Tony Lucca

Tony Lucca
Singer Songwriter Tony Lucca
Background information
Birth name Anthony James Lucca
Born (1976-01-23) January 23, 1976
Pontiac, Michigan, United States
Origin Waterford, Michigan
Genres Rock, folk, acoustic, singer/songwriter
Instruments Vocals, guitar, piano, bass
Years active 1991–present
Labels 222 Records, Rock Ridge Music, Lucca Music
Associated acts TFDI
Website Official Web Site

Anthony James "Tony" Lucca (born January 23, 1976), is an American singer, songwriter, producer, and sometime actor. He is perhaps best known for starting his career on the Mickey Mouse Club. After the Mickey Mouse Club, Lucca went to Los Angeles, California, for a brief career as an actor, then became a full-time musician. He is a consistent touring artist and has toured with a multitude of acts, including Maroon 5, Kelly Clarkson, *NSYNC, Marc Anthony, Josh Hoge, Sara Bareilles,[1] Matt Duke, Tyrone Wells, and the late Chris Whitley. He was the second runner-up on the second season (2012) of the American reality television singing competition talent show, The Voice, broadcast on NBC.

Early life

Lucca was born in Pontiac, Michigan, the son of Sally and Tony Lucca.[2] Lucca is of Italian, Welsh, French, and English descent.[2] Lucca grew up around a large and musical extended family,[3] as his mother Sally was tenth of twelve children of the Detroit jazz piano player James "Jimmy" Stevenson.[4][5][6] Lucca grew up in Waterford, Michigan, and began singing at age 3[7] and child modeling at age 9.[2] When he was 12, he began playing in Detroit-area bands with his cousin, Cole Garlak.[4][7][8][9]

Professional and musical career

1991–95: Mickey Mouse Club

When Lucca was 14, he went to Detroit to audition for the Disney movie Newsies, only to find out the audition was for the Mickey Mouse Club instead.[3] Encouraged by his sister, he auditioned for the show and was picked for callbacks in Los Angeles.[2][3] In Los Angeles, he was selected along with 8 other kids to join the cast for the fourth season of the show. Lucca moved to Orlando, Florida, with his mother and lived in an apartment complex with other castmates and traveled back to Michigan between seasons.[2] He remained with the show for four seasons, until being let go during the seventh season when the show was canceled.

1995–97: Hollywood

In 1995, after the cancellation of the Mickey Mouse Club, Lucca moved to Los Angeles to begin an acting career.[7] He lived with fellow Mickey Mouse Club castmate Keri Russell, his girlfriend at the time. Russell and Lucca were cast and played leads together on the Aaron Spelling-produced Malibu Shores,[10][11] a television teen drama series, which lasted for one season. During this time he filmed commercials for Levi Jeans, J.C. Penney, and Blockbuster Video.[2] He had minor success in movies, appearing in an NBC movie of the week, Her Last Chance with Kellie Martin and Jonathan Brandis,[12] as well as two independent features.[13] He left acting in 1997 to pursue music.

1997–2003: Independent music

In 1997, Lucca self-released his first music album, So Satisfied, which he also co-produced.[4] In 1998, he launched his website www.tonylucca.com and began to sell his debut CD and its self-released follow-up, Strong Words Softly Spoken through the website and at live shows. He later released two EPs and a limited series of Live & Limited CDs through his site; each CD sold was numbered and signed. In 2001 and 2002, he served as opening act for NSYNC, a boy band featuring fellow Mickey Mouse Club co-stars Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez.

2004–2011: Lightyear and Rock Ridge Music

Lucca's third full-length album and his first commercially distributed, Shotgun, was released in 2004 in conjunction with Lightyear and New Vibe Records; the album was executive co-produced by JC Chasez, who Lucca toured with to support the album.[14] 2006 saw the release of Canyon Songs, recorded in both Laurel and Beachwood Canyons,[15] and Live In Hollywood, a live concert album; both albums were distributed by Rock Ridge Music. Come Around Again was released in 2008.

Lucca participated in a cooperative tour with Jay Nash and Matt Duke, which resulted in the 2009 EP entitled TFDI. The collaboration, which stands for "Totally Fuckin' Doing It"[16] was recorded in the Evanston, Illinois, studio SPACE during an impromptu visit to the studio, after the three artists formed a friendship during the tour.[7][17] Lucca briefly returned to acting in 2010, starring in a 901 Silver Tequila commercial, which was directed by the brand's founder Justin Timberlake.[18] He also played himself on an episode of Parenthood, appearing as a performing musician.[19] Lucca's sixth album was released in 2010, entitled Rendezvous With the Angels, on Rock Ridge Music. Solo, an acoustic CD composed of b-sides and previously unreleased recordings was released in November 2010, and given away for free in conjunction with Amazon.com's MP3 web store. Lucca recorded a second collaborative CD with Jay Nash and Matt Duke, TFDI II, which was released in the summer of 2011.

2012: Contestant on NBC's The Voice

On February 5, 2012, Tony appeared on the Blind Auditions of the American reality talent show The Voice in its second season. He performed Ray LaMontagne's "Trouble", and all four judges hit their red "I Want You" button for him. He chose to join Adam Levine's team.[20] It was also in this show he reunited with fellow Mouseketeer Christina Aguilera. Initially, she showed no sign of recognition but then realized who he was after he left the stage, and she followed him to congratulate him, also revealing that when they were young, Britney Spears, another fellow Mouseketeer, had a crush on Lucca. He advanced to the semi-finals, which he performed "How You Like Me Now" by The Heavy and moved on to the final round. For the final round on May 7, he performed Hugo's country-styled version of the Jay-Z song, "99 Problems". While enjoying his performance overall, Aguilera criticized Lucca for singing a song she saw as being derogatory towards women, as the song contains the line "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one." (Lucca did not sing the word "bitch" during the TV performance, but does on the studio recording.) This prompted Lucca's coach Levine to defend his performance, stating he and Lucca discussed the content of the song and decided to go on with it, but used Hugo's version to change the tone and be taken less seriously, as well as revealing a black T-shirt with a sparkling pink "Team Xtina" logo on it. During that night since Lucca's performance, Aguilera made more jabs at him by stating her finalist Chris Mann was "a real [gentle]man" who respects women, as well as appearing to ignore Lucca's other performances that night. On May 8, 2012, Lucca made his last performance on the show duetting with fellow contestant Jordis Unga formerly of Team Blake on the Fleetwood Mac song, "Go Your Own Way". Later that night, it was announced he had placed third in the competition, barely placing ahead of Mann by one quarter of a percentage point and coming behind winner Jermaine Paul from Team Blake and first runner-up Juliet Simms from Team Cee Lo. Lucca was later signed to Adam Levine's record label, 222 Records.

2013: EP Release and Tour

Lucca released a six song EP "With The Whole World Watching" on July 16, 2013. Lucca toured extensively following the release, including six dates on the Honda Civic Tour opening for Kelly Clarkson and Maroon 5.

2013: Record Deals and Patreon

Lucca joined Patreon in 2013. On 12/11/2013, while plugging Patreon on his YouTube channel, Tony announced he is no longer with Adam Levine's record label 222 Records. Excerpt: "Some of you know that recently I was signed to a fairly high profile record deal. -Super cool. What most of you don't know is that, said "record deal", has since come to an end. -Not as cool. Your basic record business 101 really..."

Other Ventures

Many of Lucca's songs have been featured in various TV shows, including Friday Night Lights, Brothers & Sisters, Shark and Felicity and in the movie Open Range. He appeared in an episode of the E! True Hollywood Story series, covering his time spent on The Mickey Mouse Club in 2007.[21] He has performed numerous times on NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly as a part of the show's band.[9]

Personal life

Lucca dated fellow Mouseketeer (and eventual Malibu Shores co-star) Keri Russell on-and-off for eight years[22][23]

On July 7, 2007 Lucca married single mom Rachel, adopting her son Liam. They live in Nashville, Tennessee, and have a daughter, Sparrow Jane Lucca (born October 17, 2009).

Discography

Albums

Studio Albums

Tracklist:

  1. "Thousand Daydreams"
  2. "Satisfied"
  3. "Too Late"
  4. "Seen Some Better Days"
  5. "Shame"
  6. "After All"
  7. "Hold You Tonight"
  8. "All Aboard"
  9. "So Tired"
  10. "Understand"
  11. "Melancholy Collar"
    12.
  12. "It's You"
Live Albums

EPs

Singles

Year Single Peak positions Album
US
2012 "Trouble" – Non-album releases by The Voice
"Beautiful Day" –
"In Your Eyes" –
"...Baby One More Time" 117
"How You Like Me Now?" –
"99 Problems" 58
"Yesterday"
(with coach, Adam Levine)		 68
2013 "Never Gonna Let You Go" – With The Whole World Watching

DVDs

Selected filmography

References

  1. ↑ "Blackbird bio". Blackbird Artist Agency. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Evan Amos (19 May 2011). "Evan Amos interview". Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  3. 1 2 3 Brian Lush. "Rockwired interview". Rockwired. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 "Lightyear bio" (PDF). Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  5. ↑ Sam Stephenson (11 January 2010). "Jimmy's Last Jam". Jazz Loft Project. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  6. ↑ Chris Smith (7 January 2010). "Obituary: James "Jimmy" Stevenson". Press Democrat. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Tony Lucca Bio". tonylucca.com. Retrieved 2010.
  8. ↑ Vanessa Rose (20 August 2006). "Artist Interview: Tony Lucca 8.20.06". 7duckets/mrvanessarose. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  9. 1 2 "IMDb bio". IMDb. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  10. ↑ "'Extreme Couponing' gone too far? Expert offers tips on how to save big without obsessing". Daily News (New York).
  11. ↑ Todd Everett (7 March 1996). "Malibu Shores Review". Variety. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  12. ↑ Carole Horst (7 April 1996). "Her Last Chance Review". Variety. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  13. ↑ Emanuel Levy (29 March 1997). "Take A Number Review". Variety. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  14. ↑ "Shotgun Album Listing". Lightyear. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  15. ↑ "Rock Ridge Store bio". Rock Ridge Music. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  16. ↑ Joe Lawler (15 December 2010). "Tony Lucca: Beyond the TV sing-alongs". Des Moines Metromix. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  17. ↑ Courtney Devores (1 December 2010). "Singer gives up solo standing for tour". Charlotte Observer. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  18. ↑ "901 Silver Tequila "Improved by Use"". Adweek. 28 July 2010. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
  19. ↑ "Charlotte Today feature". WCNC. 11 March 2011. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  20. ↑ Lisa Torem (29 July 2010). "PennyBlack interview". pennyblackmusic. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  21. ↑ "IMDB actor listing". IMDb. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
  22. ↑ John J. Moser (5 December 2009). "Indie music takes Tony Lucca beyond Mickey Mouse career". The Morning Call. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  23. ↑ "Keri Russell bio". People Magazine. Retrieved 3 June 2011.

External links

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