Over the course of five years, indie-folk four-piece Lord Huron have grown from an understated bedroom project into a fully fledged band, complete with swirling and cinematic compositions that have garnered the group international acclaim.
Helmed by chief songwriter Ben Schneider, their latest record Strange Trails is a Western odyssey where dark country narratives meet atmospheric soundscapes.
“I think, like a lot of blues music down the line, we really rely on a lot of established musical vocabulary,” says Schneider. “It’s something we take a lot of care and pride in – referencing things without repeating things. It’s amazing what you can say just by recalling an old song or an old sound; all the connotations people have with old music and all the memories that it can bring back. It’s kind of like a shorthand that you can use to say more with the song than what you’re actually saying, which I think is a really beautiful tradition within the blues lineage.”
It’s this commitment to filtering iconic sounds of the past through a distinctly contemporary lens that has won Lord Huron the praise of traditionalists and revivalists alike. Their music straddles the line between old and new; familiar and strange all at once. Throughout it all, however, Schneider has refused to compromise his vision in exchange for a more digestible packaging.
“Occasionally we cause some confusion and frustration for people who like to classify things, or put things in neat little boxes,” he says. “But for us, the pleasure of it is just doing what we think is right and hoping people react to it.”
Following these instincts is what has embedded Strange Trails with the power to conjure such a strong sense of place, inspired by fantastic tales and adventure. It’s an album that attempts to translate visuals into music, painting a picture with a musical palette.
“The way I think about music is very visual,” Schneider explains. “When we’re rehearsing with the band, we talk that way too. When we are trying to describe what we want to do in a certain part of a song, we’ll talk about it in a visual way, and I think that comes through. It’s an interesting thing to do, to try and describe something sonically – it’s certainly something we’re striving for.”
While Strange Trails aims to push boundaries and look forward sonically, the album’s lyrics are rooted in the time-honoured tradition of storytelling. Songs such as ‘The Night We Met’, ‘The World Ender’ and ‘The Yawning Grave’ unfurl like chapters in a novel, rich with their own protagonists and a clear sense of narrative.
“Sometimes that can be a straighter line to the truth than non-fiction, in a strange way,” says Schneider. “I’ve always been really drawn to that type of song, where I can immerse myself in some kind of a world – whether it’s just a simple story or something more abstract that might not make literal sense to you, but you still feel like you can live in it and soak it up. Especially with our last record, I was really interested in writing some of those more straightforward narrative songs that have a really great history in country and rock music; tragic tales of love and loss and human experience laid bare.”
To bring these stories to life, Schneider and his bandmates holed up in a converted studio they had renovated themselves. For months on end, they refined and developed a musical world of their own creation. In Schneider’s opinion, it’s one of the key reasons why Strange Trails arrives as the group’s most fully realised project to date.
“We’ve had our studio now for the past year and it’s kind of become our clubhouse,” he laughs. “With our own place we had more time to let the songs hatch; to figure out exactly what they wanted to be and how they wanted to be expressed, and what funky sounds would help tell the story. It was liberating to work like that.
“We had no problem spending several hours trying to get just the right maraca sound, or just the right guitar tone. You just have to get it right sometimes. You hear it in your head and you just have to hear it that way. Getting those things right, those details right, really felt like an important part of making Strange Trails.”
In a short amount of time, Lord Huron have morphed from one man’s solo project to an all-encompassing musical endeavour. Five years on, their music has connected with listeners on a multitude of different levels. As Schneider says, that was always the aim.
“One of the craziest things I’ve noticed over our years of doing this is that different people get all kinds of different kicks out of our music. Some people who don’t love the recordings love the live show. Some people who love the live show love the recordings even more. Some people love getting lost in the stories, some people love just listening to the musical part of it. I can’t prescribe what I want people to get out of it, just as long as it’s something positive. I’ll leave it up to them.”
Strange Trails by Lord Huronis out now through [PIAS], and they playOxford Art Factory onWednesday March 23, andat Bluesfest 2016, Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, Thursday March 24 – Monday March 28.
