“I wouldn’t say we’re exactly blowing up with this record. It seems that every time you release a new album, management and all the PR people are like, ‘This is the one, I can feel it, you’re gonna break.’

“And they’ve been saying that for the past 20 years. So now we’ve just resigned ourselves to the fact that it’s all bulls--t and we don’t care. We’re just going to put out records and play some shows. We’re lucky enough to be able to pay the bills, so we feel very successful.”

Later this month Lucero will embark on their first headline tour of Australia, having spent 2018 performing more than 150 shows. Nichols was 24 when Lucero played their debut gig in April 1998.

“It was terrifying. We played at a little loft-warehouse where some squatter kids were living. We played six songs; every song we’d written. I admit there were probably 20 people at the show, but they seemed to dig it. So as scary as it was, we wanted to do it again. There was no looking back.”

In the years since, Lucero have become prime exponents of whiskey-soaked Americana and country-inflected rock’n’roll - albeit with a slight shift into Stax-inspired horn territory on albums such as 2012’s Women & Work.