Revitalized Lonestar to play Chumash Casino Resort
By Josef Woodard, News-Press Correspondent
August 31, 2012 12:17 AM
IN CONCERT
Lonestar
When: 8 p.m. Thurs.
Where: Chumash Casino, 3400 E. Highway 246, Santa
Ynez
Cost: $35 to $85
Tickets: 800-585-3737, chumashcasino.com
Twenty years ago today, give or take, a band of gifted
young Texans in Nashville started on an adventure,
the numbers and success of which they could scarcely
have imagined. Originally going by the clever but
mouthful name of Texassee and opting for the leaner
moniker Lonestar, the vastly successful group of
harmonizing Texans have racked up multi-platinum
sales and built up a healthy satchel of radio hits,
including "Tequila Talkin'," "No News," "Come Crying
To Me" and the crossover smash "Amazing."
And yet the recent phase of the band's long-run
history has taken a wobbly turn in the past several years, with the departure of original lead singer Richie
McDonald for four years. That was then and this is a rejuvenated now, and the Lonestar we'll see at the
Chumash Casino on Thursday — one of the few top notch country shows in the area this year — is a new,
reformed version, with Mr. McDonald back in the ranks and a forthcoming record juicing up the band's spirits
and future.
Lead guitarist and charter band member Michael Britt was on the phone from Ohio last week, talking about
the revitalized Lonestar, Santa Ynez-bound and looking further on down a road which has been very good to
them thus far.
News-Press: One distinguishing mark of Lonestar over the last many years is that it really is one of the few
bands on the scene. It really is a band, as opposed to a leader at the center of a supportive band. Was that
"bandness" always the concept for the group?
Michael Britt: It really was, because that's the era we grew up in. We start playing in different bands in the
late '80s, and then we formed Lonestar in the early '90s. At that time, there were lots of bands, like Restless
Heart and the Kentucky Headhunters. Ricochet came out around then. There were a lot of self-contained
groups.
You hardly ever see that anymore. It's usually just a couple of singers. We were kind of the last of that
breed. Alabama was the band that started all of that, in the '80s. All throughout the '80s, bands were pretty
big, but they died out. We were one of the last ones standing. Today, you have Rascal Flatts, which is kind
of a band, but we've always had our own drummer, too.
We've have added musicians, like a pedal steel player for the road and things like that, but the core of our
band has pretty much stayed the same for 20 years.
NP: That must be some kind of record.
MB: Yeah, I think it is. Alabama will still always beat us. They've been around longer than anybody.
NP: You have a new single out called "The Countdown," about somebody out on the road, counting down
the hours and miles before getting home to loved ones. How do you take to the live performance and
touring part of the life, all these years into it?
MB: I think the weird thing is that I'm conditioned to it. If I'm home too much, I get antsy, like I should be
traveling or moving around. We've done it for so many years now — 20 years we've been together and most
of that time has been on the road. I don't want to say it's getting old, but there are times when we think
"man, I just want to go home and sit for a few days."
Honestly, though, we get enough time at home during the slow months that we can kind of take care of
that. That makes the summer months more fun. The weather's usually nice and we get to do a bunch of
shows for a bunch of people, which is always fun, too.
NP: So it's seasonal work, in a way?
MB: It kind of is, yeah. We're harvesting the crops.
NP: To ask what's probably an elusive question, what is it about the Texan aspect of your musical identity
that makes it special or distinctive?
MB: I don't know that it has so much to do with the state itself. To me, it's more that we all grew up around
the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Richie grew up in Lubbock but moved to that area and we were all familiar with
it. At the time when we were getting out of high school and wanting to play music, there was a huge bar
scene in Dallas and Fort Worth. There were really great bands everywhere, and they were all working all the
time.
So many people lived there, and it was just really a thriving scene, kind of like you would picture Seattle
during the grunge era. I think in the late '80s and early '90s, there was a huge country music band scene. A
lot of people came out of that group, everybody from Toby Keith to Ricochet and us, and we all played the
same clubs we did. There's a guy named Jim Collins, who was in one of the biggest bands in Dallas for
years. He never quite made it as a singer, but he's a huge songwriter now in Nashville. So there were all
these people who moved from Dallas to Nashville right around the same time.
With that community, you had to be really good to compete. There were so many bands vying for these
gigs. When we came to Nashville, we brought that mentality of being a really tight band with good
harmonies, and being able to play a wide variety of music. We transplanted that to Tennessee when we
moved.
NP: Texas has been such a wellspring of great music, going way back. There's something about that area
that you probably can't put your finger on.
MB: It's so isolated. You kind of have to create your own world there. You have to drive for 12 hours to get
out of the state from most places.
NP: When you did start to emerge on the country scene, was that a rootsy period in country music? What
was the stylistic atmosphere at the time?
MB: It was kind of a free-for-all. There was everything around. You had rocking acts like the Kentucky
Headhunters playing, and Restless Heart was still around. Diamond Rio was coming out with a little more of
a bluegrass sound .Then you had Garth Brooks and Brooks and Dunn traditional country thing starting to
pop back up. So there was a lot going on. It was thriving, I would say.
There were so many different kinds of country coming out, and people liked all of it back then. We played
cover music for the first two years we were together. We were just playing to make a living. Along the way,
we started writing songs together and said, "Hey, we're pretty good. We should try to get a record deal." We
figured out what steps we needed to take to do that.
Even though we lived in Nashville, we spent a lot of time traveling and being on the road, even when we
were first starting. As we moved along, we wrote more songs and tried to get a deal. We tried to stay in
Nashville more and pursue that.
NP: This band as such a healthy pile of hit singles by now. Is that almost a challenge, in terms of trying to
introduce new songs to a set?
MB: It does set a pretty high bar, because you can't put a bunch of new songs in a show that don't live up
to the hits that everybody knows. You have to make sure the new songs you put in are just as good, or if
nothing else, will keep the audience's attention for four minutes until you play an old favorite. You can't play
30 minutes of all new stuff and expect to keep their interest.
But it's a good problem to have, to have that many hits. We're very fortunate that we can play an hour-anda-half and maybe have four or five new songs in it, but most of the others are Top 10 songs, or No. 1s.
We're very proud of that, and glad we're in that position.
NP: You seem to have been ahead of the curve, in terms of finding ways to mix rock and pop elements into
country music, which is a very common idea now on country radio. Do you feel that you preceded that
movement?
MB: I don't want to say (we were) good at it, but we were successful at it. You have to keep in mind, too,
when we started playing country music, we were listening to people like Restless Heart, who put a lot of pop
sensibility into their music. Alabama had a lot of that going on, too. They were almost a pop-rock band, back
in their time. Those were the kinds of bands we modeled ourselves after.
When things became more traditional, it happened around us, but we still had that pop-rock-country thing
going. We loved the Eagles, Alabama, people like Restless Heart and Kentucky Headhunters. We had been
playing their songs for a year.
We've always been a gateway act, because our music appeals to people who don't necessarily love country
music. But we do get people to like country music, based on what we do. I wasn't a huge country fan until I
started listening to Restless Heart, and I thought, "That's great music. Oh, that's country? OK, I can like
some of this stuff."
I think that's what we do for people, as well. We're that gateway act to get people to like country music, as
well, although we're more from a pop-rock background.
NP: Do you think, on the modern scene, that someone like Zac Brown is a latter-day version of what you're
describing, a gateway artist?
MB: I definitely think so. He's got so much style that appeals to more of a broad audience. This may not be
a great analogy, but he reminds me of Charlie Daniels. It's not so much how he looks or sings, but that he
appeals to a wide range of people, but just that it's so real-sounding. Country music is supposed to be real.
I knew Charlie Daniels as a rock guy. "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" played on rock stations back in the
'70s. Anytime you start trying to pigeonhole what's country music and what isn't, you're limiting yourself,
because there are a lot of acts are able to put a foot in both worlds. It could just be song by song. They
don't necessarily have to do it all the time.
NP: What is coming up for Lonestar? Are there recordings in the works?
MB: We just finished our brand new album, coming out in October, called "Life as We Know It." Our brand
new single, "The Countdown," came out a couple of weeks ago. We're very excited about our new music.
Richie, our original lead singer, left the band for four years. He just came back in January, and we
immediately started working on new music. We're really proud of this album. Everything in the last 20 years
has been a learning experience, even having to survive without your original lead singer. But coming back
together and finding a new joy in what we do has really been a blessing. We've been writing songs together.
We produced the album ourselves.
Basically, it's like being a garage band again, except we have all this knowledge. We're not really starting
from scratch. We know how to do this stuff now. The recording process was super easy and fun. We just got
the final mixes back last week. We're thrilled about the whole thing.
NP: It does seem that this period represents a new burst of energy, a new chapter in the band's ongoing
saga. Does it feel that way?
MB: Absolutely. We've gotten back together, and we never thought we would. It's fun again. We remember
how much fun we had. Even back in the beginning, we tell stories of stuff we did 15 years ago. It's a good
position that we're in right now. We're enjoying playing music and I think it really comes out in the songs.