The Lumineers are an American alternative folk band based in Denver, Colorado. The founding members are Wesley Schultz lead vocals, guitar and Jeremiah Fraites drums, percussion, piano.
Schultz and Fraites began writing and performing together in Ramsey, New Jersey , in Cellist and vocalist Neyla Pekarek joined the band in , and was a member until Billboard It is currently certified platinum in the U. Their fourth album, Brightside , was released on January 14, It wasn't serious at first. We were a crappy band doing terrible covers. But we slowly started getting away from covers and writing originals. We were doing everything: vanilla singer-songwriter stuff, hard rock, electronic music.
There was no focus; it was a mad, random mess. The Lumineers struggled to find success in New York according to Schultz, who said, "I was living in Brooklyn and working three jobs just to pay the rent," adding, "it was really infuriating to move to a city that would help us grow musically but then never have any time to work on music.
So I decided to do something about it. Before the move, while the band was still called Wesley Jeremiah, they had a former member, Jason "Jay" Van Dyke play with them rarely.
Van Dyke sued The Lumineers around , claiming that Schultz and Fraites didn't give him the proper credit he deserved. Later Schultz and Fraites acknowledged Van Dyke, and admitted that they performed for a short period of time. Van Dyke claims that he co-wrote nine songs with Schultz and Fraites. In , after the band's relocation to Denver, Fraites and Schultz met classically trained cellist Neyla Pekarek. They originally signed a management deal with Onto Entertainment which funded the band to record a full-length album in Seattle at Bear Creek Studio with producer Ryan Hadlock.
