Lucas Hoge has come a long way since his first release in 2006, titled ‘Dirt.’ He may be best known to most as the star of former Animal Planet show, Last Chance Highway. Lucas also wrote and performed ‘If Only I Could’ for the show Smallville, as well as the theme song for previously mentioned Last Chance Highway. Following the release of his most successful single, ‘Boom Boom,’ Lucas released his newest single ‘Dirty South,’ a sexy smooth song that uses imagery as its main driving force.
‘Dirty South’ was co-written by Lucas Hoge with his good friends Troy Johnson and Jack WIlliams. The song was written on a farm just across the street from the Loveless Cafe in Nashville owned by co-writer Jack Williams. “With the river running right by the house and the trees in full bloom,” Hoge describes it as the perfect setting for writing such a song. With the setting just right and his good friend Troy strumming a swampy groove, Hoge describes his experience writing ‘Dirty South’ as very smooth and having a nice flow throughout.
Lucas Hoge grew up in Hubbell, Nebraska and explains that ‘Dirty South’ is a song he wrote in an attempt for everyone to be able to relate to, even though the title may say otherwise. ‘Dirty South’ is more a song about a coming of age down by the riverside. Hoge describes ‘Dirty South’ as, “very sexy, dirty, and kind of swampy,” which differs heavily from his past releases. ‘Boom Boom’ has a pop country sound while his previous work has been more a traditional country sound.
‘Dirty South’ will be featured on a full length album due out in mid-July. He describes the album as having all kinds of songs full of imagery as well as music people can easily relate to. “Whether it’s a sappy song, a song about a friend I lost in high school to you know, dirty south it’s got a lot of stuff for a lot of people.” Hoge says he still has not chosen an album title, but he also adds, “It’ll probably be dirty south.” Moments into my interview with Hoge he suddenly stopped talking and exclaimed, “Sorry man, I’m outside and there’s an F16 flying over right now, they’re actually in formation!” Hoge, being a great supporter of our armed forces was clearly stunned by the sighting.
Every year in May, for the past 8 years as part of the Wrangler Patriot Tour, Lucas Hoge plays for our troops overseas on a tour known also as Military May. Tour stops this year included Mildenhall Air Force base in the UK, Camp Bondsteel in Ferizaj Kosovo, as well as undisclosed areas in Indonesia, and two stops in Amman, Jordan. Hoge says of being a part of the Wrangler Patriot Tour, “I just feel so honored that I keep getting asked to come back year after year and play for them all and talk to them all. Just to take them out of their element for a couple hours. These men and women are the salt of the earth, the best of the best they really are.” He adds that its about more than going out and playing shows, it’s about getting to know these men and women personally, even if it means staying three or four hours after a show is over.
Hoge says there has been many great moments and some bad, even scary moments during his years touring overseas for our troops. There has been times where Lucas and his crew would have to take cover in a bunker as IED sirens went off while there were rockets being shot over the walls at the base. The great instances though, are what makes these bad moments worth it. Hoge states about his favorite moments over the years, “The great instances are where we’ll be sitting there talking after a show, and we’ll have someone come up to us and say thank you so much for taking your time and talking to so and so. We haven’t seen him or her smile the entire deployment, and they are up here singing and dancing like we’ve never seen before.” These moments are what it is all about, breaking the everyday cycle for the men and women of our armed forces.
On a tour such as the Wrangler Patriot Tour, traveling around the world to all kinds of military bases some being safer and more accessible than others, logistics can sometimes be a nightmare. There have been tours in years past where Hoge will bring along a full stage setup, but this year he says was more an acoustic atmosphere. Lucas describes a time where the helicopter he was on sort of crash-landed on a base in Afghanistan, on which he wasn’t supposed to be on and nobody knew they were coming. He got off guitar in hand and everybody was looking at him wondering what he was doing there. After explaining who he was and what was going on, while getting to know the Marines Special Forces, they wanted a show. So they set up a pallet in an open area for a stage, a soldier taped a mic to the top of his M4 and they hooked up speakers to the battery of a Humvee and circled him with Jeeps and the rest of the Humvees all of which had KC lights, which were used as his stage lights. Out of that Hoge was able to play a show which he was not scheduled to play for our armed forces over in Afghanistan.
Lucas Hoge says of touring in this fashion that it fills him with inspiration. He adds that when he is over here in the states with the rest of us everything seems great, But when he goes overseas that it makes him realize that there is a lot that we don’t know about and the media doesn’t show us. To hear the stories of all the men and women, Hoge says he can’t help but let it overflow into his everyday life and it makes him realize that him as well as the rest of us have it pretty damn good here in the home states.
Finallly, I asked Hoge if he will be touring over into New England anytime soon and he mentions of possible tour dates in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire. There are also tour dates in New York and Maryland, although not a part of New England these dates do land pretty close to us.
NECM thanks Lucas Hoge for his time, the interview and for all he does for our armed forces, as well as an extended thank you to our service men and women from all of us here at NECM.