Lucero heading back to Little Rock, home turf for lead singer

John C. Stubblefield, the bassist for Memphis' alt-country rockers Lucero, is doing what he has done countless times over the past 18 years in the band -- getting ready to go on tour.

"We'll load up the trailer and the bus and roll on through the night to Knoxville," he says late last week from his home in Memphis. The stretch will last for five weeks and will bring the band to the Rev Room in Little Rock, hometown of lead singer Ben Nichols, and a home away from home for the group.

"It was one of the first towns we ever went to outside of Memphis. We may have even caught on a little quicker than in Memphis, to a certain degree," Stubblefield says. "To me, as an outsider, it's always seemed to be a really positive, tight-knit scene. It's always felt good to be there."

Lucero formed when songwriter Nichols, who left Arkansas for Memphis, teamed up with guitarist Brian Venable. Stubblefield and drummer Roy Berry, Venable's Memphis underground scene pals, were soon recruited and that core quartet is still going strong.

"I've known Brian since I was about 12, going to matinee punk rock and hardcore shows at this place called the Antenna Club," Stubblefield, 41, says.

Keyboardist Rick Steff joined later and a two-piece horn section has played and recorded with the band over the past several years. For this tour, though, the horns are staying home, Stubblefield says.

The band's 10th album, the soulful All a Man Should Do, was released in 2015 on ATO Records, Lucero's home since 2012's Women and Work. Work on a possible follow-up has begun, as the band spent three days in the studio recently.

"We're getting started on a new something," Stubblefield says. "We went into Sam Phillips Recording service here in Memphis last month. We cranked out a couple of ideas that were a good start, I believe, fingers crossed, on a new album." The plan is to continue recording after this tour.

To break the monotony of life on the road, Stubblefield carries along an Orbea eight-speed city bicycle and likes to get in a pre-show ride.

"I try and ride almost every day," he says. "I try to get in an hour or two a day. A lot of times, we'll be playing in a downtown area and people will usually steer me toward a bike path ... I can ride for an hour in one direction and turn around and come back."

Opening act Esme Patterson and her band are touring in support of When We Were Wild, her 2016 album of rootsy, emotional pop. It's the singer's third solo album and the follow-up to Woman to Woman, an album of songs Patterson wrote in response to classics like Dolly Parton's "Jolene" and Elvis Costello's "Alison."

"We play songs from my last two records as well as the newest stuff," she says after band practice on a recent afternoon in Denver. "Playing live is so different from playing on a recording. The songs really have the opportunity to change and be more fluid."

Patterson, 31, grew up in Colorado, lived in Portland, Ore., for a while and is now making her home in her "sprinter" van, which she named Wynona.

"It's a really nice van, if you're gonna live in one," she says. "I got it last year for touring."

Before striking out on her own in 2014, she was in a folk group, Paper Bird, with her sister, Genevieve.

"There was always music in my life," she says, adding that her father sang and that she started playing piano before switching to guitar when she was 16. "I was listening to Joni Mitchell a lot. Her guitar playing was really inspiring to me."

Friday's show will be her first in Arkansas and this tour is her first time opening for Lucero.

"I'm really looking forward to it," she says of the Little Rock show and the tour. "We have a lot of mutual friends. It's going to be a blast."

Weekend on 02/09/2017