They are five best friends making music and working to create something bigger while grinding it out on the road to build an identity. Through this, they became Lancaster & Company, now known as LANco. Everyone touched by their music becomes part of the Company. The band is nothing without the Company. The musical mission statement: every day in every way, throw one hell of a Company party.

Together, LANco is Brandon Lancaster (lead vocals), Chandler Baldwin (bass), Jared Hampton (keyboards, banjo), Tripp Howell (drums), and Eric Steedly (lead guitar).

Formed in 2012, LANco was born of a chance meeting between Howell and Nashville native Lancaster – each performing in bands at the same festival – just as Howell was readying a move to Music City the same week that Lancaster was returning from college. Once in Nashville, Lancaster met Steedly through mutual friends, while Hampton and Baldwin followed shortly thereafter, with the young band gigging at every opportunity.

Mining a catalog of songs written by Lancaster, the group began to develop its sound. Making the most of Howell’s day job in a carpet warehouse, the guys would slip in at night to rehearse on the little-traveled second level, loading their gear up and down with a forklift until they realized they could safely hide it with carpet between rehearsals.

But it was Lancaster’s side job – working a concession stand at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena – that opened a big door for the band when he spotted producer Jay Joyce at a concert in 2014. A fan of Joyce’s work as producer of such acts as Little Big Town and Eric Church, Lancaster recalls with a smile, “I closed down my hot dog stand and walked up to Jay and just introduced myself.”

The conversation brought an invitation from Joyce for Lancaster to share some songs that he’d written, and shortly thereafter, for a band audition.

The first result of their collaboration is LANco’s four-song, self-titled 2015 EP, now streaming exclusively on Spotify, with each song written or co-written by Lancaster. The EP offers first-time LANco listeners a taste of the distinctive style that defines the band’s music, from production to songwriting.

Now looking forward to the release of their upcoming full-length debut album – also produced by Joyce – LANco is among the first acts signed to Sony Music Nashville since the arrival of new Chairman & CEO Randy Goodman. Assigned to the label group’s Arista Nashville imprint, the band was an immediate win with Goodman, who offered them a deal on the spot the first time he heard them live.

Indeed, the band’s live performance energy is becoming one of their undeniable calling cards – and a big part of that is being able to engage the audience.

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