A lot has happened for J.T. Lockwood since his last performance at Hallowell’s Slates Restaurant, but when he returns Dec. 9 for a special Sunday night concert, folks can get caught up really quick. In a recent telephone interview from his central Maine home, he talked about his band (with Bert Macdonald on lead guitar and vocals, Thom Bureau on drums and vocals and Justin Bureau on bass and vocals) and their new album “The J.T. Lockwood Band.”

Q: Does this CD represent what people will hear at Slates on Dec. 9?

Lockwood: It is, absolutely.

Q: Do you classify yourself as a singer/songwriter?

Lockwood: We’ve been calling this lineup “acoustic rock/pop.”

Q: You released a solo album before this band one, correct?

Lockwood: I did, back in ’05.

Q: What made you decide to go to the band route instead of a solo-acoustic-guitar type thing again?

Lockwood: Well, the last album still had a band and when I released the CD I did have some hired musicians, but for the past few years I’ve really been focusing on trying to put together a lineup of people that are committed to the band as one rather than just have random people hired for shows — to create a consistency in the sound and really get an element of “that sounds like these guys have been playing together.”

Q: Are any of these three guys ones that have worked with you in the past?

Lockwood: Yeah, Bert, the lead guitarist, I’ve been playing with for about four years now. We have kind of been on the journey to put together the right lineup over these past four years. Over the past year-and-a-half has really been when we had this consistent lineup with the four of us. We found the drummer, who is Thom Bureau and then bassist Justin Bureau, these guys are brothers, and when we brought them onboard it really started to connect.

Q: If the goal was a cohesive sound, I think you achieved that if what is heard on the new CD is any indication.

Lockwood: It is and when you are in the studio it is easy to add extra things — and you want to add extra elements — but the goal was also to make the CD sound like it’s going to sound when we play live. We did add a couple of things, though, in the studio: the horn parts on the second track and a few percussion parts as well, but overall, I think we achieved our goal quite well.

Q: Will this be a CD-release show at Slates?

Lockwood: This will be a CD-release party, but the CD came out in early October and we have had a CD-release party in Portland, but this will be our hometown CD-release in Hallowell.

Q: How far afield does the band go?

Lockwood: We’ve been throughout a little bit of New England over the past year. We were down in Boston earlier in the year and then this summer we didn’t play a lot, we were focused on finishing up the album and getting that together. We’ve been focusing on Portland, we’ll always come back to Hallowell — where we’re all from — but our goal in the coming months is to continue to get out-of-State and get into some new areas and spread our music there.

Q: Has there been radio support?

Lockwood: Yeah, we’ve definitely gotten some radio and then also we’ve had good lucky with some of the TV stations. We were able to appear on “207” about a month ago and then Fox’s “Good Day Maine” show about three weeks ago. And as far as radio goes we’ve been played on WCLZ’s “207” show and then we’ve also been on Charlie Gaylord’s Sunday morning show on WBLM.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to pass on to the readers of this article?

Lockwood: Be sure to visit us online and check out our Facebook page to keep up-to-date on all upcoming events and news on the band; www.jtlockwood.com.

Lucky Clark has spent over four decades writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc @megalink.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

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