Feelin Flush: Musically Turning Up The Heat, Southern Style

Sometimes, you just need a little help from fate.

Chuck Taylor, Lucas Hack

If not for his family moving from Indiana to South Carolina, chances are Lucas Hack would never have met Chuck Taylor. But destiny played her hand, and the band they formed, Feelin Flush has just released their first album.

Born of Southern and Classic Rock, Blues and American Roots, the new release by FeelinFlush features flawless guitar work, crisp vocals, imaginative lyrics and sweet melodies.

Since they began playing together in 2010, Hack and Taylor have worked toward getting their music heard beyond their geographic area. That part of their dream was realized last week, when their self-titled debut album was released.

A few days after the album went live, lead vocalist Lucas Hack spoke with me about the past, the present and the future.  

Kat’s Theory (KT) Lucas, How did an Indiana boy end up in a band in South Carolina?

Lucas Hack (LH): When I was in high school, my parents… they’re boat people and when you live in Indiana, there’s not a whole lot of water. So they wanted to head south and enjoy the ocean. I finished out school there (Indiana) and took one last winter, and said you know what, I want to go down south where the weather’s warm and where there are beaches and mountains.

KT: How did you and Chuck meet?

LH: It’s kind of funny cause me and Chuck used to run around years ago and the thing was, we both played guitar and never once thought of hanging out and jammin’ or anything. We just hung out with friends and one day it was just one of those things where it lined up, and we said“hey you want to get the guitars?” We had so much fun, it just kind of evolved into what we have now.

Cover Art by Chuck Murray

KT: The name Feelin Flush is also the name of  one of the songs on the album. Tell me how  the name came about?
LH: That’s actually an interesting process coming  up with the band name and when you’re writing  music. The song “Feelin Flush” is actually about calling in sick from work and going fishing. It  reminded me back when I was younger, when you  tried to fake sick when you were going to school, and you tried to get your face all hot and say “hey Mom you know I’m not feeling well.” And my Mom would always come over and say “well you are feelin kinda flushed.”So when we really sat and talked about it, that kind of embodied us because feelin flush is just a physical feeling brought on by emotion. And that’s kind of what we want to do in our music. And it’s got a southern ring to it, and we’ve got a little bit of southern in our music.

KT: That’s one of the things I like about it. I kind of have a soft spot for southern rock and southern blues. A lot of great bands came out of the south…even to this day. I just think they get it right most of the time.
LH: For sure, there’s so much energy down here when it comes to music, you know it dates back so far. I love it. I don’t even consider myself a northern boy anymore. I’ve been down here 15, 16 years and I call it home.

KT: Your bio said you and Chuck put a plan together to record an album. Well, the album is out. Question is: did it all work out according to the plan?
LH: Yeah, without a doubt. You know when we sat down and decided to do the album; it was more that we just wanted people to hear the music. That’s where we were at. We were sitting down writing these songs, and we were having so much fun and you have people stopping by and listening and getting excited.

We were doing acoustic shows and people were liking it so we were gonna do an acoustic album. Mike Martin (guitarist) from Stuck Mojo was going to produce it out of Atlanta, but it would have been too difficult trying to do the album and a six hour commute, so we decided to do the production of it here. There’s a producer Corey Plaugh, who lives here in South Carolina, he’s one of the best and he got on board with the mixing and mastering. We ended up with something we really love and we’re really proud of it. We are just excited to get it out there for everybody.

"Takin a trip to New Orleans,Voodoo Dolls and tambourines, I know you can, I know you can"

KT: When I heard the opening notes of “I Know You Can,” I was intrigued. It’s a really strong first release, showing off your clean, blues vocal and some sweet guitar work from Chuck. And, I love the imagery of “voodoo dolls and tambourines.” Give me some background on how you guys put it together.
LH: I was up one night watching a White Stripes documentary believe it or not. I’m just sitting there picking the guitar and Jack White had an acoustic session with these elderly people and the vibe of it was so awesome; it had a real country-southern vibe. So that kind of brought the chord progression on to me when I wrote it. But the song is actually about just trips to New Orleans that I used to take with my friends over the years. All the experiences. It’s just a fun place, there’s so much music and energy

It’s just one of my favorite places in the world. I tried to encompass some of the trips I’ve taken back, and some of the memories that I had there, and to bring in the music of it.

KT: The writing process between the two of you…it seems like you put up the building blocks and Chuck comes in with the nails and screws to tighten it up. How do you typically write together?
LH: I’ll write all the rhythm chords to the song and all the arrangements and the lyrics, then I’ll have him in and say “here’s what I’ve got, tell me what you think.” That’s the cool thing about the way that Chuck and I are able to get in each others' head. He’ll just jump right in and put his twist on it, and I always love it. He’s such a brilliant guitar player. We have a lot of fun and it’s hard to kick him out when we’re done playing. We’ll sit there and have a seven hour jam session. Play through two sets of strings.

KT: You don’t do a lot of cover songs. I’ve always felt covers were a good way to connect quickly with an audience; that it gives a feeling of familiarity with the band, and something to build on. Is it difficult at times, performing only originals?
LH: When I play my own stuff, all my emotions that I wrote into it, they come out through the song. When you’re doing a cover song, you’re really just re-doing someone else’s art. There’s some genuine (feeling) there because you love the song, but when you’re doing your own stuff, I feel like I’m really getting my point across.

KT: I hadn’t really thought of it in those terms, as the artistic versus the singing portion of it.
LH: Cover songs are something that have to be done though; it’s instrumental in gaining fans, so I’m slowly, slowly doing it.

 "Don’t you know that you will never see the sky fall again

The sun will rise for another day until I meet my end

Hey Mary why’d you leave us, your life had just begun

Don't you know that there are pictures left that still need to be hung" 

KT: “Marys Portrait,” a sad song about a young woman’s death and thoughts of what might have been. Where did you find the inspiration for it?
LH: Just personal experiences. I’ve had a few friends that have passed away that for sure, had a lot of life ahead of them. And, I think a lot of people have had that. Where someone maybe has left this earth too soon. Maybe that person didn’t realize how important they were to certain people. It’s an emotional song and it’s one of those songs that are tough to play through the first couple of times. You just get so full of memories. Chuck came in and he went through some similar stuff. I love the solo that he put on it, he really embodied the feel that I wanted. That’s definitely one of our more emotional songs.

"And I said, Oh no, where to go, I’ve been high and I’ve been low

Only I know where I’ve been yeah yeah yeah yeah

Said oh no feel real fine, let it run right down my spine

Time to get up with the Wren yeah yeah yeah yeah"

KT: My view of the album is most of the songs are not that complex. And I mean that in a good way. They are clean, uncluttered and catchy. “The Wren” for example, a song with absolutely beautiful guitar work is one you can easily listen to over and over. It’s down to basics. How did you make the choice to just let it breathe naturally?
LH: That’s a good question because we kind of battled that. We didn’t want an overproduced album. We wanted the vocals and lyrics to stand out. We wanted solid rhythms that people could get into and we wanted to have guitar work that is memorable. That’s the direction we headed in. With that song in particular, we wanted a catchy little tune behind it with the solo work, and we wanted the lyrics to stand. We try to play a happy medium and if we feel it’s too over-produced and too cluttered, we take it out.

But really, it’s about being able to play live what is on the album. If we have three or four guitars doing different things, it’s hard to pull that off. So we want to be able to give the listener in an acoustic show, the same sound they would get if they listened to the album with full instruments.

KT: You started playing guitar at the age of 24. What took you so long? 
LH: Well, I never thought about it. I was twenty four and it was funny because I’m doing my thing with my friends around town, and I’m looking around and they’re all musicians. And I’m like “how did this happen?” When I was a kid, I was a 90’s kid, so obviously Nirvana had some influence on me, I used to sit on my couch with a broken guitar and act like I was Kurt Colbain watching Unplugged. That’s how I grew up. And then I thought, why don’t I give this a shot? Let me buy a guitar and see if this is for me. I locked myself in the house for months just playing guitar

KT: And how did you decide to get into a band as opposed to just playing for your own enjoyment?
LH: I think with certain friends, you’re sitting around a campfire and the guitar comes to you, and you jam out a song and everybody goes “Hell yeah. You need to do something with that.” You know, you hear that enough and it’s 'ok, maybe we ought to try something to get this out to more people.' That’s kind of how it got started. I think I sent a text to Chuck and asked if he could play a solo to a Pearl Jam song and that was the first thing we started playing. So he came over, we locked ourselves in the studio for about six hours and jammed out. A year later, this is where we’re at.

KT: Your first album was released this past Monday (August 20). Describe what Sunday, the day before was like.

LH: Hectic. I’m doing some of the managing and a lot of the publicity work and social media. You know you have to be like a web designer. There’s so much you need to know about computers in this business now. We got the web site launched; we have a really cool team of people that are helping out. In this business, you need that. People that believe in your work, people that are gonna step up and help you. And we are grateful for some of the great friends we have.

KT: It’s hard to do it all on your own because there’s just so much to attend to now. Between facebook, twitter, reverb (reverbnation.com), there’s just so many outlets that need to be updated constantly.
LH: Absolutely, you know when I was younger and going to shows, bands that took the time to come and hang out with you and talked to you, those bands, if they come out with a new album now, I’m all over it. It’s because I loved those experiences. It’s a lot of work, but it's fun because you get to talk to your fans. I could talk to fans in London…Feelin Flush fans everywhere. That’s the cool thing about it. It’s an interesting time in music, I think.

KT: What’s lined up as far as live shows?
LH: There’s a place in Columbia where we do a lot of our acoustic stuff...Utopia We’ll come out and play some shows there. Right now we’re just trying to schedule full band shows and get the schedule for everybody cause the other musicians, the guy who did the drum work (Jeff Elmore) and the bass work (Jonas de La Sol), they also have other projects that they do, so they want to make sure they’ve got the time for doing some shows. I’m hoping it’s going to be lined up here in the next couple of weeks. We’ll be doing a spot tour of the Southeast: Charleston, North Carolina, some stuff in Virginia.  

KT: Take a minute and describe the sound and mission of Feelin Flush.
LH: I guess I’ll start out with our mission. Our mission is to get as many people to feel some emotion through our music as we can. To spread your love to the masses and let the people hear what you’re doing. And I guess our sound; we have a blues, southern rock kind of sound that really embodies the Southeast region. We’re a crossover into all areas. I think Chuck and I have had so many bands influence us, we even cross over into Alternative almost. And Americana…Roots. I think it’s an album that spreads across a lot of different genres.

Indeed it does...quite nicely too.

Listen to the Feelin Flush album here Feelin Flush

Feelin Flush Album Credits:

Lucas Hack (Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar), Chuck Taylor (Lead Guitar, Background Vocals), Jonas de La Sol (Bass), Jeff Elmore (Drums), Stot Juru (Strings)

Feelin Flush Links:

Website: www.feelinflush.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/feelinflush

Bandcamp: http://feelinflush.bandcamp.com/

Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/feelinflush

Twitter @feelinflush
Article first published as Feelin Flush: Musically Turning Up The Heat, Southern Style on Technorati

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