Premiere: Austin Lucas' City Winery NYC Cellar Session

Austin Lucas returns to his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana,—both creatively and physically—with his seventh studio album, Immortal Americans. Written after a tumultuous period that found him getting sober, supporting his partner through a battle with cancer, and breaking up with his longtime record label, Immortal Americans is a clear-eyed album for murkier times, rooted in stripped-down heartland rock songs that find the artist reflecting upon the changes in both his hometown and himself.

Earlier in November, Austin Lucas stopped by NYC's City Winery where he performed three of the album's songs for an intimate Cellar Session held in the Winery's barrel room. Rooted in impactful lyricism, "The Shadow and Marie", "Killing Time," and "A Shallow Inland Sea" reveal the singer-songwriter at his most honest and vulnerable, dealing with darkness, yet finding the light in a life worth living.

Austin provides insight into the tracks

"Killing Time":
​I wanted to write a country song that challenged gender stereotypes. I’m a cisgendered white male of Jewish ancestry who fully passes as a blue-eyed gentile boy. As a result, I have been in the room with people when they have said heinous and racist shit about my people and many others. When I spoke up, I was abused myself and when I said nothing, I felt guilt for keeping my mouth shut. As a result, I’ve fought for my whole life against racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic assholes and it’s not ever been easy. I was also short and a bit feminine compared to most of the men and boys I grew up around. I let myself get wrapped up in a lot of guilt from not being as much of a “man” as I thought I was supposed to be. This song is about escaping to drugs and alcohol because of the fear, anger, and guilt that came from those experiences.

"The Shadow and Marie":
I discovered a lump in the left breast of my former partner, Missy Marie on the night that we met. What occurred very quickly after was a drastic change in both of our lives. I may have saved her life, it certainly was extraordinarily lucky that I found it. Once we started dating the focus on getting her healed sort of saved my life though as well. I was really coming out of a very difficult time and finding the strength to be her rock and caregiver also gave me a lot of strength to get through what I was going through. I wrote this song for her, to remind her of how alive she is and about how beautiful she was to me, even though chemotherapy had sapped her of energy, taken her hair, and surgery had cut away her breasts. She was still so vital and lovely to me and I hoped to tell her so in the best way I knew how. She’s now one-year cancer free and I think this song still helps remind her of the struggle she went through and how much stronger it made us both.

"A Shallow Inland Sea":
This is a reflection on youthful love and idealism from the perspective of a grown person. It’s about how everything can fade away when you’re in the arms of a lover.

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