The Lumineers Talk Playing President Obama’s South By South Lawn Festival: ‘A Holy S*** Moment’

The Lumineers’ Jeremiah Fraites is sitting backstage in his trailer at Las Vegas’s Life Is Beautiful talking about playing the high-profile festival circuit. He estimates that in 2013 alone, the Denver group played 53 festivals. So the Lumineers are used to performing for big audiences, and for spectators who aren’t their fans. In short, they’re old pros at playing pressure-packed gigs.

But none of those shows quite match the visibility of the Lumineers’ festival gig this coming Monday, when they will be one of the featured acts at the White House as part of Barack Obama’s South By South Lawn conference. The President made his Lumineers fandom known when he included the group on his 2015 Summer Spotify playlist, but lead singer Wes Schultz never expected a formal White House invitation like this.

“When we were recording the album a year ago, I got the news that we were on his Spotify playlist with ‘Stubborn Love,’” Schultz says. “I thought that was the closest I was gonna get to the President. It’s right up there with anything we have ever done as far a ‘holy s—’ moment.”

Fraites concurs there is a sense of disbelief at being invited to play for the President shortly before he leaves office. “We literally this morning got an RSVP from some email that was like, ‘Thank you for RSVPing to the White House,’” he says. “I don’t think we’ve thought about it, it’s like, ‘Hey, what the f— do you play? What do you even say?’”

Fraites is not sure about the outcome of this upcoming election, but he says, “I think Hillary Clinton will win,” and is optimistic that Obama will have a very successful post-Presidential career.

“I saw an interview with Bill Clinton where he said he got more done out of the White House because there’s less red tape. Obama is young; he’s gonna kill it for the next 20 years,” Fraites predicts.

Back on the subject of the festival circuit, Fraites welcomes the challenge of proving himself and his band to those who aren’t familiar with the Lumineers. “Maybe people are here to see Diplo or the Ambassadors or Sia, whoever is here, they might be like, ‘Lumineers, oh yeah, I know one, maybe two songs; they probably suck,’” he says. “I’m kind of more interested in playing to people that might think we’re bad or might think we’re a one-hit wonder. I want to impress the dude in the back that’s like, ‘F— this band.’”

While playing 53 festivals in a single year, the Lumineers learned a lot about how to impress that dude in the back. Fraites has noticed that many festival headliners have a different style than the Lumineers; however, that can work to the Lumineers’ advantage. “A lot of these bands that play at festivals are loud and fast, and the Lumineers are not necessarily loud and fast,” he says. “So I think we’ve taken notes on a lot of bands that are very heavy at festivals, and sometimes by going quieter, you stand out. We just try to do our thing as best as we can.”

Though the Lumineers are Denver-based now, Schultz and Fraites began playing together in New Jersey, where the influence of Bruce Springsteen looms large. Fraites says he admires the way the NJ hometown hero handles himself as an artist. “I do feel like a purist. I want to accomplish really cool stuff with the guitar and piano, the songwriting, like Springsteen,” he muses. “I wouldn’t say I’m a Springsteen fan, but Wes is a massive fan and I like a lot about Springsteen in the principles of songwriting — what he does for shows, how he explains songs. He always explains just enough before he plays that song, and he illuminates the crowd for his audience. The biggest high, for me, of being in a band is that moment when you’re like, ‘Hey, Wes, what do you think of this idea?’ For that brief moment in time, only two people have heard that. It makes me think of the first time Bruce Springsteen wrote ‘Atlantic City,’ off Nebraska. We actually walk off to that song every night.”

While Lumineers haven’t exactly reached a Springsteenian level of success, they’re happy with their achievements so far, and they nothing for granted. “In a very early interview, Wes said our two goals were to play David Letterman and go to Europe. To us, those were healthy 10-to-12-year goals. I think they were done within six months of the first record coming out,” Fraites says. “A lot of people ask us, ‘When did you know you made it?’ or ‘What was the coolest moment?’ There are these very blindingly superficial moments, like Barack Obama putting ‘Stubborn Love’ on his Spotify Summertime playlist, or you notice your fonts on the festival posters are getting bigger and bigger each six months. That’s cool. But me and Wes, as artists, we’re like, ‘That doesn’t mean we made it.’ We’re traveling on a tour bus, but scratching the surface of art, the real deal, because after these shows you’re back in the hotel alone with your thoughts and it can be really lonely at times. Even though you’re connected with tens of thousands of people out there, it’s this fleeting relationship you have. We’re trying to have a good relationship with ourselves. We realize how fleeting success can be.”