Cadillac Ranch� Damn, where to start? Cadillac Ranch was one of two songs from our new album co-written by my good friend Jacob Quesenberry and myself. We've known each other for many years now and spent the greater part of that time writing and swapping sad song ideas. However, more specifically I met Jake during the transition period most young men go through, when they're thrown out into the real world for the first time. Yeah, you know the one. The one where you split with your high school sweetheart for the first time, sully in the comfort of sad Lucero songs and try to drink yourself into oblivion. Yeah, the glory years.

Jake had originally written it as a whimsical ode to my infamous younger days. The song was different every time he played it and didn't necessarily ever have a finished version. When I was writing for this album I had a melody stuck in my head I just knew I had heard before...BAM, all of sudden his chorus came rushing back. Nearly 10 years after he jokingly played it for all our friends, I was strumming it in my living room trying to piece it all back together.

When I was 18 and freshly single, me and one of my oldest friends decided to get an apartment together. We had no clue how to do anything, no sense of responsibility and barely enough money between the both of us to eat. We must have been in the right place at the right time, because somehow or another we were accepted to a low income apartment complex directly in the middle of our town. We moved in and continuously celebrated like any teen would...by binge drinking case after case of Natural Light. I think we were able to keep it together for roughly 3 months till the parties started happening. Everyone in our age group either knew about our place or had already participated in the debauchery. We were living the college dream without the dreaded college part. The two bedroom apartment was a cesspool. Beer cans were stacked to the ceiling, dishes left unwashed, cigarette burns on anything and everything that could be burned, and a full size ping pong table that spanned the entire living room(which was more often than not the perfect bed for weary guest). Yeah, we were classy fellows.

Somewhere in the middle of those unforgettable months I had totaled my only means of transportation. Within a week I found an old blue Cadillac Coupe Deville for $600 cash. I knew nothing about cars, but I knew this Cadillac had gold trim, so I handed over the cash without hesitation. I was 18, I had my own place and I owned a beat up Cadillac Coupe Deville that half-ass ran. Life was good. I had always been a fan of classic country music. Many nights in that apartment were spent getting piss drunk and singing along to all the greats. Since I was now the proud owner of a Cadillac, Chris Ledoux's song Cadillac Ranch became our drunken anthem. We just started referring to the place as the Cadillac Ranch and it took off. Anyone and everyone knew it as the Cadillac Ranch, hell, there was even a sign that said so.

There are way too many events that happened in that place to even begin to describe. Long story short, we were two ignorant guys trying to get our sh*t together but failed miserably. But, I think you need that at least at one point in your life. We made it about 9 months and 2 police visits before we were evicted due to complaints. I came out of it with a bruised liver, a depression beard and a new insight on life. It was for the best. I was done. I had never been so happy to leave a place. However, I wouldn't trade the memories made in that place for anything. To this day, the Cadillac Ranch was the best and worst time of my life.