American Dreams: A Conversation with Luke Henry
Chicago indie folk singer-songwriter has vinyl release show at Empty Bottle on October 10
by Katie Ingegneri
Photography by Kristina Pedersen (except where noted)
Meet Luke Henry, well, for the second time at Houseshow: local Chicago musician, Midwesterner, Columbia College graduate, former intern at the Empty Bottle and former employee of Shuga Records, current employee of Thalia Hall, and Minbal studio engineer in training. Luke Otwell is his regular non-music person name (Henry is his middle name). Definitely someone you should get to know in the Chicago music scene, cause he is all over the place.
I previously premiered Luke’s songs “Cleaning Out My Head” and “Movies,” and now he’s self-released a full-length album with his band Rabbitfoot called “American Dreams,” which you can officially buy on vinyl for the first time at his Empty Bottle show on October 10, where he’s playing with Please the Trees and Big Syn. Luke was kind enough to give me a copy from the run of snazzy multicolored vinyl he had produced in Kentucky.
For an album that’s pretty much all DIY (as in made by Luke and his friends and associates on all levels, and self-released), it sounds incredibly polished, layered and professional, with violin, banjo, lap slide guitar and more. It’s an impressively cool blend of indie folk and country-tinged rock, which makes sense as the genre listed on the Luke Henry Facebook page is “Neil Young saved my soul in the 7th grade” — Neil Young filtered through a kaleidescope of particularly American/Midwestern influences in 2016.
“American Dreams” bridges across the various genres that Chicago and the Midwest excel at, from the folk and country music outside the city (where Luke grew up) to the rock n roll that many Chicago bands are making a national name for themselves in today. Luke’s music is smack dab in the middle of all of it, a dreamy blend of the city and the country.
Luke and I sat down at Longman OSB in Logan Square to drink and discuss our mutual love of bourbon old fashioneds (which I decided was a Sagittarius, being-born-in-winter thing cause I’m an astrology weirdo and our birthdays are a day apart), his new album and making it in the Chicago scene, including getting to know The Walters and talented photographer, designer & Houseshow contributor Kristina Pedersen, who did the photography and design for “American Dreams.”
Katie Ingegneri: You’re from Chicago?
Luke Henry: I’m from a smaller town outside Springfield, Illinois. Rochester.
How far is that from here?
3 1/2 hours.
You always played music?
Yeah, I started playing music when I was like 13 — played bass, then played in one high school band, which was pretty much a boy band, aesthetically speaking. But it was like the only band I knew to play with at the time. Went to college, found a band here called The Kuhls which I played guitar and lap slide, it was these two sisters, kinda alternative-country you would call it. Then I just started playing music and playing in bands from there, and started my own thing.
So that’s Rabbitfoot?
Well, the album, the way I look at it, was made with the band Rabbitfoot, but that doesn’t really exist anymore after this. My friend Tyler played violin on it, but I don’t know if I’ll ever have a violin again, he moved to LA. Drummer’s gone, banjo player, I don’t have a banjo player anymore — it was just era #1. They all played on the album. Greg and Nick, the drummer and the bassist, they still play with me. We’ve all been playing music together. Nick has another band called Ricky Mirage which plays tonight and I play guitar in that. So it’s all very incestuous and Nick and Greg have played music since they were in high school together, so it’s very tight have them play. They’re just really solid musicians, everybody I play with is, it’s a very come and go type thing.
So how long did it take you to record the album?
I think I was done tracking in 3 months, had it mixed and then done about a year ago and was just slowly working on it. You know Treehouse Records? I started it there and did all basic tracking there, then I transferred the tapes to ProTools at a different studio called Minbal with my friend Norman and we did all the vocals and overdubs there. Mixed it, kind of, at Minbal as well, and I did the rest of the finishing touches myself at home, as far as mixing. Then had it mastered by Dave Vettraino at Public House Sounds. He did NE-HI’s album and stuff like that, he’s a great engineer.
But it took a while, especially my part at the end, it took a long time. It’s always nice to be working with somebody else to keep you from going insane, like listening to the same song 10 times, that doesn’t do anybody any good. It was also just a very educational experience. But it didn’t really feel like it took that long. So I started it two years ago, and putting out the vinyl is a whole different process. It takes so long to get everything together.
Are you gonna do like tapes or whatever stuff, CDs for this album? Or you’re just putting out the vinyl?
I probably won’t do tapes for a while at least, cause I want people to buy the vinyl, you know. [laughs]
I saw Tim Nagle listening to it on Spotify and I was like oh, it’s out.
Tim’s the best. Yeah I kinda fell short with making sure people knew it existed, but I guess you put a lot of energy into something and then it’s like you get to that point and alright, you gotta work on something else. Which is a bad habit.
It’s okay.
I’m totally fine with it.
We’ll do that now with the article, so, it’ll get out there.
You’re with Rolling Stone, right?
Yeah, we’ll put you on the cover, people will know. You might need to press more vinyl. Where are you gonna be selling them?
Definitely gonna go to Shuga cause I used to work there, they have one of my test presses.
Yeah, they have a lot of local bands.
Yeah they’re friends of mine, and I’ll shop it around. Just selling it at shows, and when I go on tour, to have something to kind of fuel it.
Are you going on tour? Any plans?
No plans…no strict plans. I definitely want to, maybe next summer or spring. But yeah I gotta figure out what that band’s gonna be. I just wanna hit the road, I was on the road in New Zealand for like two months playing shows, and I would love to do that in America with an actual band cause I was performing solo. Acoustic. It’s fun but you get lonely out there, not playing with a band — they’re definitely there for moral support as well as sonic support.
And I feel like you have so many layers of sounds, and instruments in this album, I wonder how you do that live…
Yeah, you can’t. I don’t even worry about it. Like when you’re in the studio, don’t worry about what you can and can’t do live — for me, anyways. Some bands, it’s like that’s the same thing, but with this — I just worry about what I can and can’t do live when I’m on a stage. Cause you just wanna make music that people want to listen to, hopefully over and over again, that’s the goal of the recording — and then the show is put on a show with good musicians, make it tight, have fun.
So you play the same songs that are on the album? Or like a different version?
I do, I have a bad habit of just playing new stuff live, so whatever it is is fresh cause it’s fun to figure that stuff out live.
The record’s been out for a year, this is really the record release. Not to sound too corporate, but it’s kind of getting a rebranding as well. And the vinyls sound great, it’s more of an older-type feel and the vinyl really helps that sound hit home.
You can really hear the difference. You hear the layers so much more. Kristina Pedersen, did she do this [cover] photo?
Yeah, she did it all really.
Did she do the design?
Yeah.
Oh, awesome. Yeah she’s a homie, I love her.
I was happy to go through her cause I knew I could just hand it off to her and be like “do your thing,” don’t ask me any questions, just do it. [laughs] It was years in the making at that point, I was ready for somebody else…
To deal with it. Yeah she’s super talented. How did you meet all those guys like The Walters & Kristina?
Tyler, who played violin on that album, was Walter’s roommate. So Walter came out to some of our first shows and we’ve always been buddies, and he’s always expressed appreciation for my music and then he put The Walters out and it was kinda mutual. Danny I went to college with, Charlie, I dunno how I met him, through Walter probably. But yeah, we’re just friends and we’re fans of each other’s music. It’s a whole other level. [laughs]
I feel like your music is different than the usual [Chicago] garage rock.
Yeah I would definitely say folk, that album for sure. I grew up playing a lot of that style of music, a lot still, of playing guitar by myself is how a lot of things start off, a lot of finger-picking and stuff like that. I’d call it a singer-songwriter vibe for sure, cause when I bring it to a band I kind of know what direction to go in, I’ll play more than one instrument on one song and stuff like that. I mean, I play the lap slide, that’s totally a folk instrument, and a country instrument too. It’s not what Chicago’s known for, but at the same time there’s great artists doing the folk-rock-psych thing, like Ryley Walker and Jessica Marks and more that I can’t think of…Ty Maxon, have you ever heard of him? He’s one of the best solo performers I’ve seen in Chicago. That scene is strong too. I like both. I’m kind of a music whore. I like to write different styles of music too. The next album will probably sound pretty different than the next one.
Is this the one you were describing as “southern glam”?
No, that’s gonna be the next one. If that turns into an album. I’ve been working with another band recording stuff, so basically the process has been slow. I’m easily distracted.
It’s easy to be distracted here, a lot of the time.
That’s why I’m looking forward to the winter, when all the distractions are gonna be cold as hell.
Lot of overlapping scenes.
In Chicago, I feel like whatever you’re into, it does exist here. There’s also a great jazz scene, and obviously the hip-hop scene, and R&B, neo-soul…I mean it’s a big city, there’s so many different types of music. Just like what is popular now, what Chicago gets advertised as — we do make some of the best rock n roll bands out there today. So that’s why I kinda feel like that seems bigger here, but it’s all threaded.
The album sounds really good with all these layers. Do you know all the tricks from working in a studio?
This was as I was starting to get into engineering, as far as tricks I knew zero tricks. Barrett at Treehouse recorded the basic tracks. That dude was born to record music specifically on analog tape, which is what I wanted. People like that exist in the world, but they’re usually like 50 or 60 years old. So he could do that and was really good at it. So the basic tracks sounded great and it was great to put everything on top of. I did a lot of slide overdubs, there was a lot of overdubbing, a lot of analog stuff like reverb…there was a lot of cool sounds going in. I tried to not mix that up in the mixing, I think everyone did a good job. There’s a lot of layers, I’m glad you like them! There’s a lot going on in these songs.
It sounds really well-done for something that’s your first full-length album, and a lot of…DIY.
Yeah it is DIY in a way. We did it ourselves. Which is what DIY means. [laughs]
I’m looking forward to listening to it on the vinyl.
Free Monday at the Bottle, I really wanted to get that cause I’m tired of asking my friends to pay money and you want people to have money to buy the vinyl. It’s gonna be cool, I hope there’s a good turnout. There was a good turnout last time.
Chicago’s good, you meet a lot of creative people.
And rent’s cheap.
