Vue Weekly

Old Man Luedecke—who really isn’t very old at all—travels in a distinctly old-timey genre of music, accompanying himself on his banjo, but he always keeps the subject matter of his songs rooted firmly in the present. “I just admire the naturalness of this music that was made before it was made to sell, when it was a community effort,” he explains. “But I wanted to have something that was reflective of a newer life with still an appreciation of those things. I talk a lot about old things and how they work in the new.” While there’s a pleasantness about Luedecke’s gentle material, there’s also a dark underbelly that he’s not afraid to show off at times. “It’s dangerous, maybe more than straight up folk, which is what good music should be,” he says. “I find that most of the songs that bring us the most joy are actually fairly negative. A lot of standard bluegrass tunes that really get you going and whipped up if you’re into bluegrass, they’re singing about murder. We look for that in our music.”

-Eden Munro