According to Schneider, the storyline of the new video is inspired by “the first installment of George Ranger Johnson’s adventure series of the same name. It chronicles Huron’s first encounter with Admiral Blaquefut and the beginning of their epic journey and friendship. We tried our damnedest to capture the themes and the spirit of the novel.”  But this isn’t the first time we’re meeting protagonist Lord Huron – we ran through a desert with him last summer in the video for “Time to Run.”

Lord Huron will join Tom Petty, The Lumineers, Jim James and more at the Firefly Music Festival presented by WXPN on June 21-23 in Dover, DE.  Tickets and information can be found here.  Watch the video for “Lonesome Dreams” below.

• Street Burnby The National Rifle from Almost EndlessDownload

California indie alt-poppers Local Natives may have already sold out their Union Transfer date in April, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy their new LP Hummingbird.  The band has made lead track “You & I” available as a free download on their Soundcloud.  The song is reminiscent of the band’s 2010 debut Gorilla Manor with it’s bright guitars and heavy drums, but slants the overall tone in a more mysterious direction.

Nashville’s Photo Ops (Terry Price) has said his goal when recording his upcoming album How to Say Goodbye was to pay homage to three influences – Paul Simon’s self-titled debut (1972), Dion’s Born to Be With You (1972) and The Radio Dept.’s Clinging to a Scheme (2010).  Price blends the classic 70s melodies of the Phil Spector-produced albums with the dreamy, lush production of The Radio Dept. effortlessly on the How to Say Goodbye.  Go here to download “Someplace.”

Each weekday in February, World Cafe will be offering a free download from recent sessions, forming a 20 song, limited edition sampler by the end of the month.  The first offering was 2012 favorite Lord Huron‘s Cafe take of “Ends of the Earth” off of their Lonesome Dreams debut.  Stream and download the song below, and check back all month to complete the collection.  Listen to the full Lord Huron session here.

Lancaster folk trio The Stray Birds came in for a Key Studio Session this week, recording  four songs from their latest self-titled LP and reaching back to 2010′s Borderland EP for “My Horses Ain’t Hungry.”  Thanks to their classic approach to folk music blending both catchy, invigorating melodies with more adventurous explorations of Appalachian-style compositions, The Stray Birds recently received praise from NPR and Folk Alley.  Stream and download “Dream in Blue” below from their Key Studio Session and grab the full set here.

• Dream in Blueby The Stray Birds from The Key Studio SessionsDownload

Lord Huron did an interview and performance on World Cafe with David Dye last November, 2012. You can listen to the session here. Below, download “Ends Of The Earth” from that session. The song is from a new collection of Cafe performances available for a very limited time during the month of February. Each weekday during the month World Cafe will offer one free song from a recent session. By February 22 there will be 20 new exclusive songs for you to enjoy. Here’s the catch: They are ONLY going to be available for the month, on March 1 they will disappear like Spring snow! Below, download the Lord Huron song; Go here to download tracks from Calexico, Allen Stone and others.

The Key: So where are you right now?

Ben Schneider: We are on an epic drive from Austin to Kentucky. Our van broke down in Kentucky a few days ago. We had to leave it there with most of our gear, and continue on with a couple rental cars for a few days. Our next show is in Atlanta, but instead of going straight to Atlanta, we have to go back to Kentucky, pick up our van, and then go to Atlanta, so we just drove through the night..

TK: That sounds like a major bummer.

BS: (laughs) It’s not that bad, we didn’t miss any of our shows, which is great. We’re going to get the van back today so we’re pretty happy about that, and I’m looking forward to finally changing my clothes, which sounds good.

TK: Where on your hand are you from in Michigan?

BS: Well I grew up kind of on the palm, but I spent a lot of my time, and my summers, up on the tip of the middle finger.

TK: Up where Lake Huron is?

BS: Yeah, exactly.

TK: It’s been a couple years since the release of your EP’s. What’s been going on? Has the album Lonesome Dreams been recorded for a while?

BS: Yeah. We’ve mostly been touring over the last couple years, slowly writing and recording the record. We finished recording the record in April or so, so just waiting for the label to release is since then. It’s been kind of a long process writing and recording. I spent a lot of time demoing it and then we went into the studio earlier this year.

TK: How has it been working with IAMSOUND?

BS: It’s been good, we took our time choosing a label to work with, trying to make sure we could find somebody we could have a personal relationship with and who would let us do what we wanted to do, and it has been a good relationship so far.
It’s a little weird waiting so long to put something out, I was used to finishing something at home and releasing it online that night, waiting 4 months for a record to come out has been a little frustrating, but it’s all good.

TK: At least you have been able to utilize that time. I can imagine there is a benefit to building anticipation before the release.

BS: Yeah, you’re actually really right about that. I wasn’t foreseeing it that way, but it has allowed me some time to put out other stuff in the meantime.

TK: Lord Huron started as a solo project, but has evolved into a band. Did you record the new album yourself, or did the band help with the recording process?

BS: Yeah everyone in the band played on it, so this time it was a lot more collaboration in the studio. I kind of demoed everything out pretty extensively and then when we finally settled on a label, we were able to go into a real studio. I then had everyone come in with me and we worked out additional parts. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

TK: Do you have any specific non-musical influences for Lonesome Dreams?

BS: Oh yeah, absolutely. I was thinking a lot about Westerns, be that movies, or novels. I always really liked those cheesy adventure stories, western adventure stories, anthologies of Western stories, stuff like that.

TK: Would you like to add a visual aspect to your live show? Do you have any ideas what you might do?

BS: Yeah, it’s something we’ve thought a lot about. At this stage we don’t really have the budget to do everything we want to do, which I think would include a lot of projection and lights, but we are playing right now with a backdrop, so we have a landscape that we play in front of that the lights can play off. It is kind of the simplest way to extend that visual element to the live show the best we can. Eventually we hope to incorporate projections and other things, but for now, with the size clubs we are playing, it is kind of the most practical thing to do.

TK: What was it like to shoot the videos for “Time To Run” and “The Stranger“?

BS: We ended up being in pretty extreme climate for both of them, but opposites. I kind of wanted there to be a theme running through them all, they were both pretty simple productions, for “The Stranger” it was just me, Mark, a couple cousins, my sister and my friends. We shot it with one camera and for Time To Run it was just us and some friend who went to the desert for a day, ran around and had fun. They were both kind of taxing physically, because it was really cold in Michigan and then I think it was about 102 out in the desert when we were shooting Time To Run, so it was extreme, but we kept it light.

TK: Do you have any new stuff you are recording?

BS: I started writing a bit, but touring will keep us busy for a little while at least. This Winter when there isn’t much touring to be done, I’m planning on heading up to Michigan to do some demoing and start to see what’s next.

TK: Now that you have established yourself as a musician, have you thought about moving back to Michigan?

BS: Yeah, I actually have. That is something I am really seriously thinking about. I have been out in LA for about 7 years now and I think it could be good for me to make that move.

Lord Huron plays Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 North Front Street, tonight with Night Moves. The 21+ show begins at 8 p.m. and admission is $12, more information the venue’s website.

Photo by Jackie Roman

The product of Michigan-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter and artist Ben Schneider, Lord Huron plays Kung Fu Necktie tonight. The band’s dreamy full-length debut, Lonesome Dreams, is being released tomorrow; below, you can watch the music video for its single “Time To Run.” The 21+ show begins at 8 p.m., admission is $12, tickets and more information are available at the venue’s website.