Frequent readers of these columns are probably well aware that I’m a huge fan of close vocal harmonies. It matters not what genre has them — folk, pop, classical, jazz, rock, metal, bluegrass or country — I love them all! And there’s a group in that last category that has some of the best in the business: Lonestar. For 30 years now, this band has been blessing us with some of the most memorable country songs around, “Amazed,” “I’m Already There,” “What About Now,” “No News,” “Come Cryin’ to Me,” “Mr. Mom,” “Smile,” “Tell Her,” and “Runnin’ Away With My Heart” just to mention a very few. When I discovered that they were going to be coming to the Waterville Opera House on Feb. 11th, I just had to chat with a member and find out what’s been happening lately with the group, which is made up of Dean Sams (keyboards, acoustic guitar, backing vocals); Keech Rainwater (drums, backing vocals); Drew Womack (lead vocals, guitar); and Michael Britt (lead guitar, backing vocals). I was able to catch up with Britt, who gave me a call from his Nashville home, and I began by complimenting him on Lonestar’s signature sound with those aforementioned close harmonies.

Britt: Well, thank you very much. That’s actually one of the things, when we first started this band, that was one of our primary focuses was to have really good background harmonies, that’s something we always strive for.

Q: Now at one time, there were five members and there are four currently, correct?
Britt: Yes, John Rich was originally in the band and then he left in ’98, I believe, and then there was just the four of us, and then Richie {McDonald} has left a couple of times. But over all, it’s been almost the same guys for 30 years, almost.

Q: Oh, my word — that’s impressive in itself.
Britt: It really is and the fact that we’ve been able to keep going even with lead singers leaving, too, that’s a testament to the tightness of everybody else in the band, I think.

Q: I agree wholeheartedly. And another thing that really works for you is having an ear for a good song, is that a fair assumption on my part?

Britt: Yeah. And without a good song you can have the best harmonies in the world but nobody’s going to want to hear them, they want to hear music that they can relate to in some way. And so we wanted good harmonies, we wanted really big choruses, whether it’s an up-tempo song or a ballad, and then we just like songs that people can relate to. So that’s been kind of our recipe and it’s been pretty successful so far, so we don’t want to go and change it too much but, yeah, we’ve just been very fortunate that we’ve had some really big songs that have kind of cemented our career, in a way.

Q: So how do you go about picking something, obviously it has to be something that you can relate to yourselves and also hear the possibilities for your signature harmonies?
Britt: Definitely. So when we had a record deal and a producer, we would actually just have lots of meetings where we would sit in a room and listen to songs. After listing to songs then we would figure out what other songs we’d need for an album, or what songs we have been writing that worked, and our own songs had to stand up to all these monster songs that we were getting from songwriters around town. I feel like we always just kind of picked the best of the best, regardless of who wrote them. We’d always know the ones that really spoke to us, these would be the ones, early in the meeting, we’d go, “Yeah, we’ve got to cut that one, it sounds like us, it feels like us and it’s kind of what we want to be known for, in a way!”

Q: Now when you come up to the Waterville Opera House, it’ll just be the four of you, you’re all instrumentalists as well as singers, right?
Britt: Yes, we’re not just a bunch of singers with a band behind us, we all play. We come from the era where you could make a living playing bars five nights a week, so we were a working band, we’d play cover songs and try to sneak our own songs in there, and we did that for three or four years before we got a record deal. And that’s another thing, we kind of approach our music, not from a traditional stand point so much because Keech and I are a little bit more of the rockers of the band, so we have a rock energy to it, but we also want to keep those harmonies going and having big country hit songs. We’ve just been real fortunate that we have the right group of people and the right songs over all these years.

Q: Now, have you ever played the Waterville Opera House before?
Britt: That sounds familiar but I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if we haven’t done it. I know we’ve been to Bangor and we’ve been up to Maine a few times, but I can’t remember if we’ve played Waterville for sure. I used to remember every single gig, but after about 10 years I started to lose a couple of gigs that we did (chuckle).

Q: (Laughter) And having done this as long as I have, I went back through my records and notes to see if I’d ever interviewed you guys and could not confirm such a thing. So I’m going to consider this to be the first time we’ve spoken.
Britt: (Laughter) And I’m going to consider this the first time we’ve ever played Waterville.

Q: Other than not playing out, how did this pandemic affect Lonestar?
Britt: Well, personally, I was able to take vacations with my family, so that was the best thing to come out of the pandemic as far as being off the road for that long. I guess when you’re on the road all the time for 30 years, you always think, “I wish we could do this, I wish we could do that!” But I was actually able to do some of those things, so I hate to say it, but the pandemic was good for me mentally and everything else. And, coming out of the pandemic, Richie decided he didn’t want to be in Lonestar anymore so we had to get a new lead singer, so our exit out of the pandemic was a different one, too, but we ended up with Drew Womack, just an incredible singer that I’ve known for over 30 years, I’ve been a fan of his when he was in Sons of the Desert. It was just crazy how it all happened, it just kind of seemed like it was meant to be. It’s so much fun playing with Drew, he’ so talented, it’s awesome. I feel we’ve come out of the whole COVID mess with actually a better mind set and a better sound and a better group of people, too.

Q: Now seeing this maybe your first show at the Waterville Opera House, is there anything, Michael, that you’d like me to pass on to the folks reading this article?
Britt: Well, we just like to go and have fun and, honestly, playing live shows is kind of why we do what we do, we make records and stuff but our focus has always just been to play live shows for people. We get such a kick out of people singing along to our songs and enjoying what we do that I can’t wait to play for the people up there. I know it’s a beautiful place, I’ve been up to Maine numerous times, and I think it’s just going to be a fun show, you don’t realize how many of our songs you know until you start hearing them all back-to-back. It’s kind of nice that we get to have fun and play songs that people know and respond to.

Lucky Clark, a 2018 “Keeping the Blues Alive” Award winner, has spent more than 50 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

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