Lyle Lovett is starting to think about the future, including a follow-up to his 2007 album “It’s Not Big It’s Large,” but he’s in no hurry.
“We are talking about recording maybe late this year, early next year,” Lovett tells Billboard.com. “I want to record something to come out some time next year.” He has a direction in mind but says, “I don’t know if I want to talk about it yet.”
Lovett actually has his sights set even further down the road. He has two more albums on his deal with Curb/Universal and at this point figures the horizons are wide open.
“The possibilities are very exciting, I think,” says Lovett, who signed his deal in 1985. “I’ve never made a dime from a record sale in the history of my record deal. I’ve been very happy with my sales, and certainly my audience has been very supportive. I make a living going out and playing shows.
“But I’m very excited about the possibility of actually being able to sell records. Records are very powerful promotional tools to go out and be able to play on the road, but you do have to think about it as a way of sustaining itself at some point. I’m very excited about being able to do some of that on my own, maybe.”
He does not, however, rule out another label deal.
“Certainly if a major label is interested in working with me after these next two records and is able to come up with a strategy that does engage some of the new technology in a way that can benefit everybody, I’d be very interested in that,” acknowledges Lovett, who’s touring with his Large Band through mid-August and has also financed an album recorded at some of the singer/songwriter shows he does with John Hiatt, Guy Clark and Joe Ely but is having trouble getting his label interested in putting it out.
Lovett will also add to his acting resume with “a very small contributio”n to Michael Meredith’s film “The Open Road,” which stars Justin Timberlake, Jeff Bridges, Mary Steenburgen, Kate Mara and Harry Dean Stanton and is expect to open later this year. “I got to do a scene with Justin, which was fun. I enjoyed meeting him,” says Lovett, who also performed a song for the soundtrack with Charlie Sexton, who’s scoring the film.
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