LOCASH is a platinum-selling Country music duo who are coming off a recent two-week number-one song at Country radio with their song, “Hometown Home.” The song is from their latest album, “Bet The Farm.”
I caught up with Chris Lucas and Preston Brust to discuss music, their relationship with Country radio and starting Galaxy Label Group, the label they launched last year.
First, I wanted them to think back to the first time they heard their song on the radio.
Lucas said, “We were in California driving. We had rented a car, and for some reason, I think we rented a Porsche. We were driving up the Pacific Coast Highway, and on the radio came “I Love This Life.” I couldn’t tell you the exact station. I don’t remember what station it was, but it was on, and we blared it, going up the Pacific Coast Highway.”
The duo has a relationship with Country radio that should be the blueprint and the envy of every up-and-coming artist. When they launched Galaxy Label Group, they sought out radio veteran and respected programmer Kerry Wolfe to lead the promotion team.
“We always wanted our own label, for many years. And we were on BMG, and things were going great. We were having success, and one day we were in a meeting with (Jon) Loba. He says, ‘Man, I kind of feel like this might be the moment for you guys. You’ve got the A&R skills, you’re artists, you have relationships at radio,”’ said Brust.
“He gave us the blessing to do this. So we walked out of BMG that day, and we’re like, are we gonna do this? Are we gonna launch our own label? And we did it. We started putting the team together, and one of our very first phone calls was Kerry Wolfe. He’s one of the first guys we ever met at Country radio, and one of our longest relationships.”
“It just felt so good, and so right. We had been writing some songs for a while. So, we had a nice pile of music to sift through and choose from, and “Hometown Home” kind of raised its hand and said, ‘I want to be the first single.’ And so we’re like, ‘ Okay, let’s roll.’ The next thing you know, we send “Hometown Home” out, and it was just received so well. It became a two-week number one for us.”
Putting it all together meant signing three different agreements to get it going.
“The journey was that we had to sign a deal. But there were actually three deals that went down at once. We had to leave BMG as artists, and we had to launch Galaxy Label Group. Then we had to sign LOCASH to the Galaxy Label Group.”
“So, three deals went down at once, and I remember our attorney came to the Grand Ole Opry. We were playing the Opry that night, and he walked backstage, and he handed us three contracts. He says, ‘This is it,’ so we lined them up across the table and signed all three deals in one fell swoop, and the rest is history.”
The band’s relationship with Country radio was forged with a huge assist from their first promo guy.
“Bill Catino was one of our very first national promo guys who really took us under his wing. You gotta go back many years for that. We were on a different record label way back in the beginning, and he flew with us to our very first radio visit. It was down in Miami.”
“He sat us down and said, ‘hey, before we go to this radio station today, I want to make sure that you understand your career and you understand what you’re doing’. He put in front of us the Mediabase chart, and said, ‘first of all, I want you to be able to read this. I want you to understand what everything means in your world’.”
“He began to teach us line by line what it all meant and how important it was. Who the PDs were and who the MDs were. From that moment forward, we had a very realistic look that these were gonna be our partners.”
“These aren’t just radio stations that you want to play your music. We are gonna work together for many years. So we created real relationships with each and every person that we could. They wanted to know about our lives, and we wanted to know about theirs. We developed long-lasting friendships.”
The technical Gods were not working in our favor, and we lost the connection with Lucas, but Brust and I soldiered on.
CMA Awards are coming up. Not to put Brust on the spot, but I believe that they have been overlooked for some time now and that this should be their year.
“We’ve just tried to work our butts off and show up every day. And try to put out good songs. And like you said, about the relationships, and the pieces will fall where they fall. Sometimes we get nominated, and sometimes we don’t, and it is frustrating sometimes.”
“You gotta put your head down, and keep working. It’s not easy sometimes when you wanna be in a category, and you don’t make it. But man, it feels great to hear you say that, and hopefully one of these years, it’ll be our turn.”
I shared that I was a fan of the Savannah Bananas and asked about LOCASH playing their recent “halftime show” at Raymond James Stadium.
“I remember we were up in Portland, Maine, and Chris got a phone call from somebody with the Bananas organization. Chris left the lunch for a really long time, and I was like, this must really be a serious phone call, cause he was gone for like a solid hour. He comes back from the phone call, and he says, ‘Man, the Savannah Bananas, that was them on the phone, and they want us to do a halftime show at Raymond James Football Stadium.”’
“Of course, we said yes, we couldn’t wait to do it. Chris played baseball a lot of his life anyway, so it’s near and dear to his heart. We both love baseball anyway, and the Bananas, so we flew down there and did the halftime show. It was so cool, because you know, it’s a two-hour show.”
“Right at that one hour mark, all of a sudden, with no warning, the announcer just says, 10, nine, eight, and they said, and here is the very first ever halftime show. We walked in from the center field, and it was just the coolest. The place went crazy, and we continued to do a lot of stuff with them.”
The band recently had a somewhat unexpected collaboration with Beach Boys Mike Love and Bruce Johnston.
“We were sitting around writing that day, and we had this idea for “Beach Boys,” and we just dove right into it. Jared Mullins is a really witty guy and a great songwriter, one of the best, and he says, ‘Man, let’s take the Country to the Beach, Boys.’ And so we were like, oh, we gotta write that.”
“We turned the song in, and our publishers were like, yeah, this is never gonna fly. You get a piece of “I Get Around,” and the Beach Boys are never gonna approve this. We were like, well, please just go after it one time, and see what they say.”
“And then the next thing you know, I was sitting in my driveway one evening, coming home from somewhere, and my phone rings, and it said, no caller ID. I was like, oh boy, it’s gonna be a bill collector. I answered the phone, and it was Mike Love on the other end. And he said, Hey, I got your phone number. This is Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and man, we just really love this song. Not only are we approving it, but what do you think about having us be involved with you on it? And we’re like, let’s. That sounds amazing.”
“We tried and tried to line our schedules up, but those guys work just as hard as us, and we’re going a million different directions. So finally, we said, all right, we’re gonna take the bus on our way to Texas for a gig. And we’re gonna go through Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the Beach Boys are playing tonight.”
“We’re gonna pull in backstage. We’re gonna set up a studio on the bus or backstage, and we’re gonna get those vocals tonight. And so that’s what we did. We drove to Tuscaloosa and set up a studio backstage. Mike and all the boys came in and laid down their parts. And the rest was history.”
Next up for LOCASH is the single “Wrong Hearts,” which is now at Country Radio.
“’Long Hearts’ is off to the fastest start in our career. We’re really excited about it. We’ve almost got a hundred stations on in just five or six weeks already.”
“That’s a big deal for us. We had our biggest add day of our career. And then the second and third goals are to get to a hundred. It’s kind of like a race to a hundred. Just get to a hundred stations because there are 159 reporters. We roll up our sleeves and work from there.”
“So all the goals are happening faster than they’ve ever happened for us. And that just goes to our team. Our team is just so great.”
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Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
