When the folks at The Signal went looking for an artist to perform at their grand opening after moving from Chestnut Street to the Chattanooga Choo Choo campus, they could have gone after just about anybody thanks to their partnership with Live Nation, the behemoth music promotions agency.
Josh Billue, owner of Marathon Live, which owns The Signal and several other venues around the South, said everyone on the staff wanted Nick Lutsko, a Chattanooga artist who has been making a name for himself for the last several years both for his "serious" music and his satirical parodies about everybody from Donald Trump to Taylor Swift.
"We want to complement the existing music market, and Chattanooga has some great talent. We love Nick," Billue said via phone from his home in Memphis
Lutsko's comedy songs have found on audience around the country thanks to social media and sites like College Humor and Super Deluxe, which put his songs in front of a large audience.
Lutsko will be the featured performer Tuesday for The Signal's grand opening in the former convention space at the Choo Choo. The event is free, and Lutsko will do an hour-long set featuring his 2019 album "Swords."
He debuted the album at the former Signal location in 2019. It was released prior to the pandemic, when he shifted to making comedy songs. In making the shift, he was originally trying to entertain himself but realized he could make money through his music even though performing live was shut down.
Lutsko said in a phone interview that he has been intentional about not playing too often in Chattanooga. His last show here was a last-minute gig at Wanderlinger Brewing Company just days before he and "The $100K Band" traveled to Chicago for two sold-out shows in April of 2022.
"Funny thing about that is our drummer, Adam Brown, got COVID at that Wanderlinger show and didn't know it. We had to find and teach a drummer all of our songs in Chicago in one day. And, we did," Lutsko said.
Lutsko said it was the most stressed he's ever been, but the first show went well, and then he woke up the next day without a voice. He tried every remedy he could find and "soldiered through" the second night, which was also being streamed live for added angst.
Lutsko has created parodies about Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Alex Jones, Donald Trump Jr., Fox News, the Republican National Convention and Pizzagate. He is often the main character in the videos, which is part of the joke and really how it all started, he said.
One song called "Chrissy Teigen, Please" drew a good deal of attention and features him pleading with the model and television personality to refollow him on Twitter after she apparently followed him and then unfollowed him when he blew up Twitter over the fact that she had followed him in the first place.
"Chrissy Teigen, please, you've got me on my hands and knees
"I'm begging you to follow me again
"Back when life was sweet. Remember I made that funny tweet
"I promise I can make you laugh again"
He said he woke up one morning early in the pandemic and decided he would write a song that day no matter what. Looking around, he decided to use whatever he could find in "this weird basement where I was living." The random toilet in the middle of the room, the fact that his grandmother lived in the basement. It all became fodder.
It just so happened that the Republican National Convention was the topic of the day, and he wrote, "I Want to be at the RNC." Fans who saw the video he created started commenting on the basement and his grandmother, and they wanted to know the backstories.
"They didn't care about the RNC," he said, but a side hustle was created. Many of his comedy songs include call backs and call forwards, and the basement and his grandmother make regular appearances.
One of his latest ventures is a regular YouTube series called "Saturday Night Lutsko," or SNL for you Saturday Night Live fans. He plays both host and musical guest, and like much of his work, "it is filled with Trojan horses."
While the comedy songs put him in front of fans that might not have otherwise found him, at least not this quickly, Lutsko said it presents a challenge when performing live.
"It is kind of Jekyll & Hyde," he said, "but it's also like a Venn Diagram. It's weird where some artists and actors can have multiple sides, but no one has really done it in music. It feels like we are trailblazing, but maybe there is a reason for no one has done it," he said with a laugh.
Performing with Lutsko will be his brother, Jakey, on xylophone, Brown on drums and loops, Jon Elliott on keys and sax, Eric Parham on bass and Asa Williams on trumpets.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.