Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.

I'm Rhett Miller.

Ben Nichols off, we started up and we ain't going to starve. I said like you. I could have not. That's when they got wheels off. Ben Nichols band Lucero is a great band.

They're a great live band, which is particularly heartbreaking in the current pandemic era,

because a great live band has no place to play anymore.

Ben spoke to me via Zoom, obviously, from his home in Ohio.

His band is Memphis-based, so he has been able to go down a few times and do streaming gigs

from venues in Memphis with Lucero. They've got a brand new record that's in the process of coming out right now.

I loved talking to him because it's funny.

He's one of those guys.

He's just on stage.

He's so big and scary almost.

You know, he's like this larger than life, rock and roll dude.

But, of course, he's a sweetheart.

And he had a lot of great wisdom. I'll tell you right now,

before you start the podcast, that there were three or four moments where somebody's Wi-Fi went sideways for about one to two seconds each. A couple of them were in the middle

of answers that I really wished we could have heard clean, but guys, we're all in the same

stupid boat, right? So I think everybody understands when you hear a little bit of robot voice,

just give it about, like I said, one or two seconds,

and he'll be back to Ben Nichols

with his gravelly cool rock star voice.

He really is a cool dude.

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