bio      When Cas Lucas first picked up a guitar, he quickly learned he couldn't put it down. "Girlfriends came and went, so did Transformers, G.I. Joe, sports, but never the guitar," says the 28-year-old of his life-long love affair with the instrument. "The guitar was always there. It has always been my favorite toy and oldest friend." He received his first acoustic guitar at age six, and as Lucas grew into the instrument, he discovered the music of legends like Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix. It was the guitar work of these virtuosi that originally inspired him to make the instrument his own.  Lucas polished his guitar skills throughout his teen years, teaching himself to play the riffs and songs of his heroes by ear from their CD's and his family's record collection.

In 1996, Lucas left his home in Central Florida and went north to study composition, performance, production, and blues history at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. At Hampshire Lucas had the good fortune to study with legendary, Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef, whose influence added an entirely new element to his playing. "Playing with Yusef in his performance seminars showed me how broad the tonal spectrum could be within a piece of music, " says Lucas. "It made me want to go beyond the standard progressions of blues and rock. Yusef's compositions, concepts, and playing showed me that there really are no wrong notes."

Having completed his studies, Lucas relocated to San Francisco and dove into the vibrant local scene. He has consistently performed around the Bay Area and the Western USA (and select shows on the East Coast and Midwest), gaining fans everywhere. Due largely to MySpace buzz and the grass roots promotion of his loyal fans and Street Team, Lucas' national and worldwide followings have started to grow as well, and his first national and European tours are soon to come.

Lucas' knack for creating infectious hooks and the ubiquitous pop sensibilities evoked in his guitar playing have led to frequent comparison with the likes of Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, Sting (a Cas Lucas fan himself, who features Cas on his official MySpace's "top friends"), and John Mayer. But Lucas' style is more than that - beyond the hooks and lyrics, his musicianship spans the ages, calling to mind both the passionate intensity of Robert Johnson's raw blues, and the intricate, tonal playfulness of Michael Hedges's instrumental virtuosity.

Having lived through serious adversity, including traumatic health issues that left him burdened with a life-long chronic pain condition, years of drug use, addiction, and dealing, and a nearly constant barrage of personal and financial struggles, the depth of Lucas's music decisively sets him apart from many of his contemporaries. Lucas brings to bare the sum of his life's experience in his writing, playing and performing.

Now over two years clean and sober, Cas has come through these darker years with a renewed sense of creative and personal focus, his sense of humor firmly intact, and a backlog of over 150 original songs. Cas Lucas new CD, "Roads," expected by early 2007, is his first full-band recording since his late teens. Working with amazing local producers like Steffen Franz (Lucas' manager, who has worked with the Beastie Boys, Lee Scratch Perry, and Mix Master Mike) and Adam Rossi (LUCE), it promises to be a CD worth hearing.

 

DISCOGRAPHY: One Takes EP (2002) Giving it Back (2004) Roads (coming soon, 2007)