“I think we probably wrote close to 75 songs prior to the first album, and we were constantly critiquing the music, like, ‘Well how can it be better?’ The song that really changed everything for me was Flowers in your Hair off the first album, it was like a light bulb went off where I was like, ‘I’m going to like this for the rest of my life, whatever this is, whatever this feels like, this is really cool, this is something different.’ I think that’s where it all started, and it was something that just we both believed in and it just came natural. “We wrote a lot of music together back then, it was crazy,” Fraites said. It may have taken a while, but they clearly discovered something very special. Last fall, they released their third album III which rose to #2 on the Billboard charts and sparked a #1 single “Gloria.” As 2020 hits, The Lumineers show no signs of slowing down, quite the contrary, their rise to fame remains stratospheric.įraites and Schultz’ simple yet powerful sound has become their own, their trademark, and they have worked very hard at it over their decade and a half of songwriting together. 15 years after they began their journey, the dynamic duo of Fraites and Schultz - along with their current Lumi-cohorts Lauren Jacobson, Byron Isaacs and Stelth Ulvang - have helped to redefine the sound of modern folk/alternative rock, selling out legendary venues and playing top festivals worldwide, even recently opening for U2 on their world tour, and developing one of the largest and most loyal fan bases on the planet. Well yes, those humble beginnings definitely did work out, for damn sure. And we’d move the rug and all the furniture and sometimes our roommates would come home and be like, ‘What the fuck, everything’s moved!’ But yeah, we did our thing and it worked out.” The Lumineers 2020 (L-R: Jeremiah Fraites, Lauren Jacobson, Stelth Ulvang, Byron Isaacs and Wesley Schultz photo by Danny Clinch) The song ‘Slow It Down’ off the first album is actually recorded in that house, because the amp was in the kitchen and Wes would play in the living room, and I had a little makeshift studio, and we would come home and do drum takes as if we were cutting Dark Side of the Moon, we’d take it really seriously. So we got a house with a couple friends, and worked menial jobs at bars and even in a sushi restaurant in Denver. ![]() “We thought if we moved somewhere cheaper and had little to no overhead,” Fraites said, “we’d actually be able to work on music more. Schultz and Fraites would eventually move from Manhattan, where living was too expensive, out to Denver where they could still work to make ends meet, but also find time concentrate on their music. That’s when we started writing music together.” You play drums.’ And Justin was like, ‘Not without Jer.’ Being the little brother of Wes’ childhood friend, my late brother Josh, Wes had never really paid me that much attention before, but they asked me, ‘Hey, do you want to start this band? The three of us, we’ll go out and play bars in New Jersey, bars in New York City.’ And that’s how it all started. “Me and Justin had been making tons of music without thinking about where it was going, and Wes was like, ‘Hey, I want to start this band with you, Justin. “Wes got back from Richmond and wanted to start a band with this guy named Justin who was a friend of mine too,” The Lumineers’ affable co-founder Jeremiah Fraites told me on a break from the band’s major world tour that stops at DC’s Capital One Arena on February 28th. It’s a caveat that just may have changed - or at least greatly enhanced - modern rock and roll history. ![]() The buddy said sure, but there’s a caveat: he wants his friend Jeremiah to play with them. Lumineers’ lead singer Wes Schultz returned from college and wanted to start a band, so he asked an old buddy if he was in. The band’s birth really was as elementary as a bunch of common friends hooking up and playing music in their hometown of Ramsey New Jersey, about 25 miles outside of New York City. Especially when it involves one of modern music’s most successful and popular current bands, The Lumineers. It’s funny how something so big can at least start, well, pretty simply. ![]() Support Good News Journalism, Subscribe >
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