2002–2009: Early years When Schultz and Fraites began collaborating, writing together and playing gigs around New York City, they did so under various names, including Free Beer, 6Cheek and Wesley Jeremiah. Fraites elaborated, "When Wes and I got together, our first band name was Free Beer. It wasn't serious at first. We were a crappy band doing (terrible) covers. But we slowly started getting away from covers and writing originals. We were doing everything: vanilla singer-songwriter stuff, hard rock, electronic music. There was no focus; it was a mad, random mess." According to Schultz, the band became 'The Lumineers' after a band called Lumineers (a made up word) were supposed to play at a club in
Jersey City the week after Schultz and Fraites played there. The
emcee mistakenly introduced Schultz and Fraites as
The Lumineers, and the name stuck. The parties settled the lawsuit in 2017, with the terms of the settlement confidential. In 2009, Jeremiah and Wesley recorded a song called Don't Wanna Go, but it was never officially released and as of now is only available on SoundCloud and YouTube. The song describes the grief of the band after someone very close to them had unexpectedly passed away, likely due to a medical emergency of some sort. This follows the band's moral theme of grief, considering the depressing fact that they started the band in their shared time of lament after Jeremiah's brother and Wesley's father passed away.
2010–2013: The Lumineers In 2010, after the band's relocation to Denver, Fraites and Schultz met classically trained cellist
Neyla Pekarek. Although Pekarek had just recently graduated from college and was planning to become a music teacher, she responded to a Craigslist ad posted by Schultz and Fraites requesting a cellist and agreed to join the band when she was invited. As a three-piece, The Lumineers met Maxwell Hughes at an open mic event in Denver. Hughes played and toured with the band as an unofficial fourth member and contributed to the band's debut album. The album was then remixed by Kevin Augunas, who also worked with the Black Keys, Cold War Kids, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, J-Roddy Walston and the Business, and Jon Brion. In December 2011, the song "
Ho Hey", which would become the band's first single, was used in the first season of CW's
Hart of Dixie. This started a national buzz on social media.
WXPN Philadelphia / NPR then conducted a feature on the band on their "World Cafe: Next" program. The band passed up major label offers to sign a deal with an independent label
Dualtone Records that same month. The album was then licensed under similar terms to
Dine Alone Records in Canada, Inertia in Australia, and
Decca Records for the rest of the world. On signing with smaller independent labels, Fraites claimed, "it's just nice to work with people that are entirely engaged. You know, not just sitting in front of a computer and playing
Angry Birds on their cell phones all day," adding, "with these smaller labels, people work 12 or 15 hour days to ensure our records are in the stores, and that we're getting played at radio. We want to work with people that are as hungry as we are." The album was met with mixed to positive critical reception, holding a 73 on review aggregator
Metacritic, translating to "generally favorable reviews". The band's popularity continued to build in 2012 with sold-out shows and favorable reviews, and their debut album went on to peak at number two on the
Billboard 200 album chart. Of the album's success, Schultz told Liz Riggs of
American Songwriter that "It's really arbitrary to any of us, especially to Jer and Neyla and I... because we've never really had an album out in this way... I'm really thrilled, but I also take it with a grain of salt," adding, "I think basically, I feel really lucky because I know how fickle the business, the industry is." "Ho Hey" later peaked at number three on the Hot 100, making it the band's first top five single. As of 2017, the track has sold over five million copies. On June 30, "Ho Hey" hit number one at commercial
Triple A radio, maintaining the position for eight weeks. Later, on September 17, the song hit number one on the
Alternative Songs chart where it stayed for two weeks. "Ho Hey" also reached number one on
Billboard's Rock Airplay, Hot Rock Songs, Alternative Songs, Rock Digital Songs, Alternative Digital Songs, Heatseekers Songs, Adult Pop Songs and Adult Contemporary Songs charts. "Ho Hey" experienced charting success internationally as well, reaching number one on the Canadian Alternative radio chart and number 17 on the
Canadian single sales chart. It also reached number eight on the
UK Singles Chart, becoming their first top 10 single there. In October 2012,
Spotify named "
Ho Hey" as the most shared song in Manhattan and third most shared in Brooklyn. As of February 2025 the song had been streamed more than 1.4 billion times on
Spotify and 356 million on
YouTube. On November 23, 2012, The Lumineers released
Winter, an
EP version of their self-titled debut album. On December 5, 2012, The Lumineers were nominated for two
Grammy Awards for
Best New Artist and
Best Americana Album. Continuing into 2013, "Ho Hey" would spend eight consecutive weeks atop
Billboards Adult Pop Songs chart. Simultaneously, "
Stubborn Love", the second single off their self-titled album, would see two four-week runs at number one on the Adult Alternative Songs chart. The Lumineers headline shows in the Northeastern U.S. were announced for February 2013 and quickly sold out. Similarly, the band's tours of the UK, Europe and Australia in early 2013 sold out all shows, after many shows were moved to larger venues. "
Submarines" was released as the third single on July 30, 2013. The band performed "Ho Hey" and "Submarines" on
The Colbert Report in July 2013. In August 2013, "Ho Hey" would become the 10th song to reach a 60th week on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart, eventually finishing its run on the Hot 100 after 62 weeks, one of the highest runs in the chart's history. Subsequently, on August 20, 2013, a deluxe edition of their debut album was released, which included five bonus tracks, over 25 minutes of video footage and a 28-page booklet. Several songs by the band were used in the television series
Reign. "Scotland", in particular, was used as the theme song for the series,
2014–2018: Cleopatra Fraites and Schultz composed the music for "
The Hanging Tree". "The Hanging Tree" is a song produced and performed by
James Newton Howard featuring vocals from American actress
Jennifer Lawrence for the 2014 film
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, the third installment of
The Hunger Games film series. The song appears on both the official
score album for the film and on the digital re-release of the
official soundtrack for the film. The lyrics were written by
The Hunger Games author
Suzanne Collins and originally appeared in her novel
Mockingjay. The song was released to American mainstream radio stations on December 9, 2014. In September 2014, it was announced that The Lumineers began working on their second album. Schultz stated through
Instagram, "Well folks, we are back in the studio, chippin' away at some new ideas. It's been one hell of a ride so far and we are excited to be writing again. Thanks and stay tuned." While performing the unreleased material in secret concerts, the Lumineers banned mobile phones, providing a locking pouch for people to hold their phones in during live performances. The band released their second studio album
Cleopatra on April 8, 2016. The black and white photo on the cover depicts silent movie star
Theda Bara in the title role in the 1917 film
Cleopatra. Cleopatra was co-produced by Simone Felice at The Clubhouse Studio in
Rhinebeck, New York, and mixed (blending of all individual tracks in a recording) at The House Of Blues Studios in
Nashville, Tennessee, by Ryan Hewitt. Band member changes for the
Cleopatra tour included bass player Ben Wahamaki, a touring member since 2012, being replaced by Byron Isaacs. The album's first single "Ophelia" was released February 5, 2016, and quickly rose to No. 1 on the Triple A chart where it stayed for 13 weeks, the second-longest time any song has been No. 1 at Triple A radio, tied with
Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know", just behind Coldplay's record of 14 weeks for their song "Clocks". At Alternative radio "Ophelia" also quickly rose to No. 1 where it stayed for four weeks and became the most-played song at Alternative radio to be released in 2016. Ophelia ended 2016 as
Billboard's #1 Alternative song and #1 Rock Radio song. As of October 2024 "Ophelia" had exceeded 1.3 billion
Spotify streams and 245 million streams on
YouTube. The second single, also the album's title track, "Cleopatra", sprang from an encounter with a taxi driver Wes met in the Republic of Georgia, who told a story of personal tragedy without a trace of self-pity. "Cleopatra" jumped quickly to No. 2 at Triple A radio where it peaked, and then became the band's third single to reach No. 1 at Alternative radio where it stayed for two weeks. The album itself was No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 in April 2016. A third single, "Angela", quickly rose to No. 2 on Triple A radio and broke into the top five at Alternative radio the week of December 11, 2017, making "Cleopatra" the first independent album to have three top five singles at Alternative radio since Mediabase reporting started. In an interview with Rolling Stone, frontman Wesley Schultz said he wrote most of "Angela" about his ex-girlfriend, Angela Henard. "Although we didn't work out she still holds a place in my heart. This is why she is brought up in multiple songs." In April 2017, the band released the short film
The Ballad of Cleopatra, which brings together videos for the songs "Cleopatra", "Angela", "Ophelia", "Sleep on the Floor" and "My Eyes". Directed by Isaac Ravishankara (
Ellie Goulding,
Hozier,
Phantogram), the film depicts Cleopatra's life story in one continuous narrative. The band accompanied their album release with the announcement of the
Cleopatra World Tour. This tour, spreading over 2016 and 2017, sold over 750,000 tickets in the United States alone and included two sold-out performances at
Madison Square Garden in New York City, three sold-out performances at
Marymoor Amphitheater in Seattle, WA, two sold-out performances at
Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver, CO, as well as Los Angeles's
Hollywood Bowl, and
Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD. In addition to their touring success in the United States, the band toured worldwide and sold over 100,000 tickets between Canada, The United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Australia, and South Africa. On January 9, 2017, Irish rock band
U2 announced that The Lumineers would be among their guests during the North American leg of the "
Joshua Tree Tour 2017", opening shows at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, NRG Stadium in Houston, AT & T Stadium in Dallas, Soldier Field in Chicago, Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, FedEx Field in Washington DC, Rogers Centre in Toronto, Gillette Stadium in
Foxborough, Massachusetts, and MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. In addition to their support tour with U2, the Lumineers announced two performances with
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in
Seattle and
Vancouver. They also announced a mid-August performance in London with Tom Petty and
Stevie Nicks. To finish off their Cleopatra World Tour, the band announced three August 2017 "homecoming" performances at Denver's Fiddler's Green Amphitheater. In October 2018, Neyla Pekarek quit the band in order to concentrate on a solo career.
2019–2021: III On April 1, 2019, they posted a number of photos, including one of the hashtag #whoarethesparks. On April 2, they teased their third album, titled
III, and announced that a new single, "Gloria", would be released on April 5. On June 15, they performed "Leader of the Landslide" at Piqniq, which was set to be a track on their yet-to-be-released album. On June 28, they played tracks from the album on The Other Stage at
Glastonbury Festival along with tracks from their previous two albums. On July 19, they released their second single from the album, "It Wasn't Easy to Be Happy for You", from
Chapter II: Junior Sparks. On December 12, the Lumineers played along with
Arkells at the
108th Grey Cup halftime show in
Hamilton, Ontario. For the year 2020, while touring was limited by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lumineers were No. 27 on Billboard's 40 Top Paid Musicians worldwide list and No. 6 in box office revenue, having played 20 shows to 215,000 fans.
2021–2024: Brightside On September 20, 2021, they announced their fourth studio album,
Brightside, and released the title track as the lead single on the same day. A music video was also released for the song on the same day. On October 13, 2021, "Big Shot" was released as the second single, along with an accompanying music video. On November 17, 2021, "A.M. Radio" was released as the third single. The accompanying music video was shot at Ramsey High School, the alma mater of Schultz and Fraites, employing current and former students as extras and production assistants. On January 14, 2022,
Brightside was officially released. The band announced on February 8, 2022, that there would be a tour for their North America Brightside World Tour 2022. In April, they did a cover of "Just Like Heaven" which was originally written by
The Cure, and is considered one of their bonus tracks for "Brightside." The group collaborated with American country star
Zach Bryan on the single "Spotless" which appeared on Bryan's
self-titled fourth studio album. The song peaked at number 17 on the
Billboard Hot 100. In 2024, The group announced the release of
Live from Wrigley Field which was recorded at the final stop of the
Brightside World Tour in 2022 in
Chicago. The live recording was released September 27, 2024. Prior to the full release, two singles from the upcoming album,
Gale Song (feat. James Bay) (Live from Wrigley Field) and
Sleep On The Floor (Live from Wrigley Field) were released on August 14, 2024 and September 4, 2024 respectively.
2025-present: Automatic On January 8, 2025, the Lumineers announced that their fifth studio album,
Automatic, would be released on February 14, 2025. The lead single, "Same Old Song", was released the same day as the album announcement. On February 12, the band announced a tour of the album, set to begin on July 3, 2025. The band released an EP for their then upcoming album
Automatic that included three songs total: Same Old Song, Asshole, and So Long. The Lumineers went on the Automatic tour and it came to an end around late summer early autumn. On April 23, 2025, the Lumineers released a single called
Sugar Mountain. On July 7, 2025, the Lumineers quietly released a single called
Shout, a cover of the song
Shout by Tears For Fears as the theme song for the second season of the television series The Institute. ==Musical style==