Lukas Nelson returns relishing ‘special day’ at Farm Aid

It wasn’t just us. Last month’s Farm Aid mega-concert in Minneapolis was a big and beautiful occasion for the performers, too — or at least it was to one of that day’s busiest and most visible players.

“Anytime I can play with my dad, I think it’s a special day,” Lukas Nelson said. “But yeah, it was also a special Farm Aid overall.”

“Dad” in Nelson’s case is American music icon Willie Nelson, who was the last of several performers with whom Lukas sang during the Sept. 20 all-star benefit show at Huntington Bank Stadium (also: Dave Matthews and Sierra Ferrell). Lukas had been performing at Farm Aid since his teen years, when he started picking guitar in his father’s and late aunt Bobbie Nelson’s Family Band.

Now 36, the younger Nelson has had — to use the title of one of his dad’s collections — one hell of a ride. He has toured as the leader of Neil Young’s backing band and put out eight albums with his own group, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real. No question he’s come out from under Willie’s enormous shadow.

A month and half after his high-profile Farm Aid appearance(s), Lukas is due back in the Twin Cities touting a new kind of record: a solo album. He will perform Tuesday at the Palace Theatre promoting “American Romance,” his first record without his longtime band.

Recorded with another country music scion as producer, Shooter Jennings (son of Waylon Jennings), “American Romance” is more stripped-down and personal than his rowdier, rockier Promise of the Real albums, one that could be filed next to Brandi Carlile or Jason Isbell LPs. As he succinctly put it, “It’s a songwriter’s record first and foremost.”

Talking by phone last week from a tour stop in Detroit — “I’ve been seeing a lot of the Midwest lately,” he good-naturedly noted — Nelson talked more about the new album and his previous big gig in Minnesota.

“I’m sure we’ll have more later on and figure those things out as they go, you know. But yeah, in the meantime, we’re just doing our own thing, and I think that’s fine for all of us.”

What inspired the personal tone of the album: “I was falling into some pretty deep love during the writing of this album and that was important to it, of course. It’s also about growing up on the road and literally seeing America from the window of a tour bus, and what it’s like living in this country now. Growing up with that kind of upbringing gave me a pretty unique and interesting perspective, I think.”

On the album’s final track, “You Were It,” which he wrote at age 11 and his dad recorded in 2014: “It’s the first song I ever wrote, and this is the first album I’ve ever put out that doesn’t have Promise of the Real attached to it, so I figured it was fitting to circle back to it. When I look back at that song and I play it live every night, I realize it’s not really linear songwriting. That song, to me, holds up well with any of my other songs, and I was so young when I wrote it. So sometimes I think it’s less about whether you’re getting better or worse as a songwriter, it’s more about are you just getting in the way of a good song coming out.”

On Sierra Ferrell, who sang with him at Farm Aid [and who is featured on Nelson’s new album and a newly released single covering Young’s “Unknown Legend”]: “She’s so good. She’s a good buddy, you know, but I also think she’s just one of the greatest voices I’ve heard in a very long time, and she’s so musically gifted. It’s hard to find someone you work well with like that.”

On how he almost missed our Farm Aid: “I was just grateful to make it in the end. It was originally supposed to be held on a different day at a different venue, so I had said yes to doing another show on [Sept. 20]. And then when they moved it, I said, ‘I can’t miss Farm Aid.’ So it took me a minute, but I made it work.”

On rumors it may have been Willie Nelson’s last Farm Aid, pending his retirement from performing: “Aw, you know: He could retire, or he could not. I don’t know. It’s just one of those things that’s not for me to really figure out. But if he does retire, I’d say he’s earned it.”

With: The Band Loula.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tue.

Where: Palace Theatre, 17 W. 7th Place, St. Paul.