5 Questions: Luego

Durham's Luego is an anomaly in the Triangle. A big, bold retro-tinged pop-rock band that's content to just do what it does. The package here isn't buried in lo-fi. The band's new record Taped-Together Stories isn't some highfalutin' concept album. No, the band's mission is thoroughly unpretentious, an attempt to throw genuine emotion on top of a great hook and take it for a ride. In anticipation of the band's CD release party Saturday at Local 506 Diversions Editor Jordan Lawrence sat down with singer/songwriter/leader Patrick Phelan at Jesse's in Carrboro for a quick chat over coffee:

Diversions: You're coming out with the new record. I've listened to it, and I'm wondering what you meant by the title Taped-Together Stories?

Patrick Phelan: Well, "stories taped-together" is a lyric from the song "Migraine." And I suppose that the songs on the record arose from a year on the road with a band that I lost. We were losing money, and they weren't what I wanted. So I wrote the song in reaction to those and to a break in a relationship. I lost jobs, a live-in girlfriend, a band, a lot of money to make this record, so a lot of stories came out of it. And I don't think I write story songs. I wanted to write rock songs that sounded good and said something. I always liked albums that referenced a line not a song title. I think that the songs do tell stories, even if not lyrically, just in the emotive content of it. That's why I called it Taped-Together Stores.

Click above to check out the rest of the interview.

Dive: It's interesting that this album is about the loss of the band and the jobs and the girlfriend, but you got picked up by pretty much an all-star cast with Jeff Crawford and Peter Holsapple. How was that to put these stories of loss into this big, polished sound?

PP: It was what I had always been wanting to sound like. I contacted Jeff because I thought we had the same appeal. Right as I was contacting Jeff, Peter Holsapple found me. Once I had Peter, I knew Rob, the drummer, and Jeff's frequent co-collaborator Nick was there. And I wanted him because he looked like me, and hes a shredder.

And they're not all stories of loss. They're just in reaction to everything that I went through. It feels great, but at the same time everyone in the group knows that this is my band. And they'll help me as much as they can. But they won't go on the road with me unless we're making money.

This scene, you can get caught in this scene really easily. I mean Jeff's ben here for 10 years. He's seen bands come and go. And he's in a lot of great bands, Max Indian, Mount Moriah, his own act, The Tomahawks, Luego. He's going to be rich one day. He deserves it.

Dive: You're talking about getting caught in this scene. There's a lot of bands that have come out of this collective with Max Indian and Jeff.

PP: I'm not really a part of that collective. I want to be. That's the Drug Horse cartel, the cool factory. I'm just not cool enough for them.

Dive: But with getting caught in the scene, where do you draw that line between whether it's helpful or hurtful to be here?

PP: I think this is a holding tank. It's a great training ground. It's a great scene. It's really arty. It's amazing. But what bands are breaking out of here?

The Love Language? OK, fine. But they're kind of Raleigh, kind of Wilmington, kind of Chapel Hill now. Nobody breaks out of here. Like Max Indian. Overtime I ever hear one of Max Indian's shows I ask myself why I'm even playing guitar, why I'm even doing it. They're not breaking because . . . I don't know why they're not breaking, but no one breaks out of here.

It's really easy to get sucked into this scene, and before you know it, a lot of years have passed by. At the same time, I don't want to leave because I finally have this support group of fans and friends and bandmates. Seeing all these bands and being a part of it, even if I'm on the periphery, just being around it just pushes me.

But I think I can only give this place two more years. Two more years and another album, and I'm going to have to move on. I can't really speak for Jeff that much, but Jeff's a producer. He makes bands sound great. He's the lynch pin in eight different bands. We all want to move to Laurel Canyon, Ca. It would be so refreshing for Jeff if he could just go there with all of his skill set, with not being in any bands. What a diamond, what a jewel he is. If someone finds him. I think it would be really refreshing for him. I almost hope we all get out of it. I do hope we get out of it.

Dive: You were saying you're going to give it two more years.

PP: Well, you never know. I might wind up and be thirty. I mean, I can't leave. I just put a record out. There's no way I can leave.

Dive: But when people say things like that it implies a certain ambition, that this is not just a little artistic ambition apart from what you subsist on. I'm curious as to what you want to get out of this.

PP: I definitely have big artistic aspirations. I want to writer, record and play. Who doesn't? I want to make a living doing it. Who doesn't? I think that often these songs are how I deal with the world. It's not like I don't face any of my own issues. It's a coping and motivating mechanism to be like: "Hey, I wrote this song. It's a pretty good song. And I've got good people playing with me. And they believe in me, so I should belive in me."

Dive: You referred to the way you make songs. With the style of songs that you write, it comes off at once as very personal, but it's also a very hook-driven affair.

PP: That's exactly what I'm going for. Very personal but very big sounding. I want to I thin the most skillful performers that  can look extremely private in a public space. I want to sound huge because I have big ideas and themes going on. I want it sound big to be a vehicle for the words. At the same time, I wrote most of the songs on the piano and the guitar.

And also this album is so cool, it's so different. All this lo-fi stuff  is going on. This is not an lo-fi album, so I do think it's different than what's going on, which is maybe why I'm not part of the cartel.

Also, the way this album was written,  I wrote the songs, brought in the band, recorded and then we started playing them out live. Like, I can't wait to record the next album because I finally have chemistry after playing together for a year.