Lucas Day’s voyage from cruise ship to the Festival Centre stage
CityMag met singer-songwriter Lucas Day to chat about his journey as a musician, his influences and his upcoming performance at the Adelaide Guitar Festival.
After five years performing on cruise ships in the US, musician Lucas Day returned to Adelaide and decided it was time to put his own music out into the world.
“I was on a ship that was out of Miami and doing seven-day cruises where people were partying,” says Lucas.
“The energy was high every night getting requests left, right and centre and just learning how to perform and how to entertain.
“I just really cut my teeth and got to meet a lot of musicians. Then when Covid hit, I found myself back in Adelaide and started doing my own originals a bit more.”
So, Lucas did what can only be described as inadvisable – he booked a gig with no band.
But as luck would have it, he managed to find a drummer, Max Tulysewski, and a bassist, Anthony Costanzo, and has been performing ever since.
“It felt like that was what I needed to be doing – presenting original music in a band setting – and I haven’t looked back,” says Lucas.
Fast forward to 2024 and Lucas has an album, an EP and six singles to his name, with plans to release a new single called ‘Wallow’ soon.
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Next month, he will add the Adelaide Guitar Festival to his growing resume when he performs in Opelousas and Lucas Day Band at Space Theatre on September 13.
The Adelaide Guitar Festival runs from September 12 to 29 at the Adelaide Festival Centre and Her Majesty’s Theatre, with performances spanning genres such as classical, blues, rock, jazz, flamenco and country.
This image: Supplied
CityMag recently sat down with Lucas to chat all things about his music, influences, style and upcoming performance.
Lucas’s passion for music began at an early age.
He grew up in the southern suburbs of Adelaide and has been gigging since he was around 16.
“When I first started, my old singing teacher used to let me sing in her breaks when she was gigging around and doing cover gigs,” he says.
His music career has also included performing in bars while on a university exchange in Canada and a residency at the Belgian Beer Café, while last June, Lucas performed at On the Road, Adelaide Guitar Festival’s free regional music tour.
Alongside singing and strumming his guitar, Lucas also plays foot drums and some piano, with his preferred guitar models being a Fender Stratocaster and a Pratley acoustic.
The self-described “singer-songwriter” experiments with blues rock sounds and cites musicians like Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins, John Butler Trio, The Teskey Brothers and John Mayer as influences.
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“I’m constantly exploring sounds that the guitar can make and that I can make as a guitar singer,” says Lucas.
“Guitar has been my outlet and my safe place for place for more than 20 years now and I think I want to share that safe place that I find in guitar with the whole room.”
When asked about his songwriting process, Lucas says he tends to begin with a chord progression or riff before lyrics and a melody come to him.
“My phone storage is full of voice memos because when I’m in the car, there might be a little lyric or a chorus that I need to record quickly,” says Lucas.
“I remember the other day after one of my friend’s weddings and I was just sitting out there up before everyone else with my guitar and I had an idea that came that day; I had to quickly put a voice memo down – just a few chords.”
Lucas describes his music as both “introspective” and “perspective”, adding that he tries to insert meaningful messages into his lyrics.
“I try and write little lessons to myself, so something I might be going through at the time that I need to remember so I don’t make the same mistake again,” he says.
“Maybe it feels like a little bit of whatever I feel like at the time, but looking at my body of work so far, it seems to be about love and loss and everything in between.”
Lucas tells CityMag that highlights of his music career include opening for the Whitlams at the Gov, playing at the Space Jams festival Myponga and releasing his first album.
He says it was a “pinch me moment” when he got the call asking him to perform at the Adelaide Guitar Festival, where he is looking forward to seeing fellow musicians Jeff Lang, Carl Orr, Dusty Lee Stephensen and Kathleen Halloran perform.
During the show, Lucas will play his originals, starting with acoustic solo pieces before finishing with blues rock.
“It’s going to be a show about my journey growing as a songwriter and as a person incorporating some solo numbers and quite a dynamic show,” says Lucas.
“I’ll start off with acoustic with the band trying to let the audience get to know me, like who I am, this authentic self.
“It feels surreal and it probably will until I strum the last chord of that last song on the night.
“It’s going to be a blur, but I try to be quite prepared for gigs like this, or at least set a good intention to leave the audience knowing me and having a good time.”