Scott Lucas (Local H)

“You get a sense of who’s important, what’s important, and hopefully people will realize what you had by just being able to go out and see other people, be in a room, and actually be present.”

Scott Lucas is the lead singer and guitarist of Local H, an alt rock band out of Zion, Illinois — a small town about an hour north of Chicago. He and three high school friends founded the group together in 1990, but by 1993, two of them had left and Local H carried on as a duo, with Joe Daniels on drums and Scott playing a modified guitar with an added bass pickup to round out the sound. Brian St. Clair and Ryan Harding would spend stints as Local H’s drummer but Scott, through thick and thin, has persisted through the whole three decades, which has seen nine studio LPs, countless shows — a few of them opening for Metallica — and the commercial breakthrough record, As Good As Dead, which is headlined by single, “Bound for the Floor,” a track that reached number five on the Billboard Modern Rock charts.

We chatted about the influence of a small town identity, the power of persistence, the secret to the exact ratio of toilet paper needed per neighborhood, and Local H’s new record, Lifers, which features an all-star cast, from Juliana Hatfield to John McCauley (Deer Tick) to legendary engineer, Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, Joanna Newsom, Iggy Pop). It’s the band’s first LP since 2015 and it’s excellent.

Support Local H: www.localh.com/

Music in this episode, used with permission from Scott:
"Bound for the Floor" - Local H
"Hold That Thought" - Local H
"Beyond the Valley of Snakes" - Local H
"High, Wide and Stupid" - Local H
"Winter Western" - Local H
"Defy and Surrender" - Local H

Special thanks to Alexander Frieden for the editing support!