Meet Lucas Penner | Musician & Actor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lucas Penner and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lucas, why did you pursue a creative career?
Because something about it feels like I’m being used properly. I’ve worked jobs where I’ve felt like a toaster being used to catch fish. Not very effective. Turns out a Lucas Penner is best-suited to acting, music and writing pursuits.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
MUSIC

Desert Friends
I’m really excited about my new band, Desert Friends. It’s a collaborative project with Joshua Tree-based, Antrom Alexander and features flavours of instrumental bands like Khruangbin, Hermanos Guitiérrez and Arc De Soliel. It mixes surf, Middle-Eastern and Spaghetti Western elements and brings together mine and Antrom’s shared love of the guitar. I think something unique about our sound is geographical: the combination of our two Desert connections: Antrom’s Mojave Desert home studio and my Canadian hometown of Penticton, BC in the South Okanagan’s Semi Arid Desert. To me the project is a musical expression of the life-changing experience I had first traveling to Yucca Valley last year. Something about witnessing the Joshua Trees, Yucca Plants and Cacti; the incredible rock piles and washes, not to mention meeting a whole group of people in their 30’s owning houses and land, all had a radical effect on my mind. I look at things differently now and feel a greater sense of possibility than ever. I hope that anyone listening to Desert Friends can experience that too. Our first single “Sonora” is out on all platforms now.

Mergatroid
Late last year I released my debut album as a solo artist: Mergatroid. It’s about forgetting and then remembering again. When I was five my Grandma, Mary, used to let me stick my head out of the sun-roof of her moving car; she made me costumes and took me to wave pools. When I was eleven she had a life-altering brain hemorrhage and lost her independence and many of her memories. It’s called Mergatroid because that was the name of the frog with wings she used to have in her shower. He is a symbol of all the times I thought I’d lost. Mergatroid explores the dissonance between someone being there and also not being there through singer/songwriter ballads, hellish electro-beats, lush string sections and eight music videos; the crown jewel of which being a 90’s camcorder tribute to my Grandma Mary Penner, as she was in her prime.

ACTING

Last month I had the most exciting experience to-date as an actor in a film. It was a thriller directed by Danny J Boyle where I got to play a character that demanded my theatre school tool-kit and some stunt work. It was a welcome challenge that set a new bar for me. I learned a lot from watching the cast and incredible stunt-women as well. I can’t wait to do more.

LESSON

I used to think failure was a fixed thing that damned you forever. A bad song, a terrible audition; broken relationships. Turns out they just make for really fertile soil that the best parts of you will grow from. I’ve had to learn how to stop beating myself up for failing and start redirecting that energy to learning and growing forward.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I’ve only been to LA twice now, but I think I’d bring my friend straight to Venice: hit up the beach, walk around the shops. I’d definitely hit up my friend Nikki Mckenzie, a very talented actress and comedian, and see if there’s an indie premier going on in West Hollywood, or see if she’s got a Groundlings performance we could go to.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to dedicate this Shoutout article to my good friend Bryce Ehrecke. If it wasn’t for him and his generosity, I wouldn’t be doing this interview at all. He’s an artist with natural architecture, a committed father and husband, and always has the perfect book recommendation. Bryce has provided me with a handful of life altering opportunities: living in a Cobb House on Mayne Island in British Columbia, travelling in a neon orange GMC camper van that ran on vegetable oil and most recently, staying in his Spartan Mansion in the Californian desert. Because of Bryce, I met Antrom Alexander at a pool party in Joshua Tree, which started a brand new and very exciting musical collaboration called Desert Friends.
Love you Bryce!

Website: https://www.lucaspenner.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pennerlucas/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lucaspennermusic

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwmEDN6zTOCEPrMw5tfLhYw?view_as=subscriber

Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2AProCnZlF2qv8whnrwsrE?si=dqbIF9qLRWmbJpExRqO_Qg

Image Credits
Photos with acoustic guitar in Yucca Valley California – Kelly Brown
Album artwork for Mergatroid – album, with Giant Frog – Kevin McLaren