Lucy’s Brown Seville – Drown

Listen to the new song from Lucy’s Brown Seville – Drown

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Exclusive Interview

Tell us about where you are from and how you got to this position today.
Lucy’s members are:
Paul Allen – drums
Brendan Robinson – bass
Joe Nestico – lead guitar
Marcus – lead vox, keys, some guitar, & harmonica

We write the tunes together for the most part. A few songs came from an earlier project called Four Deep. Our influences were all over the place, but in Lucy’s Brown Seville we’re staying true to soul, funk, and blues. Lucy formed in late 2009. We had a few female backup singers, but a couple of them had kids and the other moved to NYC to pursue her own musical aspirations, but she’s always welcome back.

Brendan went from guitar to bass and when we found Joe, everything fell together perfectly. We had good momentum up to the summer of 2010, then Marcus moved out to California for art school. Upon his return in the fall of 2011, we rekindled the 4 piece, and got down to writing and recording right away. We released our 1st demo, Tonight…We Ride at the Magic Bag in Ferndale MI, in August 2012. We’ve played all over Detroit and it’s sister cities, but we’re really anxious to hit the road and tour.

What do you have coming up? What are some of the new projects we can expect to see?
Our next “big” show is on April 20th at the Spring Mead Festival at the Bnektar Meadery in Ferndale, MI. We’re expecting 500+ in attendance, it’s gonna be crazy. We’ve also been sending out press packs to a few choice record labels and booking more shows hoping to get on some festivals this summer, and maybe record in a bigger studio.

Tell us more about the current song you are promoting to everyone.
Drown came from something Paul had sung into his phone and played back to me. I play keys by ear so I found the key he was in and went from there. That’s kinda how it all comes together. Paul gives me the hook and I add the rest, and somehow we all manage to mold it into what it is. Drown speaks about self doubt and companionship. We hope it’s well received. Since we added our tunes to Reverbnation, we jumped from 600+ to 20 in less than a year on the local charts. That came as a pleasant surprise to us and we would like to keep that momentum throughout the rest of 2013.

How does your music separate yourself from other artists and bands out there?
In Detroit there’s a lot of garage rock and punk. People seem to be into that the most, so it’s difficult for a blues/funk/soul band to compete. But we’ve found a few regular spots around Detroit that seem to work well for us. We would like to meet more new bands and do shows with them, maybe open for some national acts at bigger venues, but that’s a “who you know” game and we don’t really “know” the right people at the moment, so we’re still playing small bars around town.

Tell us about one of the hardest challenges you had to face in the industry?
So far the hardest thing for us is getting the attention from the big wigs. We’ve had a few guys hand us their cards, giving us a song and dance about how they’re gonna blow us up, but nothing has come out of it yet. We’re our own PR machine as it stands. We all have full time jobs, so we can only practice once a week and with gas prices on the rise it becomes more difficult to get around, and more so with getting people out to the shows. So we try and record as much audio and video from our shows as possible, for those who missed out.

What was one of the biggest set backs in your career and how did you bounce back?
The biggest set back for Lucy is probably the finances. Putting all “if onlys” and “what if’s” aside, we could be doing so much more with a little professional representation and/or finacial backing. I’m sure this is a problem for most unsigned bands across the country, but we gotta keep the Brown Seville rolling so we try not to let that hold us back.

What are some things artists need to be careful of?
I think you’ll need at least one guy in the band to deal with the club owners. They can be either totally awesome or the complete opposite. Every now and then we get some hot head breathing down our necks about attendance or set up and breakdown times. Some venues sweep you right out the back door immediately after our set. And then there’s the issue of who gets paid what.

Policies vary from bar to bar. Everyone wants a cut, leaving a band of 4 to split less than $100 at times, which can be discouraging.  Plus most bars nowadays want cover bands which makes it hard for musicians to share their original work, unless you’re at a coffee shop open mic and you can get burned out on that real fast.

What suggestions do you have for other artists like yourself?
Just find that spark that keeps all of you going and feed it every bit of creativity you have. Make your work the best it can be, have fun with it, and there will be a moment when you’ll get back what you put into it. Be it loud applause, new fans, a rise in CD sales, what have you. Sooner or later, things will pay off, giving you more confidence to keep that soultrain rollin’.

What is one of your favorite ways to promote yourself and your music?
Creating our own flyers and posters is a good way to get people’s attention. Real flashy colors and hand drawn art is very appreciated here in Detroit. They whole DIY process attracts like minded artists and musicians, making it easier to spread the word. Facebook has its pro’s and con’s but word of mouth and a street team mentality seems to get the job done.

Where can people visit you?
We have a Reverbnation page and a Facebook page, both under Lucy’s Brown Seville. When things pick up, we’ll put a website together with some merch, music downloads, and video footage of our shows. Right now you can visit MARCUSWORX412 and Joey Nestico on YouTube to see some show footage over the past year. Hit us up, we would love to hear from you!