“Even gravity is learned,” sings Lucas Miré on “Going,” the opening song of his third full-length CD, Following the Landslide. The ethereal-sounding song describes learning how to find retroactive grace in the face of loss. “When I wrote that line I really felt like it summed up what I’d been going through the last few years: learning how to be present and commit to my life, how to slow down, and be someone that the people in my life could count on,” he explained. The theme of commitment and staying true appears several times before the record finishes, perhaps most-poignantly on the song, “Here.” “I’d started to write ‘Here’ five years ago, but I just couldn't make it ring true,” explains Miré. “I knew what I wanted to convey, but I wasn't there emotionally. On my last record, I had a song called ‘How to Run,’ and ‘Here’ is sort of the antidote to that.” Getting to this kind ‘gravity’ wasn't easy, but it was worth it. “I was really in a new emotional place in my life when I created this music,” Miré says. “After being in relationships most of my adult life, I found myself single for really the first time. I also turned 40 this year, and that has been really galvanizing in terms of just moving on in my life, looking at what needs to be dealt with and dealing with it.” While some might find it easy to cast this as another breakup album, listeners might be surprised to know a few key songs (“Comes & Goes,” and the aforementioned “Going”) are actually about Miré’s mother, Katie, who died after a long illness when Miré was 23 years old. “With my mother’s death and with the end of an important romantic relationship, I learned that love doesn't stop when something ends, and that is definitely a sentiment that bleeds into songs like ‘Gone,’ ‘ILY,’ and ‘Blue Ink.’ Even on the album’s most bitter pill, ‘Blood on Your Hands,’ it’s there,” says Miré. “I was actually surprised to find that what I like to call ‘love after love’ showed up again and again lyrically throughout the record.” Following the Landslide also displays the growth Miré experience through recording and releasing his last record, Never Regret the Nights (2009), a folk-pop-flavored disc produced in six days by Grammy-winning Clay Cook (Zac Brown Band). “Working with someone as talented and experienced as Clay Cook really helped me gain confidence in my own songwriting, guitar-playing and singing voice, and in making Never Regret the Nights with him, I learned to trust myself and my artistic instincts,” says Miré. “It was an important creative experience that really helped me have more of a hand in the production of Following the Landslide, which resulted in a record that was a lot more intimate.” Co-produced with Atlanta’s Brian Slusher (Slushco), Following the Landslide features a small suite of guitars, keyboards, and strings, as well as vocal collaborations with Girlyman (“ILY”), Lucy Wainwright Roche (“Blue Ink”), and Edie Carey (“Blood on Your Hands”). “I’m still pinching myself that some of my absolute favorite songwriters, voices, and people are on this record,” says Miré. “They elevated these songs higher than I could have dreamed possible.” Another collaboration of note comes with the song “Rings,” Miré’s duet with fellow Atlantan Bo Shell. While gay male duets aren't unheard of, they aren't exactly common either. “Bo has one of the most amazing voices and I wanted to sing with him since heard his song ‘Haunted Home’ several years ago,” explains Miré, “So I took this song I had and made it into a duet for us.” And what about that album title? Sharing the name of Miré’s long-time, but now defunct blog, ‘following the landslide’ comes from a line in a song by Gemma Hayes, one of Miré’s favorite artists. “To me, it says: A lot happens to us in life, sometimes hard stuff, and you have to keep rolling with it. If you stop, you’ll be crushed, but if you keep following your path and are willing to look, you might find something worthwhile in those rocks and stones,” he said. “If you trust it, everything leads you to a good place.” Voted Best of Gay Atlanta by readers of Southern Voice and nominated for Best Male Debut at the OutMusic Awards in NYC, Miré arrived on the Atlanta singer-songwriter scene with his 2005 debut, Forever's Not As Long As It Used To Be, and has performed at Atlanta's Gay Pride, the Atlantis Music Conference's Odd Man Out showcase, Acousticpalooza, Red Light Cafe’s Boys’ Night Out, and more.