For nearly two decades as one half of the band Lucius, Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig have been sending us to space, and also wrapping us up like Snuggies, with their vocal harmonies. The new Lucius record, self-titled and self-produced by drummer Dan Molad, represents what Wolfe said is “the most honest and unfiltered” version of the group, including impressions of domesticity, growth and loss. Laessig said making this as just the four-piece “felt like a coming home.”
Lucius includes Nashville in their spring tour with an intimate rooftop show at The Flat Top Box that doubles as a 5th anniversary celebration for WNXP! Tickets are still available via wnxp.org/events.
Hear the full conversation with and read some insights from Wolfe and Laessig, who joined me virtually just a couple of days before Lucius dropped.
Undercurrents of writing and recording Lucius
Holly Laessig: I think it just felt like a coming home to ourselves and to ourselves as a band. We did it all ourselves at home studios, and we did some at a place called Altamira, as well. But yeah, it was just the four of us, Danny produced. Getting through a difficult time with our band dynamics and relationships and coming on the other side of it and the guys being super invested and involved in it again and everyone feeling like they are, you know, seen in the music again. We’re all excited equally. It just feels really good to have that.
Jess Wolfe: Yeah, and while we were recording, Holly had to leave to go pick up her son from daycare. And I had a miscarriage or two. And they’re just like real life. Pete’s mom was passing and there was just real shit happening in our lives. And we’re writing and recording through all of that and together and living very sort of parallel lives while writing about these things. So it just lent itself to very much like a feeling of home, a feeling of togetherness, a feeling of understanding one another’s difficulties because we’re experiencing similar things and that’s just in the band dynamic. [We’re] hoping that that extends to other people.
The bookends of the record
JW: “Final Days” comes out as the single with the record, and that’s the opening track. And “End of the Day” is the final track. And those two have this sort of beautiful arc that the rest of the record sort of journeys through. And I think those songs are special and very meaningful. And sort of maybe the two songs that best ebody the record on their own.
Song composition and live translation
HL: We wrote a bunch of the songs with Danny from the beginning, which was the first time we’d done that. He’s an incredible engineer and a multi-instrumentalist. So we would start some of tracks with instruments that we normally wouldn’t if it was just us two writing. So I think that informed a lot of the the feeling of the arrangements and the groove and even where we would go melodically or rhythmically. Some of the tracks were really interwoven that way, like from the beginning. Another thing we thought about was to keep it, you know, within a world that translated well live, where it just sounded like four or five of us. Of course, we always get a little carried away. Now we’re all playing like three instruments at the same time, like shaking and we’re figuring it out. But yeah, I think that informed it a lot too, because the songs felt so honest and personal, we wanted them to come through in an intimate way where you could hear the people playing the instruments and hear the vocals and hear the lyrics clearly and feel kind of like you’re in the room.
Nature imagery
Celia Gregory: I have a few lyrics written down, and I want to not assume that it’s a theme, but a couple of my favorites include sort of this idea of going back to nature and being grounded, Like “Losing touch with Mother Nature, who’s going to be the savior?” from “Stranger Danger.” Can you tell me about that song?
HL: Yeah, didn’t we start that originally for another project? And we were talking a lot about Mother Nature and kind of thinking about we, we as humankind have sort of a backup plan after we die, whatever that looks like, or whatever people believe in. But then what happens to Mother Nature? You know, and especially if we’re not taking good care of her. That was kind of the thing we were thinking about when that song came about. And that was a little bit in “Final Days” as well. That was the same time that we were talking about all of that stuff.
CG: “I’m still trying to figure out if I’m a weed or I’m flower” [is a lyric in “Hallways”] — I think, you know, I’m talking to you two as fully actualized artists who know who you are and continue pushing yourselves. But is that it more of a personal reflection of, I don’t know, always growing and having some self doubt about your true nature?
HL: Yeah, and that lyric was actually from another song we were working on ages ago, a long, long, long time ago. And it just always stuck out.
JW: I think we had it in a few different places over the years, but it finally found its home. It’s just about self-doubt and then having somebody who helps you remind you that you’re awesome.
The album cover
CG: I want to ask about the album cover because, you know, you are fierce ladies, but I don’t know that I understand the choice to put the canines of a dog on the cover. What was the inspiration there?
JW: Well, the album deals a lot with domesticity. And we like the idea that you didn’t know if he was growling or if he smiling. If he was sort of like someone’s pet or was a wild beast. And it’s sort of like that with a home. You don’t know what happens behind closed doors. And yet we all can relate to a certain degree. So there’s something about that. The symbolism sort of worked in our heads at least. Wanting to invite people in and figure out if it’s the growl or the smile or a little bit of both.
HL: Yeah, and I think there was also just an element of the grab, like seeing it amongst a bunch of other pictures, that was the one that our eye was drawn to. And so that was a big part of it. But the funny part is that, and we won’t, we can’t, we didn’t get to share it because the photographer, it was the photographer’s dog and he feels very protective and close as you do with a dog. But if we would have been able to use any other images, it’s like a small terrier, like a wire haired terrier. But you don’t know that.
“Beautifully talented friends” as guests
Adam Granduciel of The War On Drugs
JW: Well, for that [“Old Tape”] particularly, we were writing this song and it felt inspired by The War on Drugs. And since he’s such a good pal, instead of being inspired by it, why not bring him into that world that he so beautifully creates? So that was a very natural fit. Obviously we’ve done a lot of collaborating with them. We’ve sung with them on numerous records and “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” being probably the most notable. So that, yeah, that was natural fit.
Madison Cunningham
JW: And with Madi, we’ve been wanting to write together and we just sort of planned a day or two of writing with her and our friend Ethan Gruska, who is an amazing producer and writer in his own right, and us two. And the song “Impressions” really just sort of came out that first day. I mean, it was just a couple of hours and it felt like it was always meant to be. So, we’re really fortunate to have such beautifully talented friends who inspire us and are willing and wanting to collaborate. And like you said, we’re collaborators. I mean, we are constant collaborators just in the two of us, but we do a lot of collaborating with other artist friends. And it’s been really nice to bring people into our world.
CG: This is coming off of [my] talking to another artist about working with Madison Cunningham and it was the same experience of like, once we got in the room with her, it was magic and it’s quick. [Read about Deep Sea Diver’s song with Madi.] And surely that’s a testament to her gift but also your giftedness. I didn’t plan to be so heady about it but can you speak to chemistry then when it comes to, you know, strong opinions, strong ideas. But then, is there a secret to that magic?
JW: You never know if it’s gonna be a fit. We’ve had plenty of sessions that are just like, it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t fruitful, so to speak. And sometimes it just flows and you speak a similar language or you’re inspired by one another’s separate languages and so therefore you can create another language with the combination of the two. So luckily that’s what happened.
HL: There’s so many moving parts and you hope that, like, in this instance, it was just complementary parts. She came in, she started riffing on the guitar, she had something that she was showing us, and then everything else happened to work. I mean, maybe if it was a different day and she came in with a different idea and there were different moods, there’s so much moving parts, so part of it is working together, and then part of is just happenstance, I guess.
“Orange Blossoms”
HL: With that one, yeah, we were talking about zooming out, basically, like having a difficult time in a relationship and instead of getting too stuck in the little nuances of things, zooming out and feeling small in a good way against this sky of stars or whatever it is.
JW: We are tiny, but so are these little hiccups.