The Lumineers on Brightside: "You have to work on shutting your ego down and serving the song"

Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites, best known as the multi-Grammy nominated band The Lumineers, have made their long-awaited return to the airwaves with new singles Brightside and Big Shot. Headliner spoke to Schultz about the band nearing two decades together, his thoughts on artistic longevity in this TikTok and Instagram age, and how their experience and recent solo projects helped the swift recording of their new music, as they release their long awaited new album, Brightside.

It seems a pertinent place to start the conversation with the fact that The Lumineers are fast approaching two decades together as a band, an increasingly special thing in an age where it seems many people would sooner seek a fleeting glimpse of viral fame on TikTok, rather than carve out a creative career. Having formed the band in 2005, Schultz is kind enough to grant us a lesson in longevity, and the great value hidden in failure.

“Part of what helped us be together this long is that there's a lot of trust,” he says, of his long standing friendship with Fraites that commenced while they were growing up together in New Jersey (they met through their brothers). 

“When we make songs together, we split everything. There's no paranoia like, ‘Why does he like this idea more?’ We're trying to create an environment where the best idea has to win. And so you really have to work on just shutting your ego down and serving the song.

“I was almost 30 before we got signed and had any sort of break. By that point, I knew what I wanted out of those boundaries. We were able to make albums and finish them entirely, and then hand them over to a label and say, ‘Can you please promote this now?’ 

"I think a lot of bands, in the beginning, are told what to do. But since we had failed so long, we got to dictate the terms more. And I think that really helps us to this day to be a lot more content with just how things go. The benefit of failure can be immeasurable sometimes.”

Could it be linked to the fact The Lumineers were one of the first bands to advocate fans putting away their phones while at concerts, to enjoy the experience directly instead of through their phone screen? 

It must be so, given that they value their audience having a special experience at their show above hundreds of people posting their photos and videos of the concert on Instagram, Twitter etc the day after the show — as it creates a very special connection, as opposed to a viral dopamine hit.

“We began busking in the streets,” Schultz says. “And it all began on a level that we understood the way to someone's heart, and to actually have an impact on somebody is through that intimacy and through that direct contact. And so when phones became ever-present at shows, I would ask people to put them away. 

"It’s funny because the picture and the audio is never very good quality, it’s just a strange placeholder for a memory. The very worst is when you’re at a concert, and you have someone in front of you filming it, so you’re seeing the stage through their screen! It’s just another filter. The direct to source way has always been the most exciting for me." 

Despite the fact Schultz and Fraites have been separated for some time now, due to lockdowns and the latter moving to Italy with his wife, their first new single of this year was recorded in a single day. 

It’s very exciting to hear about a very new approach to writing the pair have adopted, one that almost leaves the ego at the door of the studio, allowing gut feeling and emotion to shape the music. Perhaps a terrifying prospect for writers who have to have a crystal clear vision in their head before they write a single lyric or strum a chord…

“We got to the studio that particular day, we just started trying things, and it took shape in front of us,” Schultz says. “It was strongly based off a feeling, and I think the album is full of that, much more than ‘Here's my point I'm making or here's the exact story I'm telling.’ It's much more about conveying.”

And as Headliner points out that second single Big Shot offers a lovely contrast to Brightside, Schultz expands on this: “This whole album was us trying to be less literal about everything. I was really mystified and intrigued by how some of my favorite writers growing up, like Neil Young and Kurt Cobain, weren't on the nose about a lot of things. 

"They knew how to find the right words to cast the spell and create a feeling. A lot of how they wrote their lyrics was not by writing it, it was by saying it. And then going back and saying, ‘Oh, that felt right. What was that?’ 

"So a lot of this album was not really written lyrics, it was lyrics that were just sung out loud, over the existing chords and melodies. And what you end up with is much different than when you're sitting at a desk, trying to write out some sort of poetry that tells the story.”

And with this intuitive approach to writing their new album Brightside, there’s quite some chance that you, dear reader, may have a very strong feeling of connection to this new music from The Lumineers. The album is out everywhere now, so stick it on and, for goodness sake, put that phone away.