! But if I’m being completely honest, I think the two-part Olog-Hai saga is one of the most ambitious creative challenges this band has taken on. You really get to hear a little bit of everything, from death screams to soaring melodies, to gritty banjo breakdowns, to orchestral strings. I can’t wait for people to hear what we’ve come up with.
What are your feelings about streaming music?
I think there are lots of reasons that streaming was a concern for the industry when it first came around. For artists who’d been set up to succeed before streaming, I totally understand why they felt it undercut them financially. I think a lot of that comes from how the music industry was already set up. Frankly, I think it’s labels that have been hurt the most by streaming, not independent artists. We are a DIY band, we write our own songs, we recorded it at our friend’s home studio Low Shelf Recording, and it’s coming out on our own independent record label Flail Records. As physical sales plummeted, artists who were stuck in contracts where the label took a majority of the money were suddenly being paid less and also not getting as much out of their label. Before, you needed a label to help with distribution. And while that’s still the case to a certain degree, an independent band can now forgo physical distribution altogether and put their album on Spotify for less than fifty bucks. And they can do so while retaining 100% ownership over their music. So ultimately, I think the streaming debate is a little outdated. This is how the industry is now. Discussing it as though going back to the way things were, where labels and executives had all the control, I don’t think that’s possible or desirable at this point.
The symbol # is known as the number sign, hash, pound sign and a sharp sign in music. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes Since 2007, widespread usage of the symbol to introduce metadata tags on social media platforms has led to such tags being known as “hashtags”, and from that, the symbol itself is sometimes called a hashtag. Are people forgetting that the # is a part of music?
I mean, maybe, insofar as they ever knew it was a part of the music. If you want to get technical, it isn’t. Several of the things listed above have completely different origins. In early European music, they operated with what they called a “fixed do,” sometimes misleadingly referred to as “modal music.” In that rigid version of music theory, there are not different keys, only different variations on a C scale. In the C scale, B is the seventh note of the scale, and therefore the only one that was needed to be altered in musical notation. So, they’d write a lower case “b” next to the note to indicate that it was flat. Later, as fixed doe became history, this lower case “b” simply became known as the “flat” symbol. At that point, they needed another symbol to indicate a “sharp” note. That was still a lower case “b,” but the letter had a square base, instead of a rounded one. Because it was often drawn with a slant (literally just because cursive makes you write with a slant), it was later mistaken for a “libra pondo” or “pound sign,” which is basically a lower case “u” with a squiggly line through it. Since the libra pondo was used in bookkeeping, it was also referred to as a “number sign.” And, when it showed up on early typewriters, it was given a hard edge. This became simplified in handwriting by making it just two “= “signs drawn perpendicular to one another. And since that looked awfully close to sloppily drawn sharp signs, they were blended together. So, it’s less that people are “forgetting that the # is a part of music” and more that people have bad handwriting. In fact, when Twitter invented the hashtag, it was the first time that symbol had been used as the origin of something. So, they have as much if not more claim to it as anybody else. This is really all useless knowledge at the end of the day, but hey, you asked!
Digital vs. vinyl?
If we’re talking about listening, then vinyl. More for the experience than the sound, though I do love a good vinyl crackle. When it comes to recording, there are things you can do digitally that, while you could pull them off in an analog recording setup, it would basically be prohibitively expensive to do so. So, in a perfect world, I always prefer analog to digital, I’m not altogether opposed to digital music.
If “Video Killed the Radio Star” do you think that the Covid-19 virus has killed live music? Do you feel the Covid-19 virus going to affect the music business in the future?
I think that comparison is a little farfetched. “Video Killed the Radio Star” is a song from 40 years ago, but last I checked, podcasts had taken over the online media world and nobody cares about MTV anymore. Maybe a more apt comparison is the 1919 Flu. There was a true appreciation for music after that pandemic ended, as well as massive improvements in recording technology. I think we’ll see a similar boom industry innovation and appreciation for artists and musicians.
What have you been doing with your self-quarantine?
I’ve had a relentless tour schedule for the past 4 years, so I spent about a week wondering what to do with myself and then got back on the horse. I did a DIY radio show through YouTube for a few months, and then, when more was known about how to stay safe through Covid, I started hitting the studio. In addition to the new Sinners record, I played on two albums from our buddy-band the Tejon Street Corner Thieves, a full-length from the legendary New Orleans Street Band Yes Ma’am, an EP for our friends The Honest Vultures, and I even played organ on a couple of tracks for a local band called The Sadists. I’ve spent a lot of time working on new albums from Clyde McGee, Jesco Payne, as well as a new solo Lightnin’ Luke album, all of which I am producing in addition to playing on. And I also fiddled on a couple of tracks for the debut album from Colt McCannon, which you can stream now and buy through Flail Records!
How do you stay healthy during the lockdown?
I go for an hour-long walk every morning and listen to music! Great way to start the day and get moving!
Have you discovered or rediscovered any new hobbies?
Well, having spent a few years on the road, I’d say the hobby I most enjoyed was sleeping in the same bed every night. In fact, I think it probably qualifies as a pastime at this point.
Many artists are doing nightly concerts over either YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. In October that is going to change at least on Facebook. Facebook is cracking down on livestreamed shows that include recorded music with new terms of service, preventing artists from using the platform for “commercial or non-personal” purposes, unless they have obtained the relevant licenses.
The updated music guidelines state that users “may not use videos on our products [which include Instagram] to create a music listening experience […] This will include [Facebook] Live,” and stipulates that such content should be posted for the enjoyment of friends and family only.
How do you think this will change the landscape of Facebook?
Well, I think there’s always a side that doesn’t get considered, and that’s that the reason Facebook is cracking down is because for YEARS they have gotten away with having music available for free with no compensation going to the artist. Youtube had this issue a few years ago and made a different decision — rather than crack down, they worked on compensating artists based on ad revenue. So now, if someone uses my song in a viral Youtube video, I’d make some of the money. And that’s the thing to remember when we see headlines about Facebook cracking down. Would I have preferred they just pay me royalties? Yes. But in the streaming era, all that this crackdown is doing is stopping people from streaming music when the artist isn’t being compensated. So, it really doesn’t bother me. The crackdown isn’t about live shows, those are still happening, it’s about recorded music being played during livestreams and artists making no money. And I’m glad they’re stopping that, even if I have my own ideas about how they could do it better.
How can bands keep their fans if they cannot play live in front of the fans and sell merchandise to them at the show?
I actually think fans have struggled as much without their favorite bands as the bands have without the fans! But really, neither of us have gone anywhere. I think people are hungry for music after a year away. So, I think the struggle is less about losing fans and more just about staying afloat as a band at all. I know bands have struggled more with not being able to sell merch just from a financial standpoint. Fans are just people, and they’ve been going through a lot too. I doubt many true music fans have gotten through this pandemic without music, and I can’t wait to see them in person again on the road this fall.
Is pay to play still a thing? Now pay to play also means things like playlist on the internet and opening slots for a major band on tour.
I’m sure it does, there are always piranhas out there trying to screw over new bands. But I think the DIY boom we’re seeing because of the internet is making it harder to scam people in that way. I remember a pay-to-play scheme when I was in high school that I almost got wrapped up in. But ultimately, all they were offering was a slot at a venue that I was able to book on my own anyway. If anyone reading this has been put in a pay-to-play situation, please know that all those people are doing is sending emails and bullshitting. All you have to say is, “I can send emails and bullshit all by myself, thank you very much.”
Governments around the world are hearing the call of thousands of music creators and included protections for the music community in the omnibus bill. In addition to extended and improved unemployment benefits and small business loans for freelance creators, the package includes several bills which the Recording Academy, its members, and the larger music community advocated for. From the Save Our Stages Act, provided a lifeline to performance venues and promoters, to the CASE Act, which creates an avenue for smaller creators to defend their copyrighted works, Congress has ensured that both music creators and those who act behind the scenes to bring music to life are given the support they need during this difficult time.” Do you think this will save music venues?
I don’t know, does the omnibus bill have 60 votes in the senate? I guess you could pass an omnibus spending bill through budget reconciliation. Where does Joe Manchin stand on dive bars? I know they’re popular in West Virginia! In all seriousness, we in the United States do not do nearly enough to support artists. Or people for that matter. I think all these bills that update copyright law are great, and long overdue. But you want to know what would really save musicians? Raising the minimum wage to $15/hr., and then raising it again.
Did you know that the Grammys MusicCares can help artists? The MusiCares COVID-19 Relief has helped thousands of music industry artists and professionals during these difficult days. The need remains great, and these unique times remain critical for music people. It has taken a community uplifting one another to get through this pandemic, and MusiCares has pulled together a list of additional organizations and resources to further support you. RELIEF RESOURCES. Have you applied for it yet?
I know a lot of artists who applied for the MusiCares relief package, and I think it was a fantastic resource for struggling artists early in the pandemic. Maybe after a year without music, people will start to understand how essential art is to people’s lives.
