Every night before LoCash goes on stage, the duoβs tour manager tapes a setlist on the floor.
They never follow it.
βWe just get on stage and we have fun,β said Preston Brust.
Everything is fluid in a LoCash show, from the songs they sing to the way they interact with the audience.
At Country Thunder last weekend in Florence, Brustβs partner Chris Lucas plucked an 8-year-old girl from the audience and pulled her on stage to sing a Bruno Mars cover.
βYou canβt plan stuff like that. It just happens,β said Brust, who joins Lucas for a Pima County Fair show with Texan Clay Walker on Saturday, April 23. βAnd thatβs one of my favorite things about the LoCash show. You never know whatβs going to happen.β
On Saturday, anything is possible.
Brust might even join Walker on stage to sing βLong Live the Cowboy,β which Brust penned and Walker has been singing in his live shows for the past two years.
βI canβt wait to hear it. I hope he sings it,β Brust said.
Their show might include a few songs that they recorded for what Brust is calling the pairβs debut album, due out in June.
The album actually is the second full-length project for the pair, which has been performing together since they worked as DJs at the popular Nashville club Wildhorse Saloon. But Brust says heβs calling it their debut.
βI feel like itβs the first album that really defines who LoCash is musically and lyrically,β said the new father of a 13-week-old daughter. βWe had one other album come out three or four years ago and Iβm not going to say that I wasnβt proud of that music because you evolve. I really believe that this is the first time that Chris and I feel completely proud and understood. We can play it for our kids one day and say thatβs who we really are and thatβs who we matured into as husbands and dads and songwriters.β
Brust and Lucas had modest success with their first album, βLoCash Cowboysβ released in 2013. But a host of their Nashville colleagues were having better success with songs Brust and Lucas penned, including Tim McGrawβs βTruck Yeahβ and Keith Urbanβs βYou Gonna Fly.β
Last year, they hit gold when βI Love This Lifeβ hit No. 2 on Billboard. The pair wrote the song with rising Nashville singer-songwriter Chris Janson, who was on hand at Country Thunder in Florence to sing it with them.
Brust said the song, which was cowritten by their longtime writing partner Danny Myrick, was inspired by a conversation about all the negativity swirling around them, from politics to the daily headlines.
βItβs kind of like sitting in a clubhouse, and then you stumble on an idea. Nobody really had an idea that morning but the topic of discussion was weβre just tired of all the negativity in the news,β Brust explained.
The conversation switched to the little things that make you smile, like your favorite pair of worn-out jeans, a Friday night and the county line bar where everyone remembers your drink.
βForget all this drama and negativity,β he said. βWe just realized that the song was going to be called βI Love This Lifeβ. β
That song will be on that setlist the road manager tapes to the fairgrounds stage on Saturday, the list the boys will ignore for the most part.
βItβs going to be a free-for-all fun show and when people leave they are going to be smiling,β Brust said.
