Luke Dick’s New Album Lockeland Is Full Of Clear-Eyed Reflection, Out March 15th Via Virgin Music
Listen to “Shirt Off My Back” here
Lockeland features co-writes with long-time collaborators Miranda Lambert, Natalie Hemby, Chris Dubois, Jason Lehning and others
Dick’s latest co-write is the new Lainey Wilson/Miranda Lambert duet “Good Horses,” debuted live in Vegas in December
January 17, 2024 – The eight songs on Luke Dick’s new album Lockeland, due out on March 15 via Virgin Music, are snapshots of Dick’s life and journey as an artist, storyteller and human being — and, oh, does he have stories to tell. Born and raised in Oklahoma, the former frontman of a regionally popular rock band, philosophy professor and jingle writer is now an award-winning, chart-topping songwriter and producer who fell into Nashville’s country music scene; a filmmaker (Red Dog, a documentary about the gentlemen’s club Dick’s mother worked at when he was a kid); and an alt-rock bandleader (Hey Steve, formerly Republican Hair), in no particular order.
“It was all somewhat by accident that I have any success at all, and now, in retrospect, I’m like, ‘What a foolish way to go about it,’” admits Dick, discussing the album-opener “Shirt Off My Back. Co-written with Chris DuBois (Brad Paisley, Josh Turner), the song weaves elements of Dick’s life into a reminder to find contentment even if life doesn’t go according to plan.
“Shirt Off My Back” sets the stage for several songs on Lockeland, co-produced by Dick and Jason Lehning, that ruminate on the haphazard nature of how life, love and luck play out. “The Feather,” co-written with John Pierce, evokes Mark Knopfler’s “The Bug” while ruminating on the uncertainty of a new relationship (“Sometimes you’re the wind / Sometimes you’re the feather”). “Carrot” (written by Dick, Troy Verges and Chase McGill) funkily surfs life’s highs and lows with an even temperament, and “Some Things Happen,” co-written with Casey Beathard and Pierce, is a less lighthearted, more introspective take on the same topic.
“I don’t want to call anything in my life a failure, and I hope that’s not rationalization, but these relational doors or creative doors shut and other ones open. Trying to see transitions as positive movement in life and trying to make transitions be positive movement for growth and happiness, that is what ‘Some Things Happen,’ to me, represents,” Dick says. “It’s easy to feel the end of something as being a failure, but if you’re evaluating it and evaluating yourself and being intentional about the end of something as being an opening for something that’s more authentic to you, this is just a process of life and a process of being human.”
“True Companion” finds Dick more secure in that relationship, marveling at the incredibility of finding the person you’re meant to walk through life with. “Yes, the song is about traveling to places, but it’s also about traveling through the universe together,” Dick explains. “It feels miraculous.”
Dick, Miranda Lambert and Natalie Hemby wrote “True Companion” during sessions for Lambert’s Palomino album. “There’s a connection there with Natalie and Miranda, where we’re out here doing our lives individually, but we come together through song and music, and then we’re rooting for each other as we’re doing our own thing,” Dick says. “It’s a special connection to have creatively.”
Lambert is only one of dozens of country artists for whom Dick has written songs. One of Nashville’s most respected songwriters, Dick regularly works with Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and Jackson Dean, and has written songs recorded by Brothers Osborne, Kacey Musgraves, Kip Moore and others. He’s been nominated for Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association and Grammy awards for his work, and songs written or co-written by Dick amassed 265.2 million streams on Spotify in 2023. Dick is a co-writer on the new Lainey Wilson/Miranda Lambert song “Good Horses,” which the pair debuted in Las Vegas last December.
“Being a songwriter is being respectful of every person’s walk and every person’s art and every person’s journey,” Dick says. “But country music has this thread of value — it’s just the words that get different — and finding a way for me to be at that is the challenge that I’m privileged to be at the table of.”
A self-described Swiss Army knife, Dick sings and plays almost every instrument on Lockeland – including electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, pedal steel, percussion, keyboards, drum programming, mandolin, banjo. He’s joined by Fred Eltringham on drums.
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Download new press photo here (photo credit Kit Wood)
Download Lockeland cover art here
For more information on Luke Dick, please contact Rob Krauser at REK Room Media, rob@rekroommedia.com or 917.703.8361.
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