From Setlist Secrets to Surprise Guests: 5 Things Everyone’s Buzzing About Before Lukas Nelson Hits the Majestic Stage. ML

Lukas Nelson has been known, for all of his life, as Willie Nelson’s son and occasionally part of his family band. And for 16 years of his music-making life he was the leader of the band Promise of the Real, which backed Neil Young as well as releasing eight albums of his own.

Now this Nelson, 36, is out on his own.

During June, Nelson — who won Grammy and BAFTA awards for the songs he wrote for the hit 2018 remake of “A Star is Born” — released “American Romance,” the first album to bear his name alone. Produced by longtime friend Shooter Jennings, the 12-track set includes a collaboration with Sierra Ferrell (“Friend in the End”), as well as a new version of “You Were It,” the first song Nelson ever wrote — at 11 years old — that was first released on Willie Nelson’s 2004 album “It Will Always Be.”

The set ushers in what Lukas Nelson acknowledges is a new era in his career, one he feels will allow him to make a wide array of music, entirely on his own terms…

Nelson says via Zoom from New York that he considers stepping away from Promise of the Real — whose other members are working in Young’s Chrome Hearts band — to be “almost cosmetic. What happened to me was the name Promise of the Real was so tied into Neil Young from the times we’d been playing with him that I felt like I wanted to make sure I could do something different, that felt different, that maybe fans of Neil Young or even fans of my dad wouldn’t necessarily be bummed about. I love Neil Young fans, and I love my dad’s fans, but I want to bring other fans along, too. And I felt like sometimes people were getting a little aggressive about me not playing as much guitar or rocking out at certain points. I wanted the freedom to NOT do that, and to do what I want to, when I want to. So I just felt I had to change the name, really.”

He acknowledges that the tenor of “American Romance” is a bit quieter and more reflective than the harder-rocking Promise of the Real material. “I have so many songs. I was in a flow of writing, and you can’t really tell yourself to write a certain song — some people can, but for me, whatever comes out comes out. So I was writing a lot of songs that were more about lyrics and vocals than they were about rockin’ out. That’s just what was coming out, and I wanted to focus on those songs. Since then, I’ve written a lot of rockers.” (laughs)

Nelson — who splits time between homes in Nashville and Maui — considers “American Romance” to be a kind of aural travelogue, inspired by his own journeys as a musician. “Moving, traveling — up until this point in my life and, actually, continually that has been my biography the defining aspect of my life. That’s what’s kept me from getting married and having kids. It’s what keeps me from so much. It’s a romance; there’s happiness and sadness, and heartbreak and elation. It kind of covers the gamut.”

As “American Romance” is his first “solo” album, Nelson felt it would be appropriate to include “You Were It” as the closing track. “I was on the school bus one day when I was 11, and it started playing in my head and I realized it was a song that hadn’t been written yet. So I wrote it and played it for my dad, and he liked it so much he put it on his album. That gave me a lot of confidence; I knew it wasn’t just fluff ’cause dad put it on his album. I figured it was appropriate to finally put it out, and what better way to put it out than on a record with just my name on it. It’s very stripped down; that’s me at my core, so it was kind of a nice callback.”

Nelson says he has “so many things I’m excited about in the future, including both music and movies. “I’m working on a movie project right now that I can’t really talk about yet, but I’ve written 30 songs for that with Ernest, and that’s exciting. I’ve got some other stuff in New York that I might be doing soon. And I’m planning on recording another album coming up pretty soon; I’m writing for that now, ’cause I can’t stop the songs from coming. I just wrote a song with Ben West and Laci Kaye Booth that feels like a mix of Radiohead and country. So it’s hard to say; I can just tell you there’s a lot of music, and some fun stuff on the horizon.”

Lukas Nelson performs Wednesday, Oct. 22, at the Majestic Theatre at the Majestic Theatre, 4140 Woodward Ave. Doors at 7 p.m. 313-833-9700 or majesticdetroit.com.

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