The Lumineers’ Most Prominent Influences

The Lumineers have expertly managed to craft a sound steeped in what’s currently trendy – namely anthemic folk songs with notable Americana and pop influences, propelled by groups like Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, and The Civil Wars. Some members in these groups sport thick beards, country-time hats, or anything else resembling a tastefully romantic yet wildly entangled past. Some might dub them hipsters. With simple yet addictive acoustic arrangements, handclap-led percussion, and soaring vocals that override any instrumental backing, The Lumineers and others excel in a style suited for both easy-listening and nostalgic riding. It isn’t exactly a specialty that has never been heard before, as artists like Ryan Adams and Wilco have topped the charts with specific tracks rooted in a similarly upbeat folk-Americana sound, but The Lumineers manage to turn their radio charm into a consistent force – unlike many influences that produced one radio-friendly single for every five or six more creatively overpowering efforts.

As The Lumineers have become household names with the rousing success of their single “Ho Hey”, any listeners of their eponymous debut album realize that they are more than just crafters of handclap-led jubilation. Ballads like “Slow It Down” and “Dead Sea” show a new side of the band, one that will surely attempt more ambitious measures than the accessible but fairly straightforward appeal of “Ho Hey”. “Dead Sea” seems to recall the prickly emotive croon of The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser, with The Lumineers’ Wesley Schultz emitting a similarly crisp and up-front dose of the dramatic. “Slow It Down” is heavy on Neyla Pekarek’s somber cello, which meshes beautifully with rousing percussive kicks and acoustic flutters. When “Stubborn Love” emerges with its historic pleas for peaceful reconciliation, the album’s vision is clearly apparent. There is no central overbearing theme, nor an over-emphasis on one type of sound. The Lumineers are a rookie band that does an admirable job of meshing the simplistically accessible with the emotionally morose, with their degree of heart-tugging sentimentality becoming shockingly successful at points.

The Lumineers are presently based in Colorado, but they got their start in Ramsey, New Jersey. They experienced the hardships of trying to make it as a musician in NYC fairly quickly after their Ramsey beginnings, soon opting to move to Denver and its cheaper costs of living. The band arose from a mutual tragedy between Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites, whose late brother Josh was Schultz’s best friend. This hardship, and the general obstacle that is NYC to rising bands, provided the founding duo with plenty of perseverance before stepping foot in Colorado. When they got there, and were joined by the likes of Pekarek, bassist Ben Wahamaki, and multi-instrumentalist Stelth Ulvang, it didn’t take long for The Lumineers to find success. In December 2011 “Ho Hey” appeared on the season finale of CW’s Hart of Dixie, and social media erupted with “what’s that song?” When everyone found out that it was indeed The Lumineers’ “Ho Hey”, the band and that track caught wildfire.

A year after their popular status arrived, The Lumineers were nominated for two Grammy awards: Best New Artist and Best Americana Album. Of course, comparisons to Mumford & Sons continued to be unavoidable, but that’s to be expected when they were largely responsible for the folk revival on commercial radio. Still, The Lumineers’ “Ho Hey” charted higher than any singles on Mumford’s breakout 2009 album, Sigh No More. As The Lumineers’ album sales mark approaches one million, it’s prudent for any aspiring musician to remember that this is a group which the frontman dubbed a “failure” before their move to Denver. A change of scenery, a cheaper way of life, and a reinvigorated creative process with new musicians tended to change their trajectory. It resulted in The Lumineers becoming one of the faces of the burgeoning radio-folk scene, where shades of Americana, folk music, and pop cohesively sit alongside one another, as radio-friendly hits and ballads appear in surplus. Although The Lumineers exist within a stylistic movement whose inception they will not take credit for, the group’s star-studded entry into this folk revivalism produces some of its most appealing and emotionally diverse sounds.