back roads is made possible by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th [Music] 2008 I don't know my own heart bab I don't know where to start babe I don't know if I could fly but I could try sometime [Music] soon you don't know who you are bab look at the light from the Star B they say it's gone before the light shines and bounces off the Mo now I don't mean to make it blue I just want to take your mind off it I just want to take your mind off it I just want to take your mind off [Music] I think we're living in a f state only way to love us through and if you need a ride you got to pick the to follow around now I don't mean to bring you down I just want take your mind off I just want to take your mind off [Music] it I just want to take your mind off [Music] it now I don't mean to pull you down I just want to take your mind off it I just want to take your mind off I just want to take your mind I just want to take your mind and I just want to take your mind on me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah my name is Luke LeBlanc I'm a singer songwriter my music is a mix of all sorts of stuff um but lately I've been calling it folk rock and I think that encompasses some of the uh Roots uh behind it but also some of the pop elements and The Rock elements and with me today I have Cass Balin on the bass guitar and Harmony vocals and Shane Acres on the doo some people have described as sideways guitar if they don't know what the doo is but and then I'll be on the guitar and singing and playing harmonica that's the fun thing about it is we don't really have a normal layout I I it just it depends on the show depends on the size of the space the logistics how many people can I fit in my Honda CRV I don't know today it was three so we got a trio if we're doing a show in town and we can have all the people I like to have a four or five piece band you know drums uh someone maybe on the keys or someone on electric guitar but it it all depends sometimes I play shows by myself I have some kind of idea mulling around in my head usually just starts with some kind of Melody or or some kind of hook I might be playing my guitar and just something comes along and start writing down some words with it you know when I first started writing songs I was about 11 years old when I picked up the guitar because it bugged me that I could listen to people's songs but I couldn't play them and then I could start playing other people's songs then it started bothering me that I didn't have my own song so I started writing songs so it it's really just you know letting your mind have fun and you know feeling a Melody writing it down the other part of it and I think the more important part is I just try to learn as much as I can everything is relative and you learn something new and you break new ground on something as soon as you do that you find somebody else who's Broken Ground you know five layers better and more than you have and I think that's just one of the things that keeps us all going and and when we're learning something new and and figuring something out and challenging ourselves that's when we I think that's when we Thrive and I think that's when we all really feel happy [Music] too I'll give her my money for leaving plane I'll give her my money for the next train I'll give up my honey if it's all the same I give it all up for you I've been looking for a Willow in the wind a temporary place to hide [Music] within long enough to miss it when I begin to roll the [Music] way give up my money for leaving I give up my money for the next train I give up myone if it's all the give it all love for [Music] you I've been looking for shelter from the Sun to look back on the places I come from a place to hide before I run before I ride [Music] your give up my money for leaving plane I'll give up my money for the next train I'll give up my honey if it's all the same give it all love for you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm tired TI of looking for something I can't find so I'm looking for way out of my mind you know you're just about my kind you can show me the way and I'll give up my money for leing give up my money for the next train I give up my honey it's all the give it all up you I give up my money for Lee I give up my money for the next train I give my honey it's all the Give It All For You [Music] you know we all go through stuff we we all have challenges good challenges bad challenges um but I think the first part of getting through any kind of challenge is just looking at the place you're in whether it's a physical place or an emotional place and and accepting you know where you are if you're upset about something you sit down and say gosh I'm upset about something I'm going to accept it I'm not going to pretend I'm not because when he accept that then he can move on so that's where places kind of comes from and that record's been out for a year now and I think the way people listen to music has changed a lot I I don't think it's always about an artist's brand new song that they released yesterday I I think people are listening to artists whole cataloges a little more so I'm trying to learn and find new ways to keep the music that I already have released my album last year the album the year before that and the year before that just keep it out there and get more people to listen to it it other than that I'm I'm still working on songs we when we drove up today I played the guys a couple demos that that I had done you know just recording at home with me doing vocals and guitar and playing bass as bad or poorly as I as I can you know one note at a time I don't have an exact plan for those songs yet but that's the exciting part going back to what I was saying about learning you know I'd like to learn a bit of how recording works and and um how to get a really good track at home and the mix process so I don't know how the new songs are going to be released but they're going to at some point and I hope we can do it in a different way than we have done in the past so [Music] [Music] to you I look up keep my chin up and take it as it comes to give up is to slip up and be like a drum but maybe I just want to be defeated take all my worry and leave it take the L I will receive it maybe I want to be [Music] defeated to [Music] W is to follow the pity in our [Music] veins till we swallow all the hollow like a m cane but maybe I just want to be defeated take on my worry and leave it take the last I receive it maybe I want to be defeated [Music] Cal IND go the with Chase green on a Missle to Black on an empty road watch [Music] them cuz maybe I just want to be defeated take all my and leave it take the L I will receive it maybe I want to be defeated maybe I want to be defeated take all my worry and leave it take the L I will receive it maybe I want to be defeated maybe I want to be defeated maybe I want to be defeated [Music] maybe I want to be deated uh we're going to do one called break my wall uh I think you know when you when you release some music I think you I'm trying to think what are songs maybe people are going to like but then when you're actually playing the music you and whoever else is playing the music with you you have your favorites that you don't know if it's going to be other people's favorites but you know you enjoyed playing it the most and one of those songs off this new record is called break my wall and uh This Record we we went down to Eric costan in studio in Cleveland Minnesota over a weekend and we recorded it all live with the band just all there and uh break my wall just really uh it just flowed really well um I was so thankful for the musicians that were involved on it because every song had its own just kind of soundscape to it you know where you can close your eyes and each musician in the room was just doing their own thing and creating their own little corners and pockets in in in the song and I I think break my wall was a good example of that um you know lyrically it's about breaking down the Walls we have you know I I think we all put up some walls we don't you know it's it's hard to be vulnerable it's hard to it's hard to be wrong um you know so we we build fences and walls around ourselves to protect ourselves which is okay it's in our nature but the benefits of letting those walls down for a second I think is uh is what that song's about and so looking forward to highlighting that one [Music] today I don't want to waste your time I don't want to ruin your day I give most thanks to myself but to you I give them away there's a r singing in a dying tree Sweet and Low so nobody [Music] sees so she doesn't leave yeah it looks like shovel but it sounds like me I don't want to waste your time I don't want to ruin your day I keep most things to myself to you I give [Music] them there's a Jet Plane living in a lonely Sky she comes back down when she gets too high I only ride in the clouds every once in a while got the mind of a man but the heart of a child now I don't want to waste your time now I don't want to ruin your day I give than to myself but to you I give them away I give them [Music] I built my wall in the early days and I walk my life on the promade but you broke right through my walls of [Music] clay didn't know your Hammer was built that way and I don't want to waste your time I don't want to ruin your day I give thanks to myself but to you I give yeah I don't want to waste your time I don't want to ruin your day I give most thanks to myself to you I give [Music] [Applause] [Music] away yeah I don't want to waste your time I don't want to ruin your to day I keep my than to myself to you I give them away yeah to you I give them away to you I give them [Music] away there's so much talent in in Minnesota I mean the two guys I brought with today can play like nobody else you know they're just fantastic there's just a great network of people you can reach out to for advice there's such great power in just having a conversation with somebody because I think we've all had conversations where you just have that one beer with somebody or that one coffee break with somebody where they give you a new idea or they say something that makes you think about something a little differently and I I think we have a um a music Community here of people willing to do that one example a couple years back this was just right before the pandemic I got to open for Charlie par up in uh duth and um before the show I I thought I could maybe bug him for five minutes just to say hello and ask him a couple questions and he sat with me for an hour you know in the back of the venue and just gave me advice of when he first you know started out and things that he tried things that worked things that uh didn't work and you know when somebody's traveling he tours so much he's he's busy he's got a lot of Demands and to take time to you know chat with somebody who wants to know something that's that's it's nice and I think uh we're very blessed in the state to to have have that and um and a lot of places I mean like like back roads that that aren't just in this you know St Paul Minneapolis area um that support music and have programs like this or or venues that have ongoing concert series that we've gotten to play over the last couple years very very grateful for it my parents don't play music but always big music fans and uh so Bob Dylan and the band Big influences growing up I was named Luke after the third verse in the song The Weight by the band so that was a really good you know starting block of foundation to to build on funny story my middle name is Young my mom big Neil Young fan uh so she gave me the middle name Young and then on my second birthday uh my aunt gave her call and said did you know that today is also Neil Young's birthday she didn't know when she so me and Neil Young have the same birthday and she you know gave him the middle name so that became a influence you know later on I remember in college as well uh really getting into bony var's 22 a million album which has just a lot of like electronic elements that growing up I wouldn't have listened to that stuff a lot but I just got into it you know I think certain moments in your life align with the music you're listening to at the exact same time and for the rest of your life whenever you hear that song you're going to think of that one spot you know and um but it's an it's a album that's really a good example of how I think the folk music movement which made me in the 60s and was about you know playing a song and it's just you and the guitar and it's very pure but now the folk music has I kind of think of Folk Music does incorporate a lot of electronic elements now because most everybody has a laptop and some kind of you know sound interface recording equipment at home that they can add this stuff to and it's not just um big record labels and big studios that can make music [Music] soon that low light will pass we all knew it would never last now when everybody says just what they mean that's when I'll come clean that's when I'll come clean m [Music] then that City that we build will s like madon on a Christmas Day when the wise ones tell us what they've seen that's when I'll come clean that's when I'll come [Music] clean and a crowd will gather in square how our fathers and our father fathers there when the king King gives the crown to the queen that's when I'll come clean that's when I come clean [Music] there'll be a party in Washington all our demons will come marching in when the guest we bring makes a scene that's when I come that's when I'll come [Music] soon that L that will pass we I knew it would never last now when everybody says just what they mean that's when I'll come clean that's when I'll come that's when I'll come clean that's when I'll come that's when now that's when I C that's that's [Music] that's oh [Music] back roads is made possible by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th 2008