Lucas Biespiel
Lucas Biespiel is a singer, songwriter, and violinist from Portland, Oregon. He was 15 when he played his first show at a small club in Portland named the Satyricon, a venue that is well known for being the meeting place of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. Between 2009 and 2010 he was the front man for the Backyard Blues Boys, a blues band from Portland, before joining the band in late 2010. Biespiel has played at a multitude of musical joints across the Westcoast as a member of the BBBs, including performances at the Waterfront Blues Festival (the second largest blues festival in the country) in 2009 and in 2011 (on the Credit Union Blues Stage, one of the two main stages at the event). In 2010 he became a member of Oregon’s Cascade Blues Association. Mr. Biespiel prides himself in his songwriting, and his talent in writing has been compared to that of folk music legend Bob Dylan, while his voice has been compared to that of Van Morrison and John Fogerty. In a review of the BBBs album “Tradin’ Twelves” (released in 2011) CBA President Greg Johnson called his writing, “down-right amazing.” In 2009, while writing a song he was overheard by Thomas Lauderdale (the founder of popular group “Pink Martini”) who called Lucas’ music “excellent.” In addition to his songwriting, Biespiel is a very talented violinist, and has won several local Portland awards for his playing. After years of studying classical music with Cynthia Scott, Lucas decided to apply his talent on the violin to non-classical music and began to study with popular Jazz violinist Eddie Parente. In 2011 started to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, where he is currently studying with world known violin and oud virtuoso, Simon Shaheen.