It was 2016, and Ben Nichols, the rough-hewn frontman of Americana rockers Lucero, weaved his 2007 BMW R1200GS through late-season snow and sleet over high Rocky Mountain passes on the western leg of
It was 2016, and Ben Nichols, the rough-hewn frontman of Americana rockers Lucero, weaved his 2007 BMW R1200GS through late-season snow and sleet over high Rocky Mountain passes on the western leg of his Bikeriders solo tour. Well above the tree line, the sheer cliffs fell away as he climbed through the icy mess. He thought that would be the worst of it. But the temperature soon dropped 20 degrees, and winds barreled around Nichols and the half-dozen other riders on the trek at 70 mph.
“The wind was so fast that it was like trying to ride underwater,” he says. “When those gusts catch you, you want to slow down, but the slower you go, the easier you tip over. I thought I was going to die.”
As the singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitar player for a hard-living, continent-crossing rock band, Nichols has found what doesn’t kill him gives him plenty to write about. Reclined on a vintage couch in his 1920s Craftsman bungalow in Memphis, Nichols picks out the repeating figures from Lucero’s “On My Way Downtown” on an Epiphone Sheraton. The battered Takamine acoustic he carried in a waterproof bag on those early Bikeriders tours rests in a corner opposite his first guitar—a parlor-sized Harmony Stella. Nichols has always had a penchant for living on the edge of the moment. Like his grandfather, whose trials in World War II inspired the Lucero live staple, “The War,” he didn’t follow the rest of the family into conventional lives. Instead, his rebellious streak emerged early in Conway, Arkansas, with a taste for motorcycles and music that began with idolizing Fonzie on Happy Days, and spinning classics like “Rock Around the Clock” from his dad’s 45 collection.
“From the earliest time I can remember, I’ve loved rock ‘n’