Jake Luhrs: A man with a message
Photos and words by Sean Rayford
Working a home improvement gig in Columbia’s Olympia neighborhood in 2005, Jake Luhrs told his boss he needed to leave early, to try out for a metal band — in Pennsylvania. “You know we’re in the middle of painting this person’s house, right?” Luhrs recalls his boss’s response.
“It was a very emotional period,” says Jake, from a tour bus parked behind the Tabernacle on a 2019 summer night in Atlanta. Black with white flames stretching the sides, the bus bunks at least a dozen on August Burns Red’s headlining tour, a ten year anniversary of Constellations, their third full length and Jake’s sophomore effort with the band.
A consistent stop on the ABR tour circuit, Luhrs is no stranger to Atlanta. Seventeen years ago his old band, She Walks in Beauty, drove from Columbia for a show in a painter’s van. There were two seats up front, and in the back, the remaining band members, one friend, a mattress, and their gear. Their printed MapQuest directions led them to a run down section of town. “A non-existent address,” as drummer Chris Carroll remembers.
“I think it was a Chinese restaurant — and they literally moved the tables out of the way so there could be a "dance floor." And for $20, the sound guy would record the band’s set,” says Carroll, “This guy just happen to let us play at his club. It was absolutely bizarre.”
In about a year’s time, She Walks in Beauty split up. Left behind in the wake, toxic trappings of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. As one of Jake’s family members battled a heroin addiction and the local party scene threatened to swallow Luhrs, new and serious problems challenged the young musician. Jake battled depression and thoughts of suicide. Desperate, he did something completely new.
Jake asked for help from God.
The resulting experience led him to the bible for the first time. “That’s when I ended up giving my life to God - to Jesus,” says Luhrs.
She Walks in Beauty in August of 2004: (L-R) Chris Carroll, Chris Andrews, Troy Teague, Chris Huebner, and Jake Luhrs.
MYSPACE MESSAGE
A few weeks before that 2005 phone call interrupted Jake’s workday in the Olympia neighborhood, Luhrs sent a MySpace message to the Pennsylvania based band August Burns Red. They were in search of a new vocalist and guitarist Brent Rambler was on the phone. Rambler wanted him to come try out for the band. Tomorrow.
“I went home and told my mom,” says Jake, “I packed my 1989 Honda Civic hatchback with my clothes and called my friends.” After a twelve hour drive he met his future bandmates for the first time on a farm in Amish Country. They practiced in an egg room and Luhrs recorded demo vocals for a song.
August Burns Red would then embark on a three week tour. Without Jake.
Luhrs was told that another vocalist would join the band for the trip but that the door was still open for him. Some friends back home told him he was being strung along. Instead of a return to South Carolina, Luhrs drove his ‘89 Honda to Virginia, were he reconnected with his father and practiced the ABR songs.
Then, in the beginning of 2006 Luhrs got his shot to perform with August Burns Red. At shows in Tallahassee, Clearwater, Marietta, Augusta, Fayetteville, Wilmington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, New York City, Portland, Seattle, San Jose, Denver, Tulsa, Montreal, Ottawa, Chicopee and in Poughkeepsie, Jake solidified his role as the band’s permanent vocalist. He credits Between the Buried and Me singer, Tommy Rogers, for taking him under his wing that summer and imparting a message to Luhrs’ bandmates, ‘Jake was the real deal — passing on him would be a mistake.'
Rogers was right. With seven full lengths together, more than a thousand performances in over fifty countries, and two GRAMMY nominations for “Best Metal Performance,” Luhrs and the band seem unstoppable. Five out of the band’s previous six LPs have held top 25 positions on the Billboard 200 album charts. In ‘16 Luhrs was the recipient of Alternative Press Magazine’s Artist Philanthropic Award. August Burns Red’s latest studio full length, Guardians, with Fearless Records, was released in 2020.
Isaac Stone, right, Jake Luhrs, ABR drummer Matt Greiner, and NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace.
803 ROOTS
Jake’s parents divorced when he was in elementary school and he moved with his mother and sister from Greenville to Irmo. He watched his sister embrace alt-rock bands of the 90’s and he developed a taste for punk rock. What began with Green Day and Rancid led a teenage Luhrs to Columbia bands Stretch Arm Strong and Burns Out Bright.
"Those guys were the pioneers in our city at the time and I wanted to mimic that scene at that point, so I started a band called She Walks in Beauty with some friends.”
SWIB, as emblazoned on snap bracelets at the time, would be one of a handful of bands that Luhrs formed in Columbia. In the shadows of the college soccer stadium at the Sumter Street storage sheds, Luhrs, found a community to embrace. “We would just go down there and party and practice. And watch each other and talk about music and where our hearts were — and [our] direction and what we wanted to write. It was really kinda neat. It was like school for a musician because you were seeing on the ground what it looks like to start a band — operate a band — what's important, and the passion behind it.”
Younger than many of the musicians at the sheds, Jake latched onto the frontmen of those two local bands. “He was like an older brother,” says Luhrs about Burns Out Bright’s Isaac Stone, “I was kinda a nuisance to him I think, because I was just a little kid and kinda annoying. But he taught me the ropes and encouraged me.”
Stone recalls, “I met plenty of kids — heck — I was one of them. I was like, 'I'm gonna make it — our band is better, so we're gonna make it. And he had that naive confidence that teenagers in bands have. But he was so laser focused. He is a guided missile.”
When Jake sold his car to buy a van for touring with SWIB, the gas guzzler negated chunks of his paycheck from the Journeys at the Dutch Square Mall. Much of the remainder went back into the band. “He didn't see a job as anything other than, 'I can get money and get t-shirts for my band. Or, I can get money and I can buy this piece of equipment that we need,” says Stone, “It seemed like every decision he made, was made in that mindset.”
One night Jake approached Stretch Arm Strong singer and show promoter, Chris McLane, at the New Brookland Tavern in West Columbia. ”I've got a lot of questions about the music industry and I want my band She Walks in Beauty to grow,” the teenage Luhrs positioned. McLane told him to come back next week with a list of questions and in return, McLane would have show flyers for him to pass out. Jake returned with a list of about a dozen questions. Inquiries like: How to attract a record label? What’s the most important thing about touring? How do I save up for a van?
“I flyered the crap out of that show,” says Luhrs, “A legend in my eyes, and a man who really taught me how to give back, is Chris McLane.”
Almost two decades later, in front of a new generation of crowds, McLane’s influence lives on. “Jake definitely has a stage presence that is very reminiscent of Chris McLane,” says Stone, “I mean, he was at every Stretch Arm Strong show and he would talk to those guys as much as he possibly could. And if he wasn't right up front, center of the stage, he'd be off to the side studying Chris. You can see it in his little dance moves.”
Still working in the music industry, McLane has followed along, “It’s been cool to see Jake grow from that young kid and forge his own path and the great things that he has done with August Burns Red. I mean, that band continues to tour, do great business, and stay relevant in an age and industry that can be very fickle and incredibly difficult in which to succeed,” says McLane.
It was also at New Brookland where a young Jake met Thomas Barnett, vocalist of Richmond’s Strike Anywhere. "I saw the singer just go apeshit. He was so passionate — so emotional. He had so much feeling in his presence and his voice. It was the first time I had seen any type of performance like that in my life,” remembers Luhrs, “This guy had intent. He was there for a reason and you were gonna hear him.”
After the show Jake asked Barnett to sign his arm with a marker. After obliging, the Strike Anywhere singer asked Jake to sign his arm. "That exchange of authority — of power — because I'm looking up spiritually and emotionally. I'm looking up to this man and I'm going, 'holy crap, this guy is a monster and he chooses to look at me at eye level? I was just blown away by that exchange. So then I saw the power and the authority — and the greatness and the weight that music carries and I was like, ‘I gotta do this. I wanna be a man with a message and I want to help people.”
While on tour over the years, Luhrs kept meeting fans who would share with him, very personal stories about challenges in their lives and how the band and their music had helped. "You get to hear these crazy stories and how the power of music has helped people,” says Luhrs, “How powerful your music is to these individuals. And they share very precious and sometimes dark experiences. And some, miraculous. You encourage them and then you leave [on tour] and they go home to the same situation they were just discussing. And I really wanted to bridge the gap.”
In 2011 Jake Luhrs founded a non-profit, Heart Support, “a community for people to talk openly about their struggles of addiction, depression, suicidal tendencies, self harm, relationship issues - pretty much any type of mental struggle,” explains Luhrs, who serves as president of the organization. Now with six full-time employees, the group also has a team of more than one hundred volunteers.
Luhrs currently lives in rural Pennsylvania, away from the chaos of tour life in major cities across the globe. His girlfriend of five years lives in Finland. During the pandemic he followed through with another long time dream, opening a gym that also focuses on mental health in Lancaster, PA. As far as he knows, it the first of it’s kind.
On Tuesday night Jake will be back in Columbia performing with August Burns Red for first time in 14 years. “When you leave your home, to try to live your dream — you don’t really know if it’s gonna work out. It was kinda cool, like bringing home the trophy and getting to celebrate with everybody,” says Jake about his first and only Columbia show with ABR in 2008 at his old NBT stomping grounds.
“I’ve been in August Burns Red since 2006. It’s been my life for so long. Now I’m going home where that wasn’t my life. And that’s like having these two worlds collide. It’s like a weird Matrix. I’m 37 year-old Jake Luhrs playing a show where I was starting out my career at 16 years old. I’m not sure exactly how that will feel but it’s gonna be a really cool experience and it will be nice to see some old friends and everybody that I love.”
August Burns Red performs Tuesday, July 26 at The Senate in Columbia, SC with support from We Came as Romans, Hollow Front and Void of Vision. Doors are at six, show at seven and advance tix are $30.
*All photos, except for SWIB band photo, made at The Fillmore on August 6, 2019 in Charlotte, NC. All photos Copyright Sean Rayford
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About the author: Sean Rayford is a South Carolina photojournalist, covering the state since 1997.