It’s difficult to break new ground when putting out a concert film. Farewell performances, shows oversaturated with special guests, half-documentary/half-concerts – pretty much everything has been done and done to death. That’s why when Scott Lucas of the venerable rock duo Local H decided to bounce around ideas for film on the band, he knew it couldn’t be run of the mill.
Much like Local H tours themselves over the years, he wanted it to have a hook – like when he’d have an audience member pick out of a hat before a gig the name of one of the band’s LPs, which would then be played in full. In that vein, Lifers: A Local H Movie, doesn’t necessarily reinvent the concert film wheel, but it certainly shines up the rims to a glisten.
“What I’m trying to do is just recreate this experience of being at a show, and not just the show onstage, but being there and listening to a couple next to you fight and break up or being at the bar and listening to somebody yell at the bartender – all those things,” Lucas tells Vanyaland. “Plus, the title Lifers. Yeah, it’s about us, but it’s also about the people in the audience. It’s about the people working at the club. And so, it’s just this thing. It is just this vibe, this sort of experience and hangout.”
In that respect, Lifers: A Local H Movie – which Lucas directed himself – does possibly the best job of recreating the atmosphere of a concert, missing only the smells and the stickiness of the venue floor. But when the camera goes to the merch table or steps outside for a smoke, so does the viewer. The music becomes secondary, a din in the background to the conversations that recall – quite intentionally – the landmark Richard Linklater flick Slacker.
“Nothing in the movie is really crazy,” he continues. “Nobody goes to Mars. Nobody is possessed by the spirit of some long-lost Swedish spirit or ghost. It’s just about what happens when you go to a show, you spill somebody’s beer.”
This Thursday (March 13) at Coolidge Corner Theatre, Lucas will be on hand to present a screening of Lifers: A Local H Movie, preceded by a solo acoustic performance and followed by a Q&A. He’s been touring around the country with the film, then the perennial road dog plans to take a paternity leave for the summer as he and his wife are expecting their first child shortly. Come the fall, it’ll be back to business as Local H will be hitting the road with Everclear and Sponge for a lengthy trek that stops by Big Night Live on October 21.
We’ve covered and done numerous interviews with Lucas over the years here at Vanyaland on a myriad of topics. From the time he was assaulted and robbed in Russia, to much more upbeat moments, like when Local H won the contest to open a handful of stadium dates for Metallica, including a show at Gillette. Strangely though, he’s never sat down for a 617 Q&A (Six Questions; One Recommendation; Seven Somethings) – until now.
Ahead of Thursday’s screening, we went deep with him about his approach to Lifers, why he didn’t like the new Led Zeppelin documentary, and what his favorite concert films are. We also tried to find out who the drummer is these days for Local H, as it’s been a bit of a revolving seat behind the kit – sometimes from show to show – between longtime drummer Ryan Harding and Ronnie DiCola from Chicago punk band The Arrivals. Adding to the confusion, the two have even both played at the same time. But like a lot of things in the land of Local H, things are anything but conventional.
:: SIX QUESTIONS
Michael Christopher: Why was now the right time to do a concert film?
Scott Lucas: I think it was just a lamebrain idea, and it was at the beginning of this tour that we were doing for Lifers [the 2020 Local H album] – it was actually the Lifers re-tour – this was all after Covid, and it was a situation where I just was trying to think of something to do. Maybe somebody had mentioned recording the [Chicago venue] Metro show, which was the last show. Maybe somebody mentioned a concert video or something, and everybody’s ideas just kind of seemed not big enough. I honestly don’t remember. But the thing that I do know, and one of the things I did not want to do was, it seems like everybody and their brother, if they’re in a band, has a movie about how their band started scrappy, and then they made their label records, and then they lost that deal and they went down, and then they rose back up from those ashes and their fans, what’s really important – and all that kind of stuff. Everybody has that same movie, and I was thinking if I were going to make a concert movie, what would it be?
And then this idea to make a movie that was sort of mixed with The Song Remains the Same, but instead of crazy fantasy sequences, it would be following Gabe [Rodriguez, longtime Local H utilityman and merch manager] and he sells merch or something. So, it would be, like, mix that with Slacker and this idea of a movie that, “What happens when you leave a concert, you miss part of the concert?” So, this idea that you could hear the concert in the background, but as a viewer you are missing it as well. We’re not cutting back and forth. You’re outside smoking cigarettes arguing about how we aren’t as good as we used to be and how we suck now. And by that point, maybe you’ve missed one of your favorite songs.
***
Did you have any touchstones that you looked to that you were like, “I want it to be something like this?”
Yes, but my main touchstone was not a concert film. It was a Taiwanese movie called Goodbye, Dragon Inn. The entire movie is these people sitting watching this movie, Dragon Inn. And so, these people watching this movie called Dragon Inn, and it’s the last night that this movie theater is open, and it’s not a packed house, it’s sparse, but the entire movie just watches people watching this movie. And I thought that would be an interesting idea for a concert movie.
How far out did you plan it as far as logistics? Because obviously when you’ve got a full audience there, you can’t just say, “Okay, let’s retake that.” You had to have everything done all at once.
Right. We had one shot. We had this one date booked at the Metro, and it was the final night of the tour. I knew we had to get it, so I wrote this script at the beginning of the tour, and I believe that that tour was maybe a month, possibly a month and a half. I was texting every day or on the phone or emailing every day with Felix Pineiro, who’s the producer of the movie, and emailing with the director of photography and everybody and trying to talk through the script and get headshots and cast the parts. Every day while I was on tour in the van, I was having production meetings, basically, via email. And so, that was the preparation the entire time I was on tour. That was the preparation and putting the set list together and writing a script around that set list and making sure all the characters in my head had something to do depending on what song it was.
Richard Linklater was a real north star for this movie because I knew that we would have one shot. So, there’s a lot of this following characters around and a lot of long takes. Slacker was this thing where you see actors and non-actors, and they’re together on screen and they’re interacting. And it creates this really interesting texture where it feels almost – it definitely feels unprofessional – and it has that nice, really lived-in quality. And I knew that if people got in the shot or if things happened, it would just feel this way where you could sort of blur the lines of, “Is this fiction? Is this a documentary? What’s happening?”
And it just became this thing: As long as everybody hit their marks, we would get some semblance of this movie happening.
On top of all that, you’ve got the actual performance. How nervous were you about being at the top of your game that particular night? Or were you like, “Well, if it bottoms out and we have a shitty show, at least it’ll make for something interesting.”
That never occurred to me. But many times, working on the movie and working on the audio afterwards, it was like, “Oh, damn. Thank God this was a good show.” Because again, we had one shot at it, and the movie wouldn’t have been anything. And it’s funny, I don’t remember feeling very nervous about the performance that night. I was so jacked about everything else that was going on, and between soundcheck and the start of the show or before the doors opened, I took the crew, and we ran through the script and we ran around the blocking of the entire building, the Metro. It’s got all these different stairwells, you just go around, and it’s kind of similar to The Paradise [in Boston], but it’s more cavernous in the back. And so, we would just walk around, and I’d take them through the paces, and we did that three, maybe four times, and then finally I was like, “Hey guys, I have to play a show tonight too. I mean, people are paying for that.” So, I didn’t really have any time to be nervous about that, to be honest.
Being such a huge fan of film as you are, what was it like not only directing but basically acting and performing in your first film?
There was at one point where we were running through the blocking, the camera blocking, and I was like, “Oh, I can do this. I know how to do this.” And that was a really exciting feeling. That was terrific. As far as acting, I don’t know how to do that. I mean, I have a few friends that do know how to do that. I dunno what they’re doing. I’ve done it before. We’ve done videos before, and that’s about what I did was I just did the kind of acting that I’ve done in our stupid videos.
What’s it been like seeing yourself up on a 30-foot-high movie screen at showings?
I mean, the first screening we did at the Music Box here in Chicago, which is basically, and this sounds stupid, but I mean, it’s basically my church, and I’m there all the time. So, to see that movie in that place, that’s kind of why I spent all the money to make this movie, so I could do that. And that was a real nerve-wracking experience, but it was great. Everybody showed up. It was packed, but I just had this crazy… it was those cartoons where somebody eats something hot, and their whole body fills up with that, and it goes all the way up to there [points to the top of his head]. And I was just full of heat the entire [screening]. As soon as it was over, it just all drained out of my body, and it felt great, but for the entire time it was showing, it was really, really – it was a nerve-wracking experience. But since then, every screening after that, it gets easier.
How has it been for you as far as seeing the audience’s reaction? Are you like, “Oh, they get it here,” or “They get it there?” Because I find that a lot of the filmmakers that I’ve interviewed over the years, one of the things they’re most nervous about is, “Are they going to laugh in the right place?”
Right. That’s the thing that I’m always the most curious to check out. Are they going to laugh, and what will they laugh at? And that’s been good. I mean, there are a few moments in the movie that are just – every single screening gets a laugh. And then there are some moments in other screenings that they laugh at something, and I go, “Oh, I didn’t realize that was funny.” And it is like, “Oh, cool.”
Do you hope that, even if it’s just in Chicago, that Lifers turns into something where it gets shown at midnight?
Absolutely. Lifers had its first midnight screening a couple of months ago at Music Box, and one of the reasons that I’m not going to let it go on streaming sites, is I want it to become, like, this cult movie. I want it to be the movies we grew up with, where if you wanted to see the AC/DC movie, you had to go to the movie theater and see it at midnight. And that’s what I’m hoping for. So, this entire tour that I’m doing of showing the movie at seven and eight, it’s really just a preliminary strategy to get it to be shown at midnights. I mean, it’s light on plot, it’s light on everything, but it’s heavy on atmosphere, and it’s loud, and it’s the perfect movie to show up to midnight buzzed and just hang out and watch the movie.
Speaking of movies that are centered around music, you are not a fan of the recently released Becoming Led Zeppelin.
No.
What was your biggest gripe with it?
I expect more from ’em. But I mean, that’s a perfect example of what we were talking about is like, let Cameron Crowe make a Led Zeppelin movie. I mean, he’s not going to stab Led Zeppelin in the back, but at least something interesting will come out of it. I don’t know who this guy is that they let make this movie, but he sure doesn’t know how to edit. And the questions were inane. There was nothing about it that I, as a crazy fan, got. None of it was for me. I assume if you’re a beginner, whatever, but I knew we were in trouble as soon as it started, and they’re playing “Good Times Bad Times” and nothing matches. It is a huge disappointment for me. I mean, I was really looking forward to it.
You’ve got a baby on the way. How’s that going to affect your touring?
I don’t know. We’ll see. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff that I’m doing right now that I’m trying to get done before the baby, so I can just sort of be there and take that all in, and then we’ll see what happens.
What’s the latest with Ryan and Ronnie? Fans seem to be confused about who’s the current Local H drummer.
There is a lot of confusion there. And I think you’ve known me long enough to know that I like confusion… so let’s just keep that going for a bit more.
I want to ask you about the vinyl. You’ve been reissuing a lot of the catalog. Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles? just came out. Ham Fisted. Is that going to be on vinyl later this year?
Yeah. You know what? It didn’t even occur to me. And then Bob over at Brutal Panda, they did P.J. Soles, and he’s like, “Well, you’ve got an anniversary coming up this year.” And I was stumped. I was like, “What are you talking about?” He’s like, “There’s one record we got to put out still: Ham Fisted.” I’m like, “Oh…right. So yeah, we’ve got a lot of plans for that, and I think it’s going to be cool. I mean, it’s not my favorite record of ours, but I think we’ve done something that should be pretty cool to sort of put it in a different light. We’ll see. We’ve got to get all the stuff together and see how it works.
***
It’s always kind of felt like the stepchild of the Local H catalog to me. So many people look at As Good as Dead as the first record, and it’s like they’re surprised when they find out there was another record before that. And some hardcore fans are really, really into it.
Right, right. I mean, there’s a certain thing about that record where there’s a lot of “no.” That’s what I think about with that record. I always think of that as a “no” record. “Can we turn the vocals up?” “No.” “Can we turn the guitars… make ’em less distorted?” “No.” “Can we sort of restructure this song?” “No, no. Don’t touch anything. We don’t want you to fuck with it.” It was kind of this idea that we were trying to make this indie record on a major label, and again, we were trying to make Zeppelin I, but the problem was is we were punching below our weight. We were trying to make Zeppelin I, even though I knew we should be making Zeppelin II, and Zeppelin I was over. If we were going to make Zeppelin I, we would’ve made it on an indie label in ‘90 or ‘91.
I know we could have done better, and I knew it right away. I knew it while we were mixing it, and I regretted it the minute that I knew it. And the minute I knew it was when I heard an advance cassette of Pony Express Record by Shudder to Think, and this is while we’re mixing the record so it’s too late to go, “Oh, this is what we should be doing.” And it was a real bummer. So, that’s how I feel about the record.
Are you a big vinyl guy yourself?
I am. I’m not insane, but I don’t listen to music at home unless it’s on vinyl. That’s pretty much all I’ll do, but I don’t mind; when we’re in the van, I listen to Apple Music. I’m not bringing a record player in the van. [laughs]
Are you surprised that As Good as Dead and Pack Up the Cats, for so long, people were like, “They’re so expensive on vinyl,” and they finally got repressed, but they’re all sold out again and going for, like, 200 bucks a copy on Discogs or whatever.
Yeah, I really hate that. I would just say to people, “Hold on.” Next year is another anniversary for As Good as Dead. I’m sure somebody will do something with it. I think everything’s too much these days, but that is way too much.
:: ONE RECOMMENDATION
It’s going to have to be a band. I’m really into this band called Tuff Sudz. They’re from Chicago, and I think they’re great. They put out their first record at the end of last year, and it’s amazing. I mean, I listen to it all the time, and yeah, they’re awesome, and I think they’re going to be big. Check ’em out.
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:: SEVEN OF SOMETHING
Give me your seven favorite concert films of all time.
Are there seven good concert films? [laughs] No, I think I can do this…
The Bob Dylan movie, Don’t Look Back.
Stop Making Sense. [Talking Heads]
Led Zeppelin, The Song Remains the Same.
The Last Waltz with The Band.
Probably my favorite is Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii. I’m very excited about that one because they’re remastering that for IMAX, and I could not be more excited. This whole IMAX craze, the fact that it’s spilled onto Pompeii, it makes it all worth it for me.
Looking around… oh yeah – dude – Gimme Shelter. What am I, crazy? Gimme Shelter.
And then, not quite Monterey Pop, but the Otis Redding [performance]. It’s called Shake! Otis at Monterey. And it’s 15 minutes, and it’s the entire 15-minute set. That is my jam. That thing rocks.
LIFERS: A LOCAL H MOVIE :: Thursday, March 13 at Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St. in Brookline, MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, $14 to $17 :: Event info :: Advance tickets
