How Eric Church Producer Jay Joyce Helped Form Lanco’s Sound
In a music world of copycats and me-too acts, vocalist Brandon Lancaster wants his band, Lanco, to be different. And after working with producer Jay Joyce, the five-piece act think they’ll be able to record an album that the music world hasn’t heard before.
Rising on the strength of their recent singles “Long Live Tonight” and “Greatest Love Story” — two very different-sounding songs — the band is making a point to be outside of the box right out of the gate.
“I think as an artist, it’s cool to be known for something but you don’t want to be pinned down to any one thing,” Lancaster tells Taste of Country. “When a solo artist comes into the studio, some studio players come in, get a part— and a lot of great stuff comes from that— but with us, we have five guys who can make anything happen and we want to make sure that we explore all the possibilities before the final recording.”
Though this was Lancaster’s mentality when launching Lanco, it was further influenced by producer Jay Joyce, whose producer credits include Eric Church, Zac Brown Band, Little Big Town and a slew of other country music A-listers.
“One thing Jay’s good at is, an as artist, when you record, there are certain formulas you follow, like play these chords or make it sound like this,” says Lancaster. “But Jay is very big on taking a step back. He’ll say, OK, we can make any sound we want in the entire universe, what should we do? There’s a piano part? Well there’s a toy piano over there we can play it on. You’re playing your guitar? Let’s tune your guitar totally different and make it sound like this. You’re playing drums? I have a mini drum kit; let’s put it in the bathroom and see how big we can make the drums sound. Just having him be so creative and chasing a sound that’s different has opened our eyes to the endless possibilities in the studio.”
“We also live track the album, so Jay is big on getting the take right, not fixing it later,” adds Lanco bassist Chandler Baldwin. “We need to get it right, right now, and he’s good at bringing that out of us as players. You don’t know where he’s always going with his ideas and then a little while later, it just clicks. It’s a really cool process.”
Fans can already get a taste of Lanco’s eclectic songs on their 2016 eponymous EP, a four-song preview that contains both “Long Live the Night” and “Greatest Love Story.” However, Lanco currently don't have an album name, track listing or release date for their forthcoming full-length effort with Joyce. Even so, they’ll be performing these songs and more at major festivals this summer, including CMA Fest, Stagecoach and Bonnaroo.
“We want this last single ['Greatest Love Story'] to do as well as possible before we release the album,” Lancaster says. “We want as many people to know us as possible because we think there are a lot of Lanco fans out there that don’t know they’re Lanco fans yet.”