Road Warrior: Singer-Songwriter Aaron Lacombe returns home for Pint and Plow show

With 170,000 miles on his touring van and roughly 45,000 more added each year, Aaron Lacombe has truly embraced life as a traveling musician. The Detroit-born singer-songwriter, now based in Kerrville, lives part-time in an RV with his two unlikely travel companions – a gentle Great Dane named Mae and a cat named Oscar who “runs security” from the van.

“She gets to sleep in the bed when we’re in the van,” Lacombe said of Mae during an interview Friday at Pint and Plow Brewing Company. “At home, she’s got her own bed. She digs the van because I can’t get more than 8 feet from her.”

Lacombe, 47, will perform at Pint and Plow on Saturday at 6 p.m., playing with multi-instrumentalist Oliver Stecht, who adds accordion, trumpet and keyboard to the mix. Fans can expect approximately two hours of music with merchandise, CDs and vinyl records available for purchase.

The Saturday performance comes on the heels of his new live album release, recorded at KSIJ Studios in Gladewater with a live audience. The album dropped Friday.

Lacombe’s journey to becoming a full-time touring musician has been years in the making. Since 2016, he has released five solo albums and EPs. His 2016 song “Superman, Only Better” gained significant traction with more than 500,000 plays on Spotify, and in 2021, he won the Texana Troubadour Songwriting Competition.

His music blends storytelling with influences ranging from his “number one hero” Willie Nelson to the late John Prine.

“I like to think I sort of like write stories like John Prine did,” Lacombe said, adding that his musical style has evolved significantly over time. “I can definitely see that there’s a lot of artifice being stripped away the older I get… You stopped taking yourself so seriously. I’m too old and ugly to be like a new country star now.”

When asked if he ever tires of life on the road, Lacombe was quick to respond.

“I really don’t get tired of it as long as the gigs are good,” he said. “I’ve been being a little more selective last few years and so they tend to be consistently the kind of places where all the seats face the stage and people are there to listen to music.”

He added, “It sucks being in the corner of a bar and no one’s listening.”

The musician’s current lifestyle required some adaptation, particularly with the addition of Oscar the cat, who joined the traveling family in an unexpected way.

“When he was about six or seven weeks old, I was staying at a little motel and he walked in the door and curled up with Mae,” Lacombe recalled. “He was freezing. He was tiny and wet and freezing and come to find out full of fleas.”

The cat has since become a permanent fixture in Lacombe’s touring entourage, though not without challenges. “The having a litter box in the van is a new thing for me,” he admitted. “Everybody else goes outside. Oscar.”

Mae, meanwhile, frequently joins Lacombe on stage “unless I’m in a venue, you know, like a restaurant or something where it can’t be allowed.”

Lacombe’s summer tour schedule is jam-packed with performances throughout New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and potentially Wyoming during a two-and-a-half-week run in June. He’ll return briefly to Texas for the 4th of July to see Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan perform before hitting the road again for shows in East Texas, Houston, Illinois, Tennessee, Ohio, and Michigan.

Though busy with performing, Lacombe hasn’t completely abandoned his previous occupation. “I’ve stopped taking new business, but I have yet to finish up all that stuff,” he said regarding RV repair work he still has in progress.

His dedication to the music is evident in his relentless touring schedule and songwriting, which often leans toward the melancholic. During the interview, he performed a new song reflecting on the loss of musical heroes.

“But the older I get, the more of my heroes are dying. You look up one day and there’s no one worth looking up to. I comfort myself with the songs that they leave behind now and wonder just how many more I can stand to lose,” he sang, referencing influences like Merle Haggard, David Bowie, Tom Petty, and John Prine.

“Oh, it’s my jam,” he said, writing sad songs.

Despite the challenges of road life and the music industry’s uncertainties, Lacombe has found contentment in his chosen path, sometimes capturing this sentiment in his lyrics. In his song “As Soon as I Make It,” he explores the fleeting nature of financial success while highlighting what truly matters.

“It’s just about how if you get a little money come your way, the universe will find out about it and come take it from you,” he explained before quoting the chorus: “As soon as I make it, somebody come along and take it. Seem like money don’t spend no time in my pocket at all.”

For Lacombe, the touring lifestyle – with his four-legged companions by his side – has become not just a career but a calling, one concert and one mile at a time.