Uncle Lucius Is A Band
And frontman Kevin Galloway does not want you to forget it
In 2018, Austin, TX-based roots rockers had Uncle Lucius broken up.
The split was amicable; there’d been no internal drama, no power struggles, or anything of the sort. It was simply time to move on. The band did a farewell tour, took a bow, and move on to independent projects. Each of them stuck around music, with frontman Kevin Galloway notably releasing a couple solo albums.
Jump to five years later, and they’re releasing Like It’s the Last One Left, the best album of their career. Somehow the band not only found their way back together, but they reassembled as if they’d never stopped, only with renewed energy.
The choice to stop the first time had essentially been Galloway’s, which describes as “a grueling decision.”
“There’s was a lot of burnout, 100 reasons,” he explained. “Having kids. Thinking about where it is. When I finally made the decision, I let the guys know and we had seven months before we knew we were going to do it. At the end, we had accepted that it was over. We were ready to move on.”
Galloway began a new era, releasing The Change in 2018 and Secondhand Starlight in 2022. He played a lot of solo acoustic shows while his old bandmates worked on various other projects.
“The only thing that changed,” Galloway explained, “was that we weren’t on the road.”
Then the television series Yellowstone included the band’s song “Keep the Wolves Away” in an episode and it took off, eventually going gold and then platinum. Uncle Lucius decided it was a good excuse just to get together and catch up.
VIDEO: Uncle Lucius “Keep The Wolves Away”
“We got back together to celebrate that ‘Keep the Wolves Away’ went gold. We were hanging out for three hours and time was passing – it flies when you’re having fun. We realized we liked each other and, man, the iron’s kind of hot. Should we consider getting this thing back together. should we get back together. We started the conversation, and over the next few months we realized we were all into and we’re excited about the possibility of creating new music together and getting back out there.”
Everything happened quickly after that. The band has been playing live since March of 2023, including a show at Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater, “a bucket list stage” the band had never played. They recorded and released the new album, made plans “to be off the grid and be writing” the next one in February, and scheduled dates from late winter through next fall, wrapping up in Europe.
“I tell people this is icing on the cake,” Galloway said. “It’s all extra credit. We got so popular after we broke up. It’s a blessing. There’s no expectation to it now. There’s more of a freedom to do what we want and be creative.”
Galloway thinks Uncle Lucius also benefits from the fact that all its members are not only better musicians now, but that they’ve “all matured” and become “wiser.” The group has also added a couple members, bassist Drew Scherger and guitarist Doug Strahan/ the group can pick up where they left off, putting a little twist on the old music, but they’re particular positioned for want Galloway is especially interest in: “pushing forward.”
Like It’s the Last One Left does just that. Fans will recognize the continuation of the group’s core sound, which mixes together country, rock, soul, and even some funk. Uncle Lucuis strengthens that base in both performance and composition. Particularly effective moments come on “Tuscaloosa Rain” and “Heart over Mind” when a string quartet accompanies the band.
“That was an afterthought, believe it or not,” Galloway laughed.
After the album was recorded, a couple of the tracks just needed strings, so producer and songwriter Hal Jon Vorpahl (who was a founder and original bassist for the band) worked with the Tosca String Quartet. That act had previously worked with David Byrne, the Dixie Chicks and others, and they fit right in. While Galloway was out of town doing solo work, the string parts came in.
“I came back in and sang over ‘Heart Over Mind,’ a song I’d written, but I didn’t like the vocals I did, so I knew I wanted to redo the vocals. After my tour I came back and the strings were already there and I was able to sit down in the studio and for the first time ever when I’m about to sing it, I hear the strings and it’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh – this is wonderful.’”
The strings fit these songs perfectly, which matches the band’s plan for songwriting.
“Our goal is to play to the song,” explained Galloway, and it’s a point he would return to throughout the conversation. “It’s all about what feels right, getting out of my own way. [We] play or perform to the song and try to be as genuine as possible.”
Each song might have a different origin, but takes a similar route. If a songwriter brings a song to the group, it has to meet with everyone’s approval (Galloway reiterates that “we are a band”). Once “everyone gives their yes,” Uncle Lucius begins the recording process. The song begins with a “layout, but [they] let it evolve on the studio floor.”
“Sometimes something cool can happen and you don’t want to limit it,” he explains.
In this case, Vorpahl had written a “whole stack of songs” and even created the demos for them. He and Galloway hung out and Galloway just listened. When he played “Civilized Anxiety,” Galloway was taken.
“Right away, I loved the feeling. I loved how different it was from anything we’d ever tried before,” Galloway said. “I also knew it would be a challenge for me. I never tried to sing a song in that realm and in that way, and I was excited by that.”
It took Galloway some time to figure out just how he wanted the vocals to go, even thinking about how David Bowie might approach it. The process led to some evolution, and even know the song, possibly the album’s best, continues to evolve on stage.
Instrumental “Draw the Line” was “just an idea that was sussed out by all the players while in the studio.” “Holy Roller” also found its true shape only once the band began recording.
“I had in mind these televangelists with Rolex watches and private jets,” said Galloway of writing the song. “They seem a bit disingenuous. It’s a rant at them and toward them. I wanted to open up and rock out… ‘Holy Roller’ really extended itself when we got into the studio.”
On a larger scale, the whole album came together with a thoughtful but organic approach. The band had “a batch of songs that came together and the cream of the crop rose to the top,” but turning those songs into a complete cohesive record took both intuition and meticulous planning.
“I think we have a subconscious intention to keep it balanced and we feel that,” Galloway said. “We just know by the feel. With the order of the songs, we had to put that across. Even before they were recorded, I already started on the order. I wanted it to feel balanced.”
For specific examples, Galloway points out how “Heart over Mind,” the album’s final track, just feels like the end, but more consciously he notes how the end of that piece’s music leads naturally into opener “Keep Singing Along,” a design that offers closure but allow you the formal structure to play the record “again and again.”
“We wanted to make a beginning-to-end album that was cohesive, and our intention and goal was for it to be familiar but evolved,” said Galloway. “It’s familiar to everything we did in the past. I think it’s better because we’re more mature and better musicians.”
Always thinking of his collaborators he makes it explicit: “We’re a band. It’s through the filter of all of us.”
He thinks about his listeners, too, and he has a message that he wants to get out.
“It’s been recently on my mind: 21 years ago 21, I finally figured out what I’m supposed to be doing and I gave everything up to go do it,” he said. “I’ve been doing it since. I just want to tell people, once you know who you are and what you want to do, just do it. Fearlessly. Take the jump.”
Many people might accept that idea, but feel limited in practice. So Galloway happily shares his own experience in pushing through, still looking for new challenges even as he sounds like someone who’s already learned how to do what he loves to do.
“I knew it was what I wanted to do, and I knew I had a lot of learning to do. I was ready for failure, but I also put myself in a place where I could surrounded myself with pros and had been doing it for a long time, and I opened myself up to learning from them, as well.”
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