After selling over 10 million copies of seven albums, the guys in Lonestar could look back glowingly on their tremendous success with No. 1 singles like "Amazed," "My Front Porch Looking In" and "I'm Already There."
They could point with pride to floor-to-ceiling stacks of mail from grateful fans who professed how their songs touched -- or even saved --their lives. They had trophy cases overflowing with honors for their musicianship, songwriting and humanitarian work.
They felt good in knowing they'd spent the past five years at the very top of their game.
But they were driven for more. "Our main objective over the years has been to stay creative and make each project better than the last," says lead singer Richie McDonald. Keyboardist Dean Sams added, “We've been together ten years and have been lucky enough to win awards, have a lot of meaningful hits and sell a lot of records. But if you stop growing, there's only one way to go, and that's down and we're far from ready to go down."
The new album, Coming Home, finds them digging deep for new dimensions in their music, cutting loose with a new attitude of fun and pushing their performances into fresh new country-rockin’ territory. Hooking up with a hot new producer, Justin Neibank, the band enthusiastically discovered a new level of musical creativity that spurred them forward to edgier, more passionate and more energized performances than they'd ever given in the studio before.
The new album marks Niebank's first time to produce Lonestar, although he initially worked with the band as an engineer in 2003. "We worked with Justin on the Greatest Hits record," recalls Michael. "He came and engineered some stuff, and the sounds he was getting were a lot more natural. They didn't sound as 'produced.'"
They were sold instantly on Niebank when they heard a demo he had produced on his own "side-project" Southern rock band Britton Jack. The demo was for infectiously groovy, feel-good toe-tapper of a tune called "Doghouse." Lonestar heard it and knew they'd found their guy.
"The way he had the drums in-your-face, but there was still clarity to the music," recalls Richie. "Everything had its own little place. I said, 'That's what we need to sound like. That's the sound, right there.'"
For his part, producer Niebank started with a simple vision -- to capture in the studio the passion, edge and versatility of Lonestar's exciting concerts.
"I felt like they needed to move a little closer to what they were doing live," says Niebank. "I felt like the new album needed to rock little harder, be a little more soulful, maybe a little less technical and have a little bit more twang. Just feel a little bit more like a band."
"He came out to hear us live several times and really loved what we do," says Dean. "I think this record has a very 'real' sound. People will hear it and then hear us live and go, 'Yeah! I get it.'"
"We wanted to have a record that was fun, that was 'up' and felt good," says Niebank. "That's what their shows are all about."
Neibank's operating mode in the studio centered around creating an open atmosphere of collaboration and experimentation in which the band members could thrive.
"You hope to get in there and set up a great environment for people to work in, and that they're going to blossom," says the producer. "I wanted to create a situation where things just happened naturally for the guys. And I was really pleased to see that they totally took to it."
"We had more input," says Keech. "Justin was really open to ideas. I think there's a lot of our personalities on this album. You listen to it and you know there's actually some human beings playing."
"This is our jeans-and-t-shirt album," says Michael. "No pretenses. We're not trying to be someone we're not. We got a producer who really liked the way we sounded and wanted to capture it on record. And we wanted to wear jeans and t-shirts and look like we all grew up in Texas, because that's what we did. I can listen to the tracks now and think, 'That sounds more like us than we ever have.'"
In the studio, Niebank encouraged the band to contribute their own musical ideas, then turned on the tape and captured their enthusiasm. In a bit of a departure from some of Lonestar's previous studio experiences, Niebank brought a streamlined, less-is-more approach to proceedings, with fewer overdubs and less musical layering. He pushed the guitar and drums for muscle and drive, seasoned with countrified touches of Dobro and fiddle, and de-cluttered the arrangements to cast more of a spotlight onto the group's distinctive vocal harmonies.