What I Did In The Lockdown

By Steve Lucas

A few years ago I decided I’d had enough life experience to be eligible to start playing the blues. I put together a band called The Heinous Hounds, almost by accident. I needed an opener for a charity gig I’d put together and thought running like the Elvis Comeback Special might be a good idea. We’d call out a song and a key and just start playing. That lineup had Ash Davies on drums, Jerome Smith on bass and vocals, the late and great Chris Wilson, blues harp and vocals, Matt Dwyer, guitar and vocals, and myself, guitar and vocals. Each of us would take turns fronting the band and I got a crash course in playing the blues.

The band started gigging regularly doing residencies around Melbourne like The Ding Dong Lounge, Cherry Bar, and The Espy (Esplanade Hotel). The band roster began to expand over the year with various guest artists filling in when other players needed to be elsewhere. That is how I got to meet new players and consolidate old friendships that brought me to this particular lineup on the sessions that make up this collection of tunes.

Peter J. Mavric, double bass and Peter ‘Robbo’ Robertson, drums (with brushes) was a combo that clicked instantly. I learned many years ago, don’t interfere with chemistry and those guys have it. Bruce Haymes and I have done a session or two previously and he had also become a regular with the Hounds, so it was natural to bring him into the studio. I have always been a fan of his playing. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was getting lessons on ProTools from a young engineer, Levi Dowsett, just before the first series of lockdowns in Victoria and during that time developed an easy friendship. In April 2021 he got an in-house gig as an engineer in a studio in Brunswick and wanted a ‘name’ to record there for promotional reasons – he chose me. I was offered six hours of free time in the studio to do as I pleased with him engineering.
I decided to keep it simple and grab the lads and just lay down some original blues country tunes that I’d been working on. I was very pleased that even though none of the guys had never heard any of the songs but one – ‘Old Ben Putty’ – that we managed to get six pretty cool tracks down. We were all set up in the room together, so we could maintain eye contact. Sure there was a little spill and occasional ghost vocal, or me calling out a chorus or chord change that bled into the drum mics, but all that just added to the vibe.

We’d do two rehearsal takes and nail it on the third before we got too comfortable. Listening back to the tracks I felt some of the tunes really cry out for horns. I knew a young guy, Travis, who played trumpet in Jack Howard’s Epic Brass band. I was one of the guest vocalists and every time we’d do a show he’d tell me if I ever wanted horns on a song to call on him. So I did. He in turn recommended that I get Chris Vizard to do the arrangements so I sent him some rough mixes. When Chris asked what did I want arrangement wise I told him “a tight kind of sloppy” and he got it instantly.

In between a couple of sudden lockdowns, I managed to get Travis Woods, Chris Vizard, and Jon Hunt (The Horns Of Leroy) over to my home studio and, with Levi and myself at the console, caught some brilliant performances from them. They took the songs to a whole new level. Things were really coming together when the lockdown shut down Melbourne in a vice-like grip. That began the second phase of the album. I used the time initially, to refine the arrangements of those songs and try out some different guitar ideas.

I also managed to get my dear friend Dave Hogan over to my studio and got some outstanding harmonica parts on two of the tunes. As the lockdown continued, I got more and more restless, and knowing I needed four more songs at least to make an album, I decided to do a couple of acoustic tunes with just me and a guitar. They had a more country vibe and as I began tracking they began to grow. I finessed the guitar parts and started getting into harmonies and different percussion sounds like bells and triangles etc. I asked my wife, Joey Bedlam, to duet with me on one of the tracks which again is only natural and it was good to have another voice. All that managed to keep me distracted for a while.

I only needed two more songs and ideas were coming thick and fast. I rang Pete Mav, Robbo, and Bruce and I asked if they were set up for home recording and much to my relief, they all said “yes”. So began phase three. I’d play my guitar parts to a click track then email them to Robbo, who would then lay down the drum tracks and send them back to me. Then I’d tweak the guitars a little now that I had some real drums to play off and then send them to Pete Mav. He would then put down a couple of alternative bass lines and send them back to me. I’d usually comp a bass track merging the two alternatives, and then send them to Bruce, etc.

Mixing the album during that lockdown was not easy. Levi and I managed to work with and around the restrictions and though stressful at times, came up with a way to finalize all the tracks. What you hear now is the result of not letting obstacles get in your way!

The songs themselves all sprang mostly from my resonator guitar. I have got to acknowledge and thank Matt Dwyer for this. He rang me one day a few years back and told me he had spotted one at a Cash Converters store in the city for a mere $400.00. I hopped on a train, went to the store, and bought it that day. Once I had it at home I restrung it, tuned it to open G and riffs just started pouring out of it.

The riffs bespoke words and words became verse. It never fails to amaze me, that the life you breathe into a song is life being breathed back into yourself. Some of the lyrics I have had kicking around in note books or scraps of paper that I had been wanting to use for years.

Others tunes just came out of my 1938 Cromwell Archtop guitar which I bought in Los Angeles. It’s like they were in there inside of it, waiting for me. ‘Joshua Tree’ I wrote while staying at the Joshua Tree Inn, early in 2019. There was a heavy snowfall overnight, a rare occurrence, and it went on to snow all day. I was sitting by Gram Parson’s shrine, drinking mulled wine when the whole song just fell into my lap. There are two older songs I have played in other ‘lifetimes’ that got reworked for the album, Congratulations which I wrote back around 1990, and a song, inspired by my wife, Dare To Be Different, which was included on a limited CD run of solo material I had demoed up in my home studio.

Overall it is a kind of tribute to the blues in its many shapes and forms. From country roots to Celtic folk with a taste of New Orleans swing thrown in for good measure. In many ways, this record was a lifetime in its making. Though I started out in the Punk era with X, I have always had a genuine love for big band swing (was conceived to that!) and Dixieland style jazz. The same goes for a certain kind of country music and I suppose I have to thank the Rolling Stones for that. I have flirted with the blues a little on most of my solo efforts over the years but never believed I had the gravitas to fully commit. I felt too young. Now, I feel I have finally come home.

I love to sit around at home playing on acoustic guitars. I think I would have gone insane many, many years ago if I couldn’t indulge myself in that simple pleasure. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor.