Zachary Lucky: At Home For One Show
By John Swartz
Zachary Lucky made a post on Facebook a week and half after the November 1 release of his latest album, The Wind. The words of gratitude for how it is being received, and listened to on Spotify, point to one emotion – stunned.
“Yeah the new record has been streamed… I think it’s up to 158,000 times, It’s pretty crazy,” said Zachary. While speaking, he got into his stats page and said it was actually 160,000 at that moment.
Asked how that compared to his previous albums, Songs For Hard Times and Midwestern, he said:
“Nothing, noting comparatively. I don’t have a number to give you, but it’s not even in the same ballpark.”
So what is making the difference this time?
“It’s a handful of things. Not that I didn’t work hard with the other records, but I think with this one, number one I’m proud of this record. With every release that I do, you get a little bit close to the thing you’re trying to make,” said Zachary.
“I really wanted to throw the whole bag at it. I’m only one guy, but I tried to do everything I could to make sure it was getting in front of playlisters, make sure it was getting in front of people on Youtube, making sure it was getting in front of people on all social media platforms, I was working relentlessly to get it in front of people.”
This is the difference between the time many readers paid any attention to how their favourite bands or artists were doing and today. Back in the day there were people to take care of everything but singing the songs. Then the labels decided they didn’t want to do that anymore, not even bankrolling the recording process.
Today’s musician is a Jack, or Jill of all trades from hitting record, to contracting to make CDs and vinyl records (which have regained a bit of market share the last 10 years), to booking the venues, hotels, car/bus/truck rentals and finding the cheapest flights. They even manage their own publicity. It is not enough to be a good, or great songwriter or instrumentalist, half your brain is always focused on the business side most of the time. Zachary is no different than all the other ‘successful’ musical artists out there.
“It’s just me, 100% independent, every little bit of it. I just started working with a couple of agents in Europe, so that’s new. I’m booking everything, I’m managing everything, I’m the label, I’m wearing a lot of hats,” he said.
Working phones and emails is a time consuming part of the game now. And the sad part is, nothing is guaranteed.
“I lucked out. I got a couple legs up and Spotify gave me a couple of big playlists. That’s super helpful. When the thing came out a couple weeks ago I’d look and there’d be 30 to 35 people listening at the same time and you’re just going, “Holy cow.”
Bandcamp (where the links above take you to), just at time of writing, put The Wind on its Best of November list, which means even more people will be checking out the album. The album is on several other streaming services too.
All the business work means nothing if there aren’t songs people want to listen to. Go back to the link at the beginning of this story, go to the webpage, scroll down and start playing the album (which you can also buy on that page).
The first thing you’ll notice, probably subconsciously, is how good it sounds. The Wind is a very well recorded album. Zachary’s singing is perfectly positioned in the mix. You can tell what each word is, you can feel the emotion behind each word.
It’s a comfortable sounding set of tunes you could leave on all morning, or afternoon, or all day, repeating one after the other and not bother to stop.
One of the songs, Jasper, was out several months ago, so if you heard any of the new stuff, that one will likely jump out at you.
“That’s another thing I did differently with this record; I’ve never really done the whole releasing singles thing. We did a big tour down in the States in the winter and spring and we wanted to have a new song out for that, so we released Jasper. I was even toying with releasing it (later) in May or June. It got some wicked traction.”
“People these days, they’re not even releasing full records. They’re just doing one song at a time; release ten songs one month apart. I don’t know if I could go that far, it’s a lot of work. Every single song you put out, you have an entire team behind it working 24/7.”
And he’s been out on the road playing his music in front of audiences almost non-stop. Out for ten days or two weeks, back to Orillia for a couple weeks, and out again.
Last week he did shows in Bowmanville, Hamilton, Ottawa and Montreal, was home for one day and resumed touring.
This week, it’s Toronto on Tuesday, Orillia on Wednesday…
Wait a second. Yes, at 7:30 p.m. his album release concert at home will happen in the Studio Theatre at the Opera House (Michael Martyn is opening). You can get tickets online.
He’s on the road the rest of the week, but he’s staying home for December and then it’s back to work.
“We’re going out west, Alberta, in January for a week we’re doing the rest of the prairies in March and then hopefully heading east in April and then going over to Europe in May,” he said. “The tour in May we’re going to be doing Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany,”
And then he’ll go back to Europe in the fall. Playing Europe is interesting. Another band from here just did a 4-show mini tour a couple months ago, which included Paris. When a band member was asked how that went he said every show was sold out, and they weren’t small clubs, and surprisingly, he also said, “they knew the words to our songs!” European fans are different.
“The one show we did in Antwerp last year, a guy comes up to me and he’s got multiple set lists of mine he’s acquired from somewhere and he’s got them in protective sheets in a binder, and all this memorabilia and he wanted me to sign a bunch of stuff. People are really intense over there. They’re really passionate. Everything is so close people come to multiple shows,” said Zachary.
“The first time we went to Belgium (in 2017) we went to a random town. We got there on a Tuesday night and the place was full. I kind of went like, “What in the hell?” People are just really passionate about supporting the arts and culture over there. Also, folk and country music is having a kind of a renaissance too. There seems to be a fascination with the American West so this music is kind of working.”
While this isn’t Top of the Pops kind of success, yet, it has to make one feel good people on other continents want to hear your music, and closer to home more people than imagined are catching on. But, it didn’t happen overnight, Zachary has been working as a musician for a long time.
“I just realized I had to spend a little bit more time doing this. I think I gave myself ten years, “I’ll do this until I’m 30 and see what happens.””
“I’m 35 now and still kind of going so maybe I’ll do it until I’m 40. I don’t know if anybody decides if they want to do anything forever. I feel pretty lucky that I’ve got to do it thus far. It’s charmed life, it’s a lot of work, but I still really enjoy it and hopefully I’ll get to keep doing it for a bit here.”
(Images Supplied)
