



Chicago’s hometown heroes Local H have just dropped a new double record titled “Hallelujah! I’m A Bum,” the first since 2008s “12 Angry Months”. Filled with interludes and segues, horn sections and guitar riffage, political dialogues and the occasional blue line “doors closing” sound, this new record is a great step musically for the band. Though busy with the recent Scott Lucas & the Married Men release, then this new Local H record, I was able to speak with singer and song writer Scott Lucas about the new album:

SL = Scott Lucas

SS = Sweet Stuff



SS: This new album that came out, it sounds really good, its rocking, heavy stuff. There is a massive political theme going through it. Can you tell me a bit about that?



SL: I wanted to make a record like that. I wanted to do something that wasn’t so inward looking. Just kinda gauge the tenor of the country.



SS: I thought it was kinda cool of you take that and mix it with the sound of the el trains, its an effective way to go about that idea.



SL: Right, the record is sorta layered. And having the trains, the way the trains have blue lines and red lines and then sorta bringing that into the idea of red states and blue states. And using dogs and the homeless and interpreting that together and then using themes of hot and cold and, you know, one just being a blue disc and the other being red. A lot of the things on the blue disc have cold themes and a lot of the things on the red disc have hot themes. I was trying to make a record that was about fighting against cynicism and not giving in. And…writing the record and thinking about it, conceiving it, kinda came about through the last four years so it should sorta mirror how I’ve felt about things over the last four years.



SS: Ya it’s been some time since the last local h record. And I thought it was kinda cool that you came up with this concept with the double disc, you definitely changed paces a little bit, you got really heavy, and the music, like you said, has gotten a bit more extroverted. And that leads me to the next question. You mentioned hot and cold, dogs and cats, and all that, would you say that this album is kind of like a sequel to 1998’s Pack Up The Cats?

SL: Umm, I’ve heard that, and I think you can certainly make that comparison, and as far as this being the dog version of that, I would certainly go along with that. But i think this records a lot more layered than pack up the cats is. When I think about the songs on pack up the cats, it’s a very self centered record. You know? It’s kinda like, you know, this one character and it’s about bands and being in this band and it’s really big and it just crashes and burns, you know? And when you compare that to everything else that goes on, it’s kinda not that big of a deal. You know what I mean? With this record, the idea was to have a theme of different people and different walks of life and different situations and sort of explore that and the middle class, and things like that. The last record, 12 angry months, was just so inward looking and also I was dealing with a break up and you get to that point where this is the end of the world. And then with this record I just didn’t want to do that. I felt morally responsible to do something. I wanted to do something where I was looking around a bit and not just myself.



SS: With this new one and you cover a lot of characters it seems in the music, and that’s cool, because you get a variety of different types of music on the album itself. For instance, you have one song on there, On All Fours Again, that was performed with the Married Men, correct?



SL: Yes.



SS: Do you think that’s something you are going to pursue in the future, a further mixing of The Married Men and Local H?



SL: No, no. That was just something that lyrically its one of the key tracks on the record. And it sorta sums up what the record is about. And it sorta sums up the cover and the package and everything. The idea to put a country song on a rock record, I mean, we didn’t want to make a country a song that was mocking country music. I mean, I certainly wasn’t trying to do that. But you know, growing up there were plenty of great rock records that had sorta country beats to it like the Rolling Stones or songs on Zeppelin records like Hot Dog, or something like that. So, I just kinda wanted to do that and sort of was inspired by that whole idea that four years ago everyone was worried about the collapse of our entire system. People wanted to take all of their money out of the banks and nobody knew what was going to happen and so kinda taking that idea and taking a song like that and then taking a title of a song from the depression, sort of putting all of that together and kind of doing it tongue in cheek. Sorta seemed the best way to address the feelings I was having about that.



SS: That’s a great song, and a great spot to have it. It makes the heavy songs heavier and the quieter songs quieter. There’s angry moments, there’s happier moments, and these louder, ecstatic moments on there.



SL: And what we tried to do with the song, you know, comes right after the most metal song on the record which is called Here Comes Ol’ Laptop. So you got this cacophonous with horns and metal screams and all this stuff going on. And then you can hear a dog howling, right away you’re into this janky country song. That was the idea, to sort of have that shock right away.



SS: You mentioned what the Rolling Stones and Zeppelin were doing. What kind of music are you listening to nowadays? What are your influences?



SL: I haven’t really been listening to a lot of new music in the last year because I’ve been so consumed with this record and the last Married Men record. So honestly I feel kind of out of it. I’ve been so into my own. I’ve been listening to the Vaccines a lot and their first record is really great. And, I don’t know, I’ll listen to anything. I’ve been really digging that new Grizzly Bear record.



SS: That’s a great record.



SL: Ya, it’s really great. So, I’m slowly finding my way back to listening to new music.



SS: It seems like you’ve been really busy what with the last Married Men record and then this new one, doing a lot of touring in support of them. I can imagine that’s very time consuming.



SL: Well, it’s rewarding…but I hesitate to listen to a lot of new music when we’re making a record because I don’t really want something like that on there.