LANCO burst onto the country music scene with their 2017 breakout hit, ‘Greatest Love Story,' a multi-week No. 1 anthem that captured the raw emotions of a genuine relationship. Their debut album, ‘Hallelujah Nights,' debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums Chart in 2018, making them the first country band in a decade to achieve that milestone. Known for heartfelt storytelling and a distinctive sound that blends country and rock, the band has toured internationally and won fans worldwide.
Despite facing challenges in the evolving country music landscape post-pandemic, LANCO remains steadfast in their artistry. Their sophomore album, ‘We’re Gonna Make It,' is a testament to resilience, offering 14 tracks that explore themes of love, loyalty, and perseverance. With vivid storytelling and a sound uniquely their own, Brandon Lancaster and his band continue to forge a path as authentic country-rock troubadours. We were thrilled to catch up with Brandon recently to talk all about it.
Thank you for your time today Brandon, I know how busy you must be post-album release week!
We've had a crazy weekend with the album release but that's a good problem to have, right? Friday we did the Opry, Monday was a Whiskey Jam thing – it's been a lot but we've enjoyed it!
Congratulations on ‘We're Gonna Make It.' It's such a good album and I'm so pleased for you guys that it's finally out in the world.
Thank you – us too. It's been a long time coming. (laughing) It's a project that we are very proud of. If you are going to take that long working on your sophomore album you've got to hope it's worth it when it comes out!
We last spoke in 2019 when you came over to the UK to play the Long Road festival and that's six years ago now. I'm not sure where the time has gone.
Trust me, that's a phrase we say to ourselves fairly often! (laughing) We actually had a song that didn't make the record, that might be on any deluxe version a bit further down the line, called ‘Time' and that kinda talks about how quickly it slips away.
Sometimes that Long Road feels just like it was yesterday and then sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror and think about all the things that have changed in your life since then and you realise just how long ago it was!
I guess the pandemic hasn't helped in terms of robbing us all of a couple of years.
Definitely. The weirdest thing about the pandemic is that it messed up time. There was this weird blip where the calendar and your watches kept moving forward but you kept living the same old life every single day. I think it's taken 2-3 years to really fully come out of it. It's wild that we haven't been to the UK since 2019, that bothers us.
I'm sure you'll be back here this year or at least next on this next phase though……….?
Right now we just had a meeting with our team to figure out how best to tour the USA and then we'll switch right over to the UK, Canada and Australia. We're very fortunate to have a fan base that spans multiple countries – we love the UK and the fans there, it's heartbreaking to us how long it has been since we've been there.
You must have gone through a range of emotions in the last five years about getting this sophomore album out. Was there ever a time when you thought the second album wasn't ever going to happen?
Yeah, 100%. I was almost sure of it at one point. (laughing) We actually had a second album pretty much ready to go by 2020 and then a bunch of things went on in the industry and in our own business around the label and the partners we were with for that album that meant that it didn't work out. Then years go by and it's not necessarily who you are anymore sonically or in your lives.
I would have been proud of any second album that we would have released in 2020 or 2021 but by the time 2023 rolled around it wasn't really where I was at in my life anymore. And then you start over but then you have to start over with everything. If it wasn't for us being a band and keeping each other accountable and supporting each other when times were down I'm not sure we'd have got through it intact. There were definitely times I didn't think it was going to happen but it's a testament to just how stubborn we are that it finally did! (laughing)
You did release some great songs in the years between the albums. I liked ‘Honky Tonk Hippies.' I really liked ‘Near Mrs.' Will those songs still be part of your live set going forward or have you moved on from those songs now?
‘Honky Tonk Hippies' was an odd one for us. ‘Near Mrs' would have definitely been on that second album that we had ready but once we realised that second album wasn't coming out we had to pivot.
We tried to respect the quarantining in the pandemic as much as we could and so we went a long time without playing together or playing any shows. What we could do, however, was safely get together in a studio in Muscle Shoals and play together. We went down there just to play together as a band and have fun – ‘Honky Tonk Hippies' was born out of that – this little Rock /n/ Roll Country band we became during the pandemic. We still play ‘Near Mrs' in the live set – that got a good response from the fans, just like ‘What I See' did, we play that one all the time. ‘Near Mrs' is a good opportunity for us to showcase that I can play piano so I like playing that one! (laughing)
The title of the new record, ‘We're Gonna Make It' is quite a defiant title although it can have multiple interpretations, is that why you chose it as the title?
Interestingly, we wrote it early in the process of putting this album together but we didn't record it and so it was one of the last songs recorded in the end. It works well as both an album opener because it's a rocking song, and as the title. We didn't quite appreciate what we had with it until we had pretty much finished the record – we went back and listened to the demo and I was, like, ‘We should record this song because it kinda encapsulates everything that we have been saying on the record.'
When we heard the through-thread of hope and hard times on the album we knew that ‘We're Gonna Make It' represented the album as a whole – that search for faith and family and leaning on those things in hard times became the whole theme of the album.
Even the album's one heartbreak song, ‘Leaving Looks Good On You' is handled and presented in a positive way!
(laughing) It's interesting because Country music goes through this pendulum that you can see swinging once you have been in the industry long enough. You mentioned in your review of the the album that the industry was driven by Bro Country in 2017 when ‘Greatest Love Story' came out and we didn't really sound like any of those guys and now, the pendulum has swung towards guys like Morgan Wallen, Nate Smith and Bailey Zimmerman, guys who I am friends with and who I respect a great deal, but we don't sound like them either!
Heavy heartbreak and sad Country is popular and very ‘in' right now. Sadness. Break Up. That's cool because that's what, traditionally, Country music has always been about but for me, as a writer, when I am writing a song, it's kinda like a therapy session. When times are hard or you are going through a heartbreak or a tough time in your life I don't love to live in that space for too long, personally. I acknowledge it and am realistic about it but I'm the kind of person who looks towards the light at the end of the tunnel and works towards achieving that, which is reflected in our writing and our songs, I think.
In ‘Leaving Looks Good On You' we are acknowledging that sometimes things just don't work out and there can be a freedom and a rejoycing of what you achieved even when something has come to an end and it's time to move on and let it go. Even in the heartbreak there is always something worth celebrating, that's who we are as a band.
You didn't sound like anything that was on the radio back in 2017 and you still don't now! Is that a positive thing or does it work to your detriment?
Both. (laughing) We are talking with the label about radio right now. It's not always easy for our team who has to work our songs at radio – they couldn't pitch us back in 2017 by simply saying, ‘they sound like Florida Georgia Line,' right? And they can't pitch us now by saying, ‘oh, they sound like Morgan Wallen!'
My only problem with that approach is that exact same sales pitch is happening a thousand times a day across radio. It's the easiest sales pitch to make, right, ‘They sound like Morgan Wallen.' I've talked to songwriters across Nashville who say that every guy that turns up in their rooms plays them a Morgan Wallen song and then says, ‘I need a song that sounds like this.' In the long run, Morgan Wallen did it, he's selling out stadiums and I'm proud of him for that but there isn't going to be another Wallen – I'd rather be the guy who says, ‘hey, if you want something a little different, here's a great song.' I don't want to sound like 15 other artists all pitching to some radio director somewhere who all just the sound the same in a busy, crowded market.
So a song like ‘Come Over' on the album fits that description to me. It's got a poppier feel to it but still has a good old Country music bait-and-switch twist in the lyrics when you realise it's not just a booty call. A song like ‘You'll Always Be' would also work at radio I think. I don't know how you choose.
(laughing) You should come on the calls with the record label because we feel the same! It is tough to choose. Before, in the older model, you'd put out a song to radio and live and die on that one song but things are different now in terms of you can put multiple songs out, record a number of videos and then let people tell you what they think works before you go to radio.
We're watching our inboxes and social media right now to see what people are enjoying. ‘Come Over' – there was definitely a time when we thought that could have been a single. ‘You'll Always Be,' hands down was up for consideration as a single but I'll say this – I still don't know what the single to radio will be, but ever since we put out ‘We Grew Up Together' a lot of people are telling us that this could be the next ‘Greatest Love Story.' People are telling us that ‘We Grew up Together' feels like the second part of the story that we began on ‘Greatest Love Story.'
My favourite lyric on the whole album comes on ‘Million Dollar Memory' when you sing, ‘you can't put a price on a warm fire and the right song.' I find that such an evocative image. Do you have any favourite lyrics or phrases from the new album that you're really proud of?
They are all my babies so it's hard to pinpoint a line or a verse in particular but I do love the part in ‘Low Class Lovers' when we are playing it live and it's rocking and then it slows down and I sing, ‘Baby, baby, hold me closer tonight, and maybe they will see what their money can't buy.' I love that moment in the show and I love that moment on the record. There's such an overwhelming barrage on social media and in life in general of people showing off about their lives and advertising their achievements, you know? It can make you feel like you are not good enough or can put pressure on you to always be chasing the next thing – whether thats money, fame or happiness.
In Nashville you can't even go out to eat without running into someone that is doing better than you or has more money than you. I live next door to an artist who has had two back-to-back number ones who, when we started this record, was an unknown! (laughing) You can look around at what everyone else is doing or you can look at what you have achieved yourself and what is dear and meaningful to you and so that part in ‘Low Class Lovers' always grounds me in gratitude – it's a special moment for me as a writer.
‘Low Class Lovers' is one of the best songs on the album. I can hear Springsteen in there, The Killers, and the reference to The Wallflowers in the song is not lost on me either. What other artists have influenced you over the years to bring you to this place, as a writer, where you are now?
The most influential genres have been Rock and Country. I don't want to say that The Wallflowers were before my time (laughing) but I discovered them by finding Jakob Dylan first via a solo album of his and I worked backwards from there. I'm a big fan of Bob Dylan and his lyrics. I love Springsteen, Tom Petty and that kind of heartland America rock. That mid-west, iron belt, blue collar stuff that Country is also about, just with louder guitars.
In Country, I love storytelling and harmonies, so I love Alabama. I'm from Tennessee and Alabama sounds like the soundtrack of my life growing up in a small southern town. Brad Paisley's songwriting has always appealed to me, his penmanship. Jason Isbell too – that Americana / Folk thing always appeals to me. I'm all over the place!
What's the touring plans for 2025? Is it more beneficial at this point in your career to play your own headline shows or would it be better to get on a huge arena tour as direct support?
Good question. And that's something that we, as a band, haven't quite yet resolved. Every time we get offered a tour we have to sit down and talk about that. In 2019 we toured with Miranda Lambert, Luke Combs and Dierks Bentley but it got to a point where only playing 25 or 30 minutes a night became unsatisfying. Don't get me wrong, we loved being on those tours – they were some of the most fun times we've ever had as a band and all three of those artists were so good to us, but it wasn't lost on me that everyone would be leaving those arenas each night singing their songs! (laughing)
When we started headlining we felt that we were building our own fan base and creating the whole night around our own music but I will say that, in 2025, I'm not ignorant to the fact that it's been a few years, now, since we've been on the scene. We need to re-introduce ourselves to a lot of new country music fans and remind others that we are still a band and are still making music. We are playing some headlining shows in February where we can give our hardcore fans 90 minutes to two hours worth of us and everything we've got and then I would love to jump on a major tour and get in front of 20,000 people a night across the summer.
LANCO's fabulous second album ‘We're Gonna Make It' is out now in all the usual places – go check it out.
