Country, emo, “Fruit Salad” by The Wiggles? It doesn’t matter – Neon Luck can do it all.

Neon Luck is a Baton Rouge cover band that plays songs of all genres and changes the setlist and genre for every single show the band performs.

Its main members, Christian Butler, Nick Ashton, Grant Holmes and Brandon Gallego, met in high school, but they did not start playing music together until April of this year.

Butler, the group’s vocalist, is the newest member of the band. Before Neon Luck, he had never been in a band. Now, he’s the stage-strutting, energetic front man for the group.

“After one audition with Christian, I knew that he could bring the personality and the vibe that we were looking for,” Ashton, the band’s drummer, said.

Holmes, Gallego and Ashton are former members of a band called Dave Fishingtrip, which split earlier this spring into two new bands: doggish and Neon Luck.

“Half of the band wanted to do original music and half of the band really wanted to lean into the college bar cover thing,” said Holmes, who doubles as front man for doggish and bassist for Neon Luck.

True to its mission, Neon Luck played its first gig at Tiger TV’s Battle of the Bands event at Fred’s, and never looked back.
The name Neon Luck came from two different places. Holmes suggested the “Neon” part, but the group was undecided on the second part of the name. 

Neon Trees was taken. Holmes suggested Neon Junior and Butler suggested Neon Dog but, “those names were both really bad,” said Lyric Mandell, band manager of Neon Luck.

Ashton was the one who stumbled onto the Luck part.

“I’m really into a country artist named Charley Crockett,” said Ashton. “There was a picture of him in this ridiculously fly matching suit with a neon sign in the background that just said ‘luck,’ and I was just in awe.” 
Neon Luck’s name certainly describes the band’s energy on stage. 

The personalities of each band member come out when Neon Luck performs. Butler dances around stage and plays the microphone cord like a guitar. At times, Gallego gets on Holmes’ shoulders while playing a song. Ashton bangs his head and banters with the other members in between songs.

The band’s chemistry and familiarity also translates on stage, as each member communicates with one another by the raise of an eyebrow or nod of the head.
“It’s nonverbals,” Ashton said. “It’s just a testament to the quality of these guys and how professional and talented they are.”

The band credits most of their professionalism and success to their manager, Lyric Mandell. Mandell befriended Ashton when she was a TA for one of his classes and, despite having no musical background, decided to take on the role of band manager for Neon Luck.
“We would not be where we are without Lyric, like we wouldn’t have left our house,” Ashton said. “She took a group of guys who were steadily gigging around and getting once a month type things to just hitting the pavement.”
“I want to succeed not only for myself, but for them,” Mandell added. 

The band refers to Mandell as their “secret sauce” and credit her as the reason the band went from performing for the first time to releasing its own live album, “Live at Chelsea’s,” in the span of 6 months.

“We were just playing a show at Chelsea’s and somebody brought up the idea that you could track and record the entire thing,” Butler said. “And we were like ‘yeah, why not?’ If it turns out good, then we could use it for something.”

The band did not only perform all the live songs on the album, Ashton and Gallego also had a hand in mixing and editing the final product.

“Brandon just made it come alive,” Ashton said. “He was able to find things in there and really bring them out and make it feel like you’re in the crowd.”

Though the band started with covers, it plans to venture into original music next.

“We’re hoping to record and release a single by the end of the year,” Butler said. 

The single is an original song the members created in order to qualify for Battle of the Bands. It was inspired by Ashton and Butler’s long distance relationships and is “more hard-seated in rock,” according to Butler.

Most of the band has a rock background. Gallego is a rock guitarist, and Ashton’s huge drum sound carries the single. Neon Luck’s sound and songwriting is influenced by some of Holmes’ favorite artists, including Elvis Costello & The Attractions and The Decemberists.

“As more people bring ideas to the songs, I can see that sound changing dramatically,” Holmes said.

Neon Luck has had other original songs in the works for a while, but the genre-bending band continues to rework them.

“That’s the hard part with being in a cover band for so long. You can compare the final product of what you’re playing to a record,” Ashton said, “but when it’s your own music you’re just so much more picky and you’re never happy with it.”

When it comes to choosing what songs to cover, Neon Luck is all about catering to the crowd.

“We really wanna get whoever’s there really excited about being there,” Butler said. “We’re pretty much always editing our setlist and adding in new stuff to make this weird salad of everything we’re good at, but also what people want to listen to.”

Their setlist can include country classics like “Chicken Fried,” peppy pop such as “Good 4 U,” pop punk pieces like “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” or raucous rock songs such as “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

“What we’re trying to do right now is to play as many venues as possible in as many styles as possible,” Ashton said. “We’re playing a whole country set tonight, and then next week we’re gonna turn around and play an entire emo set at Chelsea’s.”

The band’s main priority is to make sure the songs it plays resonate with the crowd. The group isn’t too picky about what they play, so long as people enjoy it.

“We’ll play basically anything that we can make sound good with one guitar and one bass,” Holmes said.

Neon Luck not only performs songs that they know the crowd will like, it also tries to connect with them through fun merch, such as its temporary tattoos.

“I love the excitement in people’s eyes when you make a connection with them, whether it be them on stage or, like, me with a temporary tattoo,” Mandell said. “I think it’s really fun to be able to connect with people in the crowd as much as they have fun musically.”

“This is the band that made me realize if you wanna entertain people you have to perform in every facet,” Holmes added. “From the physical to the musical.”
Beyond impacting crowds around Baton Rouge, Neon Luck has also changed each of the four members’ lives as well.

“It’s pretty neat how well we’ve been able to foster the relationships within our band,” Butler said. “I was friends with Brandon. I knew Nick, but we weren’t super close anymore. I didn’t know Grant at all – and now, it feels like a second family, honestly.”

Like any family, or any band, Neon Luck has moments where they disagree or argue, but each of the members believe their ability to handle the band’s issues is a testament to their closeness.

“That’s not to say it’s sunshine and roses all the time, we deal with problems,” Ashton said. “But when things have challenged us, we don’t pull apart from each other.”

The band’s biggest struggle? Debating whether or not they should perform a childhood classic.

“We are in constant warfare over playing ‘Fruit Salad’ by The Wiggles,” Ashton said.

When it comes to the future of Neon Luck, the four member group is only focused on continuing to make crowds happy, regardless of how big those crowds are. 

“Our goal is to tour around, play some awesome shows and have a good time,” Butler said. “So as large-scale as we can make that happen, that is where we’re gonna go.”
However, the most important thing to the band is maintaining the relationships and comradery they have built with each other. Becoming a well-known band would not be worth it if they did not do it the way they wanted to. 

“If we make it really big, like we’re doing national tours and headlining places, but we don’t have the same energy and dynamic we have now,” Ashton said, “I don’t think I could say I achieved my goals at that point.”

When it comes to putting on a show, Neon Luck will try anything once, music venues, bars, sorority events  – even playing 50th birthday parties.

“It’s weird being like, we’ll just play or do anything, but if you wanna come and have a good time, I wanna help provide it,” Ashton said.

No matter who they’re playing for, Neon Luck will make sure everyone in the crowd is having the time of their lives.

“If you want to have a good time and your mom wants to have a good time,” Butler said, “you need to hire Neon Luck.”

Neon Luck will perform at Boudreaux and Thibodeaux on Dec. 10 and Fred’s in Tigerland on Dec. 16 for Graduation Night. Check out their website here or follow them on Instagram @neonluck.band.