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0000017c-60f7-de77-ad7e-f3f739cf0000Arts & More airs Fridays at 7:50 a.m. and 4:20 p.m.Theme music: "Like A Beginner Again" by Dan Barry of Seas of Jupiter

After Leaving Music for Law, Lucas Jack Returns Home to Kalamazoo

Courtesy Lucas Jack

Saturday night, singer and pianist Lucas Jack will return home when he takes the stage at Bell’s Eccentric Cafe. Jack’s musical journey has wound its way from Michigan to Chicago to Texas. But it all started in downtown Kalamazoo, inside a wine bar called Webster’s Prime. Jack was all of 17 years old. And his fans didn’t dance or jump around as much as bob their heads to his piano melodies.

"Yeah, it was definitely not the punk-rock club, the indie-rock club experience that you might think it was," he says.  

Jack says the job was simple: play a few Billy Joel covers and keep people happy. Not exactly rock star stuff, but a start.

"I could probably only play 30 songs or something. But it was a really good experience of learning how to interact with crowds and getting people involved," Jack says. And learning how to sing a song and have people interrupt you and play a different song. That's something that every piano player has to deal with. That's something I certainly have grown accustomed to."

But once Jack left Kalamazoo and headed to college, he was forced to confront the classic conundrum for a young artist. Do you pursue your dream? Or go for a stable career?

Jack chose stability. In his case, that meant majoring in accounting. Then when he didn’t like that, he set his sights to law school, then a lawyer job in Chicago. He says he never liked the job – too much paperwork and day-to-day monotony. But what kept him going was his double life, as a musician.

His band played late at night, very much a side job. But they were successful nonetheless, even playing four straight years at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee.

"And that really gave me a taste of what it would be like to be a full-time musician playing in front of thousands of people all the time," he says. "And really, playing all those years at Bonnaroo, is what got me thinking, I don't want to be a lawyer anymore."

The breaking point for Jack was a moment in 2011. He was talking with his then-girlfriend (now wife). She was in the Air Force, about to be stationed in Texas. He planned on going with her. So when she asked him what he’d do in Texas, he said:

"You know, I want to quit being a lawyer and I want to play music."

"I thought she might buy that," Jack says. "She didn't realize that you make no money doing it. She may have been a little naive to that. But she just said, 'Oh, okay, that sounds good. You should do that.'" 

"And I was shocked that she said that. And from the moment she said that, I decided I'm gonna do what everybody's been telling me to do my whole life and just write songs and sing songs," he says. "And from that moment, that permission, I guess, that this wonderful woman would still marry me, even if I was just this broke musician, that moment in time was when my whole life changed." 

Suddenly, life was music, 24-7. Jack was writing or performing every night. It all made him reconsider what kind of music he was playing. His style used to be more theatric. Soaring ballads that went on for seven or eight minutes. Not exactly the stuff you want to hear at a club.

"But I've moved away from that now that I'm at that these clubs, realizing that I need to be a little more accessible and something that rocks a little more and drives a little more," he says. "So over the last year, my sound has definitely transitioned from ballads into more straightforward rock songs."

Jack says it’s not just the music that’s changed, either. The office is gone, now replaced by just his family and his piano.

“I walk my girls to school in the morning, with a stroller," he says. "And every minute of every day I'm doing something that I really, really, really love to do. It's actually a lot harder, it's a lot more time consuming cause I can never just leave work and forget about it. I lay in bed and I think about it.”

Jack continues: "I have a lot more passion for every moment I'm alive, because I have this huge goal which is just to get my songs in front of as many people as I can. And I'm always working towards it. I feel like my life has more purpose rather than just being stuck on cruise control in the office."

That passion will take Jack back to Kalamazoo. It’s here that he’ll try to show his old friends – and himself – that taking the risk was worth it.

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