We may miss sleeping in our own beds. We may dread the long hours in the car. But few of us truly understand what it means to live our lives “on the road.”Having spent nights in parking lots as a young musician and now touring relentlessly with his band, Mike Mangione knows the meaning all too well.Mike Mangione & the Union introduce Springs audiences to their distinct “soulful Americana” sound Sunday night at the Loft Music Venue. The genre qualifier is intentionally vague, since the Chicago-based band knows no better way to describe their music than to just play it.”The music didn’t come about consciously,” says frontman and founder Mangione. “But more as a representation of where we were coming from before we joined the band.”Mangione’s musical interests trace back to folk and blues, but several band members are classically trained in string instruments. Together, they produce music rooted in folk and augmented by background orchestration that Mangione calls a “vast wall of sound.” Most songs feature a spiritual and philosophical edge.”I try to write about the human mystery,” says Mangione. “Who we are, where we are and where we’re going. We all ponder those questions. All of my songs orbit around them.”Mangione is more than just a singer-songwriter and leader of “The Union,” though. He joined them as a road-worn troubadour.After college, Mangione moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in pursuit of his passion — music. He worked odd jobs in coffeehouses to stay afloat. There, he crossed paths with working musicians who had never made it big, but were “sustaining.” Mangione decided to follow their lead.”I didn’t have anything else I wanted to do,” Mangione says of his desire to a musician. “Working in coffee shops, I definitely wasn’t doing it. These musicians, they were playing in coffee shops, but they weren’t working in them. I took my cue from those guys.”When he was 24, Mangione packed his life into the back of a van and set off to travel the country playing music. The experience was everything he could have hoped for.”I just fell in love with it,” he says. “I got rid of my apartment, and I lived in a van for a year and a half. For me, it was a no-brainer. I had no expenses. I was young and stupid, which is a great combination, I guess.”Despite the good times, Mangione knew this life couldn’t last forever. He honed his craft, attained artistic fulfillment and made countless friends while out on the road. He also woke up to truck horns in rest stops, searing Alabama heat and a police officer rattling his window in the Minnesota winter to “see if I was dead.” He had to settle down.Knowing he wanted to expand his music, Mangione recruited his brother Tom to play guitar with him in a new band. Over time, the duo added an upright bass player, cellist, violinist and drummer.”The Union” was born.Now, at 33, Mangione has settled down a bit. Nonetheless, the Union still tours extensively. The band works on their music on the road, ironing out kinks with live audiences before putting songs on a record. Don’t be surprised if you hear sounds from their upcoming release, “Red-Winged Blackbird Man.””Our shows are a trial period,” says Mangione. “The audience doesn’t know it, but we’re trying out material on them.”He’s traded in the van for an SUV and trailer, but that’s not the only difference from his nomadic younger years.”I have a family. Everybody in the band has a family,” Mangione says. “The responsibility is greater. The expense of our time is greater, both monetarily and emotionally. You have to make sure that what you’re doing is worth it. I don’t think I ever did that when I was younger.”

Photo by Courtesy of Mike Mangione & the Union

Photo by Courtesy of Mike Mangione & the Union