The Lumineers journey from playing Zola to the Gorge

It’s a two-hour drive from Zola, the downtown Spokane live music spot, to the Gorge Amphitheatre. However, it took the Lumineers a decade to catapult from playing an empty open mic night gig at the intimate restaurant to headlining the massive Gorge.

“I’ll never forget that experience there (at Zola),” Lumineers vocalist-guitarist Wesley Schultz said from his Denver home. “There was nobody there and we played and I believe we stayed the night there or at an apartment nearby. That was our Spokane experience. Much has changed since then for us.”

The Lumineers were paying their dues when the folk-rock band played to employees at Zola not long after their eponymous debut album dropped in April of 2012.

Fast forward 10 years and the Lumineers are the main attraction Saturday at the Gorge, touring behind “Brightside.” The band’s fourth album, which is comprised of loose, atmospheric songs, is a bit of a departure thanks to the approach taken by Schultz and his co-conspirator, multi-instrumentalist Jeremiah Fraites.

“This album is more carefree because it just is,” Schultz said. “We went in a different direction, which was kind of stream of consciousness. Our prior albums were poured over and over. We would re-write quite a bit. I don’t think we had the confidence that we have now with those first few records. But now we have the confidence and it was so liberating to just go with what we came up with.”

There are some tunes that are poignant and earthy but there’s some welcome change ups, such as the raw and muscular “Never Really Mine.”

“Things just happened with ‘Brightside’,” Schultz said. “Nothing was calculated. Our prior albums were kind of tame but ‘Brightside’ is wild.”

Some of the songs Schultz and Fraites labored over became hits. The pretty “Hey Ho” catapulted the band out of open mic gigs and well, obscurity, during the autumn of 2012. “Hey Ho” peaked at number three on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart and has sold more than 5 million copies.

“That song was obviously huge for us,” Schultz said. “We have no problem playing it every night. We give the fans what they want.”

“Stubborn Love.” “Ophelia” and “Angela” also charted. “It’s great to have a bunch of songs that people want to hear,” Schultz said. “We’re lucky to have written some songs that connect with people.”

But then Schultz is also a huge fan of recording artists such as Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. Schultz gushed ad nauseum about the former, who obviously has had a huge impact on his songwriting.

“I absolutely love Tom Petty,” Schultz said. “We covered (Petty’s) ‘Walls’ a year after Tom died. Tom was so great. I’ve loved his songs for about as long as I can remember. The first song I learned on guitar was ‘Free Fallin.’ We also opened for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and that’s one of the highlights of my career.”

The finest songs penned by Schultz and Fraites are moving and take the listener to another place. “Sometimes our music does convey a feeling and many of my favorite songwriters do that,” Schultz said. “Look at what Tom Petty and Kurt Cobain did. A lot of their songs are about a feeling. It hits you and it’s so powerful. The same goes for Neil Young. It’s a special thing.”

Schultz is over the moon since the Lumineers are back on the road, but he made the best of lockdown by writing and hanging with his family.

“I was fortunate enough to have a number of distractions,” Schultz said. “Not only did I get to make this Lumineers album with Jer, which helped me stay in a good place. We had a baby girl. Jer also had a daughter. It was family time for both of us. We each now have a son and a daughter. Staying home was good in a couple of ways. I had the opportunity to bond with my children and Jer and I appreciate what we do together that much more. We realized how much we missed performing. We just finished off a bunch of dates and just loved it. There’s nothing like playing out and now we’re headed to the Gorge, which is just incredible. We have Red Rocks out here but the Gorge is right there for the sheer beauty of a concert setting.”

But Schultz and Fraites never dreamed of taking the Gorge stage after playing to an empty room at Zola’s. “We could not imagine that then,” Schultz said. “Sometimes going from town to town is a blur but I remember our first time in Spokane like it was yesterday. I hope the people who saw us then, which were few, come out to see us at the Gorge.”