LUTHI is a rising funk act from Nashville, Tennessee. The band consists of anywhere from seven to nine members on stage at a time, the majority of which have known each other for nearly a decade. Singer Christian Luthi and guitarist Taylor Ivey joined us to chat about their progression as a band and how they ended up in the genre they are.
“I went to school at Belmont with one of Luthi’s good friends,” said Ivey. “We met and since then have been playing together.”
Over the years, the cast of musicians has rotated in and out but the core group of friends have been a constant.
“The lineup really solidified a couple years ago,” said Luthi. “It was around then that we really all just clicked into what we were trying to do.”
Part of their unified movement came from changing the name of the project from Christian Luthi to LUTHI. This change represented them moving away from the singer songwriter style and more towards the funk sound you can hear on their 2016 EP Home Again.
“I enjoy doing stuff in that realm and at times it can prove to be more lucrative than doing something weird…but there’s just so much of that going on in the city,” said Luthi. “Once in a while we’d play a show and put the whole band together and it would go really well.”
This pushed LUTHI to make the full move.
“I’ve done musical theater my entire life, so I really enjoy performing,” said Luthi. “At some point I got really beat up playing these small, shitty acoustic shows where no one showed up and not getting people to get down. About three years ago we started to dig in to it that we could do something weird here that sounds really different and people are catching on to it.”
Their move into the funk arena has proven to be a very successful venture thus far.
“We pride ourselves after this move into the dance realm and the funk realm of making people dance in Nashville,” said Ivey.
They make sure to state that they by no means aim to put down Nashville, the city that has helped them this far.
“We wouldn’t be anywhere without it,” said Luthi. “We have an absolute blast playing here at Acme where people come from all around, ultimately, the world. It’s really just cool to see people that aren’t musicians themselves and the way that they interact and respond to.”
Playing smaller venues is where Luthi cut his teeth as a musician, and as such making stops in Mississippi remind him of those early days playing to no one and chatting with the bar regulars after a show.
“We’re excited to come down to Mississippi to play for some people that aren’t afraid to dance,” said Luthi.
Also catch LUTHI at Hal and Mal’s in Jackson, Mississippi (2/2) as well as Blue Canoe in Tupelo, Mississippi (2/3 & 2/4). 
