Our annual Summer Stars series features a variety of groups making the rounds on the festival circuit. Today we feature Lord Huron. We’ve also checked in with Django Django, The Revivalists, Emancipator, Zoogma, Foxygen, The Flaming Lips, Allen Stone, Lord Huron, Shovels & Rope, Passion Pit, John Scofield, The Lumineers, Futurebirds, Tea Leaf Green and moe..

Eight years ago, Ben Schneider moved from his native Michigan to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a visual artist. “I was working on music all along the way and some of my art projects included musical elements,” he says. “But I started to feel like I didn’t have much place in the art world, and I began looking for something else.” So on a trip back home in 2009, he spent time holed up in a small cabin on the northern tip of Lake Huron and began working on a batch of songs that would form the basis of the band’s debut EP, Mighty. Schneider later recruited a group of his old friends to join him on the road and in the studio, and, in 2012, released the band’s debut full-length record, Lonesome Dreams.

Lord Huron’s songs are deeply rooted in classic American folk and country, filled with lyrical imagery that focuses largely on landscapes. He often tells stories from the perspective of an adventurer as dusty tales of Midwestern lands coast atop galloping rhythms, through valleys of reverberated guitars and wind up in pockets of rootsy psychedelia. “We have a big connection with the natural world,” Schneider says. “The spiritual side of my life has a lot to do with nature and always has.” *

Album and drink for a Hot Summer Night: Sitting on the porch sipping whiskey on the rocks and listening to Hank Williams.

Festival Stops: , High Sierra, Gathering of the Vibes, Newport Folk, Green Man, Pukkelpop, more.