Nat Lefkoff has been playing music and writing songs since he was around the age of nine – songs which he now considers terrible. For him, music started as a hobby and developed into a passion, and he performed in several bands throughout junior high and high school. He found himself getting more comfortable performing in local bars and other venues, and eventually, he moved to Washington to attend college, where he became involved in more projects.
Around his college years, he started DIY touring of his own projects, and in 2017, he released his debut self-titled album. Just before the COVID pandemic hit, he was gearing up to play music full-time after his career as a teacher in the Santa Cruz area. Once the pandemic came, he had to put his full-time music career on hold for a while, eventually getting a job in disaster relief at quarantine centers and homeless shelters.
After some time, he worried he was compromising his dreams for a stable life. However, one day a song came to him in a dream. He recorded the chorus to this song, which ultimately developed into the title track of his sophomore album, Heavy Lifting, and took this as a sign to finally play music full-time.
Over the last three years, he has found an immense amount of support among the musicians he has befriended and performed with, and he still plans on focusing on music full-time for the rest of his life. He cites Neil Young as an early influence, remembering that his dad would play Young’s songs in the car and pause to emphasize great lyrics.
The art of songwriting – the structures, the lyrics, and how the poetry of the song comes together – appeals more to him than the art of music – how the song sounds, what chords are used, etc. – and he performs almost exclusively originals in his shows.
Lefkoff mentions “an indescribable feeling of pride and satisfaction” that occurs whenever he creates a song that sounds good to him. He says it took a long time to get to the point where he felt proud of his writing, but now that he’s there, he feels there’s no other high quite like it. He describes his songs as somewhere between folk, rock, and pop, especially since he can arrange his songs either for a solo acoustic guitar or for a full rock band. He wants his songs to reach other people and touch them in some way, whether through the Internet or in a physical space.
Traveling specifically to play music has allowed him to create memories and play in places he never would have imagined, from a boat in a Missouri lake to a firehouse in New York City on his summer 2023 tour. He hopes that audiences are able to embrace the honesty he brings to each show, and that ultimately he is able to lift weights off people’s shoulders through shared experiences.
You can see Nat Lefkoff performing live at the Gold Hill General Store, located at 531 Main Street in Gold Hill, on Thursday, October 3, 2024, starting at 7 p.m. This show is part of a tour to support his third and newest album, There You Are, which you can listen to along with his first two albums wherever you get your music. Be sure to learn more about him by going to his website at natlefkoff.com and by finding him on Facebook or Instagram.
