Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever been happier than at
Speaker 1: an LCD sound System show, especially like a festival show
Speaker 1: at the back where there's like room you can kind
Speaker 1: of like flail around.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of laid back conversations
Speaker 2: with leading names in music. In keeping with these informal interviews,
Speaker 2: each new one is published weekly at midnight. This week's
Speaker 2: episode is hosted by me Greg Cochrane from Loud and
Speaker 2: Choirt magazine Tonight. My guest on the podcast is Lucy
Speaker 2: Dacus for my Money, one of the best American songwriters
Speaker 2: to break through in the past few years. If you're
Speaker 2: not familiar, Lucy released her debut album No Burden when
Speaker 2: she was just twenty one years old back in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Two years later, she followed that up with Historian, and
Speaker 2: now she's on the eve of releasing her third album,
Speaker 2: Home Video, coming to a record store or streaming service
Speaker 2: near you on the twenty fifth of June twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: She'll also be familiar to lots of listeners as being
Speaker 2: one third of Boy Genius, the trio Lucy is part
Speaker 2: of along with Phoebe Bridges and Julienne Baker, I do
Speaker 2: ask about whether there's going to be more music from
Speaker 2: them in the podcast. In April, I dialed up Lucy
Speaker 2: for the conversation you are about to hear, the first
Speaker 2: time i'd spoken to her since we met around three
Speaker 2: years ago. That was around the release of Historian. There
Speaker 2: was a lot to get into, not least the roller
Speaker 2: coaster experience of pandemic lockdown, the day dreams that we've
Speaker 2: all had around getting back to seeing our favorite artists
Speaker 2: play live soon hopefully. Plus we talk about embarrassing home
Speaker 2: videos of us as kids, since that's what the new
Speaker 2: album is called. And we discussed the merits or otherwise
Speaker 2: of a bunch of old TV shows and movies, including
Speaker 2: the terrible script in in One Tree Hill and the
Speaker 2: weird CGI Baby in the US Twilight Saga. This was
Speaker 2: a really fun one to record, So let's get into
Speaker 2: the chat. This is episode one hundred and six at
Speaker 2: Midnight Chat with Lucy Dakers. You are actually the last
Speaker 2: of the Boy Genius trio to come on our podcast.
Speaker 2: But I think we've saved the best to last, haven't we.
Speaker 2: I think we definitely no.
Speaker 1: No, no, there's no best among us. But you've completed
Speaker 1: the trifecta.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's lovely to have you on because we have
Speaker 2: met once before in real life when meeting up in
Speaker 2: real life was still a thing. Yeah. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: in London a few years ago in the reveloptive release
Speaker 2: of your album Historian, and I really enjoyed the time
Speaker 2: we spent together because we were hanging out down by the
Speaker 2: canal in East London and we were chatting all things
Speaker 2: to come. But also we suppose we were talking about
Speaker 2: that you had quite a difficult year in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: because that was what that album, you know, some of
Speaker 2: the ands of that record. So I just wanted to
Speaker 2: ask and kind of hope that I hope twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: and twenty nineteen, so after we last met, I hope
Speaker 2: those were good years. Right, We've got on to twenty
Speaker 2: twenty in a minute, But yeah, how was twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: and twenty nineteen with an improvement?
Speaker 1: It's funny because I feel like catching up with friends
Speaker 1: after the pandemic, It's going to be a similar question like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: how was your twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, like summing
Speaker 1: up all these years, But twenty eighteen was really good,
Speaker 1: and twenty nineteen was bad. Oh, to be honest. Twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen though, yeah, like Historian came out, we were touring
Speaker 1: a lot. What genius happened? Twenty nineteen, we were still
Speaker 1: touring a lot, had a couple of tough tours. I
Speaker 1: had a vocal injury right that really was terrible and
Speaker 1: hopefully I've overcome or figured out how to manage now.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and I just had some personal life stuff
Speaker 1: that was really dramatic, some family health kind of things.
Speaker 1: And yeah, obviously twenty twenty is like a black hole
Speaker 1: of a year where it's like, you know, even now,
Speaker 1: it's like quarantine isn't really over. It still feels like
Speaker 1: twenty twenty to me. But I'm optimistic about twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of everyone kind of just going
Speaker 1: hogwild and their personal life, like everyone's like ready to
Speaker 1: make the changes that should happen. Like it's going to
Speaker 1: be chaotic, I'm pretty sure, but like I'm optimistic that
Speaker 1: it's going to be chaos pointed towards like a better life.
Speaker 2: Do you think everybody's kind of been storing up this
Speaker 2: improvement energy because we like it's like we've gone through
Speaker 2: this big pause where there's been a chance to sort
Speaker 2: of reflect, Maybe people have thought about the things that
Speaker 2: they they don't need in their lives, or or the
Speaker 2: improvements they can make, the things that make them happier.
Speaker 2: And therefore, as things open up maybe I'm sounding really
Speaker 2: optimistic here as well, but as things kind of reopen
Speaker 2: that there's almost this sort of your moment, like a
Speaker 2: new you kind of type thing. Do you do you
Speaker 2: think there's that's true you surrounded by that energy or
Speaker 2: are you more like British cynicism of like it's going
Speaker 2: to be even worse than before.
Speaker 1: Oh, I do think it's going to be better than before,
Speaker 1: but I think you you have to. My hope is
Speaker 1: that instead of like all of us that have lived
Speaker 1: through this, being like more fearful because of it, like
Speaker 1: all of us extremely grateful and just like approaching life
Speaker 1: realizing how much we've missed and being like, oh, I
Speaker 1: love restaurants or like, and I appreciate service workers, and
Speaker 1: I realize how essential food is, and I appreciate farmers,
Speaker 1: and like, I realize how much my friends mean to me,
Speaker 1: and so I'm gonna visit them in person, and like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I do feel like maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that because that's how I'm reacting. I'm just like
Speaker 1: realizing everything that I need to be actively grateful for
Speaker 1: like way more often. And I think, like being cut
Speaker 1: off from embodiment, I've been saying this word a lot,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like one of those words that you
Speaker 1: learn in yoga and or therapy, but like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've I've had friends that have lost like family members
Speaker 1: to COVID into other things through this year, and they
Speaker 1: haven't been able to embody their grief. And I mean
Speaker 1: there's a reason why for ages, and like in every culture,
Speaker 1: we've figured out ceremonies for those sorts of things. So
Speaker 1: being cut off from ceremony and embodiment, it just shows
Speaker 1: like how important that type of process is. And so
Speaker 1: like embodying that grief and also embodying joy are like
Speaker 1: on my top of to do list, And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be content with like conceptual things as much.
Speaker 1: I think. I think I'm really going to try to
Speaker 1: be like seeking out the physicality of life.
Speaker 2: What mixture of sort of cathartic energy do you think
Speaker 2: will come out from some of the first shows you'll
Speaker 2: either play or witness then after that, because what you've
Speaker 2: just described is this sort of like this release of
Speaker 2: emotions that and experiences that people have gone through, and
Speaker 2: the music is an amazing, amazing medium for sort of
Speaker 2: channeling that, escaping that sharing that, whatever it might be.
Speaker 2: So I just I've just got this picture of a
Speaker 2: of a big crowd and everybody's just having their sort
Speaker 2: of own post pandemic moment with whatever the experiences they've
Speaker 2: just gone through. Can you sort of foresee that.
Speaker 1: I will be so surprised if I don't cry like
Speaker 1: every night, and I will be so surprised if it's
Speaker 1: not just tears and tears and tears. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm still crossing my fingers and knocking on wood that
Speaker 1: shows can happen in general. Just we announced a tour
Speaker 1: and it felt unreal. It felt like just a weird dream.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. Again, I feel kind of optimistic
Speaker 1: that they'll actually happen, but we're going to cancel them
Speaker 1: so fast if we don't feel safe. And I would
Speaker 1: never want to put like fans in danger or give
Speaker 1: the option to fans to put themselves in danger. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be crying when I go to shows,
Speaker 1: and like my friends that are having shows like imagining
Speaker 1: just like singing along to them, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I I'll get emotional just like thinking about Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think yeah. I think we all feel the same.
Speaker 2: We've all been sort of dreaming of like our first
Speaker 2: first post lockdown restaurant visit, or our first post lockdown
Speaker 2: gig or meet up or whatever. If if you had
Speaker 2: to be sort of in a room watching a musician play,
Speaker 2: like who would basically be your dream first gig? Back?
Speaker 1: Do you think El City sound System?
Speaker 2: Wow, you've gone for the heavy vibes. That's like on
Speaker 2: a good day, that's like ghost.
Speaker 1: I know, yeah, I uh, you know. I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: about that, but you asked the question and I knew
Speaker 1: the answer just because like I've I don't know if
Speaker 1: I've ever been happier at a show than at an
Speaker 1: LCD sound System show, especially like a festival show at
Speaker 1: the back where there's like room and you can kind
Speaker 1: of like flail around. I feel like some of my
Speaker 1: best memories have been I've seen them three times, and
Speaker 1: all three times I felt like high. I felt like
Speaker 1: just serotonin overload.
Speaker 2: There was about I don't know what the tool I mean.
Speaker 2: I'm sort of reaching back into a bit of hazy
Speaker 2: memory here, But when they were on tour once they
Speaker 2: come back together, maybe it was about five years ago.
Speaker 2: When they first came back and started playing those festival shows,
Speaker 2: the set list was just unreal. I just remember staring
Speaker 2: at it like afterwards, like having experienced it and just
Speaker 2: being as like I was a completely on the same
Speaker 2: page with you, like feeling completely just high on what
Speaker 2: I just witnessed and just like just looking at it
Speaker 2: and just going that was like the most perfectly like
Speaker 2: programmed DJ set, but from one artist it was like
Speaker 2: it was like this is just perfection. It was amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you feel lucky or I feel lucky togongolose shows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's all hope we can get back and witness that.
Speaker 2: Have an LCD sound system moment in the not too
Speaker 2: distant future, What happened? When? Where did you go when
Speaker 2: when everything lockdown? And what did you have to do
Speaker 2: to kind of in that in that moment?
Speaker 1: Well, I had been living in Richmond, Virginia, and then
Speaker 1: like two months before lockdown, I moved to Philly and
Speaker 1: I had never lived anywhere else, and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to see if I could, and I planned on splitting
Speaker 1: time because I like to be around my family in Richmond.
Speaker 1: But then lockdown happened and I stayed in Philly, and
Speaker 1: it kind of forced me to have like a separation
Speaker 1: from Richmond that I didn't even intend and was honestly
Speaker 1: pretty painful and gave me a little bit of an
Speaker 1: identity crisis, which is probably good for me to to
Speaker 1: realize how much of my identity was wrapped up in
Speaker 1: my hometown. And I kind of like fast tracked my
Speaker 1: actual goal of like kind of figuring out who I
Speaker 1: am unconnected to a place, or just like knowing that
Speaker 1: it was possible to build a new life, and it
Speaker 1: was really rewarding. And I love Philly and I'm still there.
Speaker 1: I didn't like really tell anybody that I moved for
Speaker 1: a really long time, and nobody was really asking to
Speaker 1: hang out because you couldn't hang out anyways. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I live with like seven friends in Philly and like
Speaker 1: a big house, and it made quarantine look much easier
Speaker 1: just having like people milling about all the time, or
Speaker 1: like even within seven people, you can have subgroups of
Speaker 1: three and you know, the we all have our separate rooms,
Speaker 1: so you can be like, oh, I haven't seen you
Speaker 1: in a while, you know, since yesterday dinner time, and
Speaker 1: we we've been watching like crap TV and good tea
Speaker 1: and movies and cooking, and so my scenario was really lucky. Also,
Speaker 1: I feel close enough to everyone that we can just
Speaker 1: talk about having depression. I think maybe all of us
Speaker 1: have depression and have been able to be like a
Speaker 1: support system for each other. And it's absurd, like how
Speaker 1: much delayed grief. I've already talked about grief in this podcast.
Speaker 1: I should get off that topic, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's meaningful to be around people through grief, and like
Speaker 1: some days we're worse for one of us than others,
Speaker 1: and just having other people connected to their lives can
Speaker 1: remind me to connect back to mine when I'm like dissociating.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know kind of a long answer
Speaker 1: to your question, but I I think I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting that people have effectively had
Speaker 2: to I don't know if this is even an expression,
Speaker 2: but like having like COVID families, like we all went
Speaker 2: into quarantine, into lockdown, depending on what circumstance people were
Speaker 2: in that moment. I mean, you know, you potentially didn't
Speaker 2: know these people like that, well if you'd moved there
Speaker 2: a couple of months before, like it was still in
Speaker 2: early stages. But it was like, Okay, this situation is happening.
Speaker 2: We all got a kind of band together because we're
Speaker 2: going to have to get through this. Like I mean
Speaker 2: maybe perhaps in years and years to come that you'll
Speaker 2: reflect on that and she'd be like, wow, that was
Speaker 2: quite an extraordinary moment of seven people who were thrown
Speaker 2: together for this period and I mean hopefully he'll still
Speaker 2: be friends long into the future. But and that happened
Speaker 2: the world over, but people being you know, depending on
Speaker 2: what circumstance they're in, and it's yeah, quite quite fascinating,
Speaker 2: almost some kind of social experiment. I'm glad that you
Speaker 2: all found the situation was positive for you because obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, it wasn't for everybody.
Speaker 1: So you found each other. Yeah, we call each other cousins.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: I feel like when you're with a group of people
Speaker 1: for a long enough amount of time, you just have
Speaker 1: like weird, like twice big jokes names for each other
Speaker 1: and we're like, yeah, we're close enough now that we're
Speaker 1: just actually cousins. It's so stupid saying it out loud
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you about some of your
Speaker 2: TV watching stuff, because I'd seen something that you tweeted
Speaker 2: a while back saying that you presume this was something
Speaker 2: you did with your house, your your roommates, and that
Speaker 2: was that you did pilot season where you watched all
Speaker 2: the pilot episodes of nine different series and then ranked
Speaker 2: them in order to decide which new series you were
Speaker 2: going to watch together. Yell, what on reflection, which shows
Speaker 2: were as good as you thought they were, and which
Speaker 2: which ones were like, oh this is this is much
Speaker 2: worse than I remember. And what was the eventual winner.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of top runners, and they were
Speaker 1: Desperate Housewives, which is what we actually chose. It's totally
Speaker 1: unhinged Friday Night Lights, which was really good. I like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't watch football. I think that, like
Speaker 1: the football and industry is kind of evil, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think sports are cool, but yeah, I'm not not
Speaker 1: into football and American football aws it were. I actually
Speaker 1: love soccer slash football, but yeah, it's just super well made.
Speaker 1: The pilot was so engaging and like well shot, and
Speaker 1: the script was really good. It seemed like the acting
Speaker 1: was really good. We're definitely gonna watch that probably next.
Speaker 1: We were all interested in the OC, even though who
Speaker 1: knows how much of that show has aged well. One
Speaker 1: of the shows that was so bad was One Tree Hill.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever watched that.
Speaker 2: Show, but one like it. This is a similar area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you fed the entire script of the OC
Speaker 1: into like a like AI generator and wanted a different show,
Speaker 1: it like spits out One Tree Hill and you have
Speaker 1: to like squint to try to understand what's going on,
Speaker 1: and maybe post the pilot it made more sense, but
Speaker 1: minutes would pass and I'd be like, wait, nobody said
Speaker 1: anything that made sense. All it is is like people
Speaker 1: glaring at each other, and like these different tropes popping
Speaker 1: up like it. It just didn't. It was of no
Speaker 1: interest to any of us. And then there were some
Speaker 1: like middle ground ones like Buffy Vampire Slayer I love
Speaker 1: and have already seen, but it honestly looks so tacky now,
Speaker 1: like it like all of the costuming and the delivery,
Speaker 1: it's like really campy, and I love campy stuff. But
Speaker 1: the whole house wasn't wasn't a wasn't into it. What
Speaker 1: else there was some Oh, we watched Vampire Diaries. That
Speaker 1: was we'd watched all of the Twilight movies. Quarantine and
Speaker 1: that was a tripod hilarious trip The third movie, like
Speaker 1: Breaking Down Part one, is one of the most ridiculous
Speaker 1: movies I've ever seen. Like we were just like gouffawing
Speaker 1: the whole time. There's like the scene where Kristen Stewart's
Speaker 1: like has to drink blood. She's like sipping it out
Speaker 1: of like a milkshake container and she's like it tastes good.
Speaker 1: We really go, oh my god. And they had like
Speaker 1: the baby that she has is cgi like why didn't
Speaker 1: they get a regular baby? Like they could have simply
Speaker 1: gotten an actual baby like every other movie. There wasn't
Speaker 1: anything special about that baby. The baby didn't do anything
Speaker 1: like magical, it didn't like it made no sense. Also
Speaker 1: the fact that like Jacob the werewolf imprints on the baby,
Speaker 1: like that's just like untouchably weird. Like that's like, don't
Speaker 1: put that in front of me. But it was fun.
Speaker 1: In a couple of years, I'd probably do it. Again,
Speaker 1: I'd probably watch all of them because it's like it's
Speaker 1: so committed to what it's doing, you know, And I
Speaker 1: think that's part of the magic of trash TV is
Speaker 1: that it only comes across because everyone is so invested
Speaker 1: in making it happen, even if the idea at its
Speaker 1: core is stupid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Twilight was like a cultural phenomenon, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: I Mean I just remember people being obsessed with one
Speaker 2: of those sort of movie well obviously the books in
Speaker 2: the movie franchise where people would be like sleeping out
Speaker 2: on the street the night before it came out in
Speaker 2: the cinemas and stuff like that. I can't really remember
Speaker 2: the last time that happened apart from that, Like the
Speaker 2: Hunger Games. Was that similar sort of level of fandom,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, we also watched that. It Actually it's even better,
Speaker 1: I think. But it's a little confusing because I think
Speaker 1: that it's like a confirmation bias type of movie, where
Speaker 1: like if you go in hating the government, you come
Speaker 1: out hating the government, and if you go in loving
Speaker 1: the government, you come out loving the government. Like you
Speaker 1: can read into the Resistance as like, you know, being
Speaker 1: anti imperialist or anti colonial or you know, against classism,
Speaker 1: or you can go in being like hating neoliberal reign
Speaker 1: or like thinking that the movie is like the logical
Speaker 1: conclusion of neoliberal politics, which honestly isn't super off base.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if it. I couldn't tell what
Speaker 1: the lesson was supposed to be. And I feel like
Speaker 1: maybe it was intentionally made to please anybody, because it's
Speaker 1: a it's so political, and yet there's not a clear distinction.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, like kind of just like a mirror to
Speaker 2: your own existing beliefs. Yeah, I wanted to ask a
Speaker 2: little bit of obviously the new album home video, I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask in a very kind of yeah, I
Speaker 2: suppose in a very kind of literal sense talking about
Speaker 2: kind of home video and just like that as a
Speaker 2: thing like home videos and like growing up and that
Speaker 2: in respect to our childhoods and like nostalgic memories and
Speaker 2: things like that. There's basically one video of me when
Speaker 2: I was really little, which is which is a classic
Speaker 2: like VHS home video filmed by my uncle one Christmas.
Speaker 2: It's just me and my brother singing Christmas carols really badly.
Speaker 2: The whole thing lasts about about nine minutes. It's been
Speaker 2: shown every single Christmas for more than thirty years now,
Speaker 2: and it's the one item that my mum would save
Speaker 2: from a if the house was burning down. That's the
Speaker 2: thing that my mum would go for, this VHS tape.
Speaker 2: But wow, and it's thoroughly embarrassing, and my mum's shown
Speaker 2: it to a lot of different people and she's very
Speaker 2: proud of it. But yeah, I wondered if you've got
Speaker 2: lots of is there like lots of crackly kind of
Speaker 2: like footage of you when you when you were little,
Speaker 2: that anything that you always gets that that comes back to.
Speaker 1: There are hours and hours and hours of videos of
Speaker 1: me because my parents got their video camera when I
Speaker 1: was born, and so you know, they're learning how to
Speaker 1: use the camera and I'm their subject. You know, Like
Speaker 1: there's videos of me just sleeping and they're like zooming in, focusing,
Speaker 1: zooming out, Lucy sleeping and they say exactly. They'll be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's sleeping, She's still sleeping, And if I move a
Speaker 1: little bit, they're like, what's she doing. There's tons of
Speaker 1: videos like that. We use some of them for the
Speaker 1: music video for Hot and heavy that came out just
Speaker 1: because that source material, which I to try and put
Speaker 1: it into perspective physically, Like I think if you lined
Speaker 1: up all of the videos, it would maybe be like
Speaker 1: thirty feet of videos. Like it's so many, and you know,
Speaker 1: like it tapered off towards the end. It went from
Speaker 1: like the big vhs is to like the smaller ones
Speaker 1: like camcorder and then you know, smartphones towards my high
Speaker 1: school age, so we don't have any more on the
Speaker 1: actual VHS. I was going to say, you should digitize
Speaker 1: that video of you because when you play them, they
Speaker 1: tape degrades over time, so it can you know.
Speaker 2: Just we need to eventually, yeah, digitize it, make sure
Speaker 2: it doesn't get lost, because yeah, my mum would be heartbroken,
Speaker 2: but I would be delight on the On the flip side,
Speaker 2: I was absolutely thrilled. If it was just consigned to
Speaker 2: history's dustbin.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Maybe you just don't you just don't
Speaker 1: deal with that. But I like using that stuff because
Speaker 1: it feels like a thank you to my my dad
Speaker 1: for making all those videos. And you know, I guess
Speaker 1: he was making them so that they could be watched
Speaker 1: in the future. But but I don't know if he
Speaker 1: really realized that he was like building my childhood for me.
Speaker 1: You know, like sometimes I don't know if I have
Speaker 1: actual memories or I've just seen the videos of them,
Speaker 1: and I don't really care either way because it happened.
Speaker 1: I really value rich memories, and I think that he
Speaker 1: does too. I also realize, like I think that he
Speaker 1: used it as a way to participate in the world.
Speaker 1: Like he's kind of like a socially anxious guy, and
Speaker 1: you know, having that camera in front of his face,
Speaker 1: he could like watch and engage with everything, but through
Speaker 1: this like creative element, and I resonate with that, like
Speaker 1: I understand the world most when I'm translating it into work.
Speaker 1: And he's a graphic designer, so he doesn't do music,
Speaker 1: though he always wanted to. I feel like we have
Speaker 1: a lot of similarities, and I'm also glad that he
Speaker 1: raised me with a comfort for nostalgia. I feel like
Speaker 1: some people I know don't have any sort of photos
Speaker 1: or memories because their parents just like weren't nostalgic people,
Speaker 1: which isn't good or bad, but I think nostalgia's underrated.
Speaker 1: I think that like people kind of think that it
Speaker 1: might be corny or like don't think it has a purpose,
Speaker 1: or it keeps people stuck in the past, But I
Speaker 1: don't know, the past is really important and like history
Speaker 1: is all we have to learn from.
Speaker 2: And is there one clip in particular that you that
Speaker 2: you just all love watching like that? Do you know
Speaker 2: the one that you come back to you just got
Speaker 2: that one at Christmas or like a or Thanksgiving or
Speaker 2: something like just a moment where you're like, oh, that
Speaker 2: that's a good one. That one always makes a smile.
Speaker 1: I really love the ones of my brother because there's
Speaker 1: actually less. But he was far more photogenic than me,
Speaker 1: and he was always trying to perform for people, whereas
Speaker 1: my my parents were always trying to get me to perform.
Speaker 1: But he was just a ham but of myself. When
Speaker 1: I was like four or five, I made my dad
Speaker 1: like set up the camera to do Lucy's Cowgirl show.
Speaker 1: And it was like me in a red cowgirl hat
Speaker 1: and like tassels with like a lasso, and I'm just
Speaker 1: sitting like in our living room telling jokes and they
Speaker 1: don't make any sense. It's like I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what humor is in the process of making this
Speaker 1: stand up routine where I'm like, why did the cow
Speaker 1: cross the road? My Dad's like why, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: because there was hey on the other side.
Speaker 2: I love it, and I just like fall about laughing,
Speaker 2: Like there's nothing better than saying, like a child just
Speaker 2: like laughing at their own joke, even if it doesn't
Speaker 2: make any sense. He's like, I mean, I want to
Speaker 2: be bought.
Speaker 1: It's so it's it is really cute and just it's funny.
Speaker 1: How like I I knew. I didn't realize that I
Speaker 1: was trying to learn, but I like knew that through
Speaker 1: this camera I could kind of like have a place
Speaker 1: to play with this information. Or like there was a
Speaker 1: time when I it snowed a lot in Virginia and
Speaker 1: there were all these icicles on our front porch and
Speaker 1: I did like Lucy's Icicle Show where I like laid
Speaker 1: them out, and I was like being a news reporter,
Speaker 1: like I was using a microphone and I was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out basically what journalism is, I guess, and
Speaker 1: I was like this icicle I would just like say
Speaker 1: facts that weren't true about the different icicles. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm glad my dad had like patients for that. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think I would find it cute,
Speaker 1: But to like do that for like four hours with
Speaker 1: my kid, I think that I would get bored. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just not as pure as him.
Speaker 2: That that one sounds pretty and that sounds pretty like
Speaker 2: surreally brilliant as well, but almost like kind of investigative journalism,
Speaker 2: you know, with the origins of these icicles. Maybe we'll
Speaker 2: interview We'll go out and interview other icicles about this.
Speaker 2: You know. I wanted to ask you about a few
Speaker 2: of the different tracks on the record, and we started
Speaker 2: the podcast by mentioning boy genius, and you managed to
Speaker 2: manage to get into the studio right with Phoebe and
Speaker 2: with Julian to record a couple of tracks on the album.
Speaker 2: So they contribute to Going, Going Gong and Please Stay.
Speaker 2: What was that experience? It was that pre pandemic thing.
Speaker 2: When when did that happen?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was in twenty eight, no, no, no, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: We recorded most of the album twenty nineteen. Actually we
Speaker 1: finished recording around the same time as Phoebe did, but
Speaker 1: our records coming out like a full year later. So
Speaker 1: the day that we recorded on Please Stay in, Going
Speaker 1: going on, and Julian sing a little on Triple Dog
Speaker 1: there as well. Was the same day that we did
Speaker 1: Graceland two for Phoebe's record in favor for Julian's record.
Speaker 2: And well, that's a productive day, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I know we also did I know the end for
Speaker 1: Phoebe's record. Yeah, I that's just kind of how we roll.
Speaker 1: I think that we like get that energy of like
Speaker 1: we're together, we have to let's do this, like, uh
Speaker 1: make it happen. There's like this very fast paced, generative energy.
Speaker 1: So yeah, very productive day. We haven't seen each other
Speaker 1: since then.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, yeah, if you managed to
Speaker 2: I mean apart from virtually you like speak to each other,
Speaker 2: I guess you've not managed to be It's sad that
Speaker 2: you haven't been together in person in eighteen months or
Speaker 2: whatever it's been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we we FaceTime like pretty regularly, I think, compared
Speaker 1: to how much I talk to people, kind of a lot.
Speaker 1: And also like how busy Phoebe and Julian have been.
Speaker 1: It's and I'm about to get really busy with this
Speaker 1: album release, but we make time for each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like when you get together,
Speaker 2: like making a Boy Genius record is quite a swift process,
Speaker 2: like judging judging by the amount that you got done
Speaker 2: in that session.
Speaker 1: M hmm. I mean the the EP we wrote and
Speaker 1: recorded in five days total. So but yeah, they're they're
Speaker 1: good guys good.
Speaker 2: Would you like to do some more stuff as Boy
Speaker 2: Genius in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. I don't know if we will
Speaker 1: or when we will, And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people expect it or not expected, but like would like
Speaker 1: that to happen. But it's nice that like none of
Speaker 1: us actually feel pressure to do that because the EP
Speaker 1: was kind of an accident, and I think that part
Speaker 1: of why it went so well, as people could tell
Speaker 1: that it just happened naturally and we were having fun
Speaker 1: and it's because we wanted to. It wasn't like a
Speaker 1: somebody in a boardroom idea. In fact, when we finished
Speaker 1: the thing, everyone freaked out and we're like, what, like
Speaker 1: do we have time for this? Like how do it?
Speaker 1: Like we were kind of like maybe we threw them
Speaker 1: for a loop Matador for putting out the record, But
Speaker 1: I really look forward to like all of us touring
Speaker 1: and me, I said Elsie the sound System earlier. But
Speaker 1: I honestly think that the shows that are gonna like
Speaker 1: wreck me the most are singing Phoebe and Julian and
Speaker 1: just being able to like scream at them like from
Speaker 1: a crowd is gonna feel really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lovely, really sort of natural moment and
Speaker 2: that I love that you've left in on the record.
Speaker 2: Is that the track ends and then this you can
Speaker 2: hear you sort of speaking to each other about the
Speaker 2: take that you've just done, and then is that somebody
Speaker 2: buzzes in from the stud the control room being that
Speaker 2: is that the right take? And it's just lovely that
Speaker 2: you kept that in because I think it's just shows
Speaker 2: the warmth of your relationship with each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was a big group actually, like a
Speaker 1: bunch of singers that I love, like Liza Ann is there,
Speaker 1: and my friend Ali Thibodeau who's been my friend for
Speaker 1: like fifteen years, and Mitzki was there. My friend Hadley
Speaker 1: Dom who plays bass with me, was there. I think
Speaker 1: it was maybe like fifteen people doing that group vocal
Speaker 1: all like shoulder to shoulder, and then the guitarist also
Speaker 1: in the same room, Harrison from Phoebe's band, Jacob from
Speaker 1: my band, and my friend Keeleen Creech, and then me,
Speaker 1: Like it was really all of us in one room
Speaker 1: with like maybe three mics just kind of like placed around.
Speaker 1: I think that's my favorite song on the record right now,
Speaker 1: just because it's like a time capsule of what was
Speaker 1: possible at that time. Like, I feel so grateful that
Speaker 1: we got that done in twenty nineteen. Yeah, it's it
Speaker 1: is precious to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you will be on like Google Meet trying to
Speaker 2: do that at the moment. We're gonna be quite the
Speaker 2: same with it. No, I want to ask about Thumbs
Speaker 2: as well, which is a song on the record that's
Speaker 2: sort of notorious in its own way because it's it's
Speaker 2: you know, you performed it live for a couple of
Speaker 2: years before you actually committed it to tape and then
Speaker 2: released it, and it's so much so like gained so
Speaker 2: much interest amongst fans that it had its own Twitter account.
Speaker 2: Ask him that when you were going to release it.
Speaker 2: I loved that it was in the forward for the album,
Speaker 2: which is written by Katherine Lacey. It's described as a
Speaker 2: white whale, which is an expression I've never heard before.
Speaker 2: What a white Whale. Is that just something that means
Speaker 2: that it's like elusive, it's out there, and I think it's.
Speaker 1: A reference to Herman Melville Moby Dick, right, and like
Speaker 1: his whole point of the book is like fine the
Speaker 1: white whale. And it's funny because people think it's a
Speaker 1: metaphor for like killing God or like something. But I
Speaker 1: think that Herman Melville said that it's just about a
Speaker 1: white whale, but it's like his whole purpose to go
Speaker 1: kill this whale, not like people's whole purposes to go
Speaker 1: kill thumbs. But I like it was out there for
Speaker 1: a really long time, just from playing it live, and
Speaker 1: I asked for people not to record it and they didn't,
Speaker 1: which I feel very respected that that was how it was.
Speaker 1: I can't like find it really online. I knew I
Speaker 1: needed to play it for a while just because it
Speaker 1: is a heavy probably the heaviest song that I've written,
Speaker 1: and it really mattered to me, and it really matters
Speaker 1: to my friend that it's about, and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to be respectful of her and yeah, like not break
Speaker 1: down on stage like maybe some people come to shows
Speaker 1: to see the band mess up or like there's that
Speaker 1: tension of like, oh, you could mess up at any time,
Speaker 1: but I don't know, you got to carry on in
Speaker 1: a show, and like, I've cried singing that song, but
Speaker 1: it's gotten a little easier. Yeah, I'm proud of that one.
Speaker 2: We talked when we met before. We talked a lot
Speaker 2: about your journaling and how that had been a really
Speaker 2: helpful activity for you throughout the years of noting down
Speaker 2: your thoughts of things that happening at the time and
Speaker 2: how years down the line it helped you decipher some
Speaker 2: memories and experiences and versions of yourself. Is that habit
Speaker 2: that you've continued on the last few years.
Speaker 1: A little bit less regimented? Like when I was in
Speaker 1: high school, I journaled about every single day, Like even
Speaker 1: if I was journaling once a week, I would go
Speaker 1: back the past seven days and say what I ate
Speaker 1: and what I wore, and how I felt and who
Speaker 1: did what. So I've allowed myself to skip some things.
Speaker 1: But I was journaling last night. And actually at the
Speaker 1: beginning of Quarantine, I started typing up my journals from
Speaker 1: the very beginning, from like age seven, and I got
Speaker 1: to around one hundred thousand words and then took a pause,
Speaker 1: and that was only four of thirteen journals, so they
Speaker 1: take up a full shelf. Yeah, they take up a
Speaker 1: full shelf at my house. And instead of I'd only
Speaker 1: ever slipped around because I wanted to save actually rereading
Speaker 1: them for later in life, which I guess is now.
Speaker 1: I think realizing like I'm fully an adult, like I'm
Speaker 1: out of childhood, so going back and reading about my
Speaker 1: childhood feels like it's the right time to reflect. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I stopped because it I met in my
Speaker 1: ex that I don't really like in my journals, and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh no, this is gonna be horrible. But
Speaker 1: I will continue typing up those eventually.
Speaker 2: The final thing I was going to ask you was
Speaker 2: a bit about, I suppose the overlap between historian and
Speaker 2: home video, because we talked a lot about previously when
Speaker 2: we met. We talked a lot about journaling, and we
Speaker 2: talked a lot about books, and we talked a lot
Speaker 2: about chronicling and history and how writing an album, writing
Speaker 2: a set of songs that then compiled together as an
Speaker 2: album is a bit like putting a book together in
Speaker 2: terms of like chapters and separate stories and things like that.
Speaker 2: So in terms of the overlap between Historian and home Video.
Speaker 2: It's the same author, obviously you being the author. Are
Speaker 2: these the same characters but different stories? Are these different
Speaker 2: characters introduced? What like in that framing of what's going
Speaker 2: on there?
Speaker 1: This definitely felt the most like a book, like a
Speaker 1: book of short stories. And I would like to be
Speaker 1: able to hide behind fiction and say like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just made all this stuff up, but it's all true,
Speaker 1: and it's all about people from my life and my past,
Speaker 1: and every song kind of has to do with somebody
Speaker 1: specific except for Hot and Heavy. I thought I was
Speaker 1: writing about it about one friend, but I kind of
Speaker 1: realized it was about me kind of halfway through writing it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it feels way more personal, Like I feel
Speaker 1: like Historian, I was thinking conceptually about his story and
Speaker 1: recordkeeping and kind of like generally about loss, and like I,
Speaker 1: you know, there are songs about my grandma and about
Speaker 1: certain friends. But I think I was still writing knowing
Speaker 1: that other people would listen, so I didn't want it
Speaker 1: to be as personal. But yeah, these songs feel different
Speaker 1: in a way that I hope is good and like
Speaker 1: people can still relate to them even though they're hyper specific.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Lucy,
Speaker 2: and yeah, thank you. I wish you good luck. Yeah,
Speaker 2: lovely to speak to you. I hope that you do
Speaker 2: manage to get out on the road later this year.
Speaker 2: And I also hope that that you managed to finish
Speaker 2: Desperate Housewives with your roommates and then move on to
Speaker 2: the OC and Vampire Diaries and One Tree Hill at
Speaker 2: the Bottom of the Pile and yeah, yeah, we'll come
Speaker 2: to you for some TV tips next time.
Speaker 1: Cool. Yeah, watch Survivor. That's my tip.
Speaker 2: Okay, good.
Speaker 1: There's forty seasons, so if you really want to waste
Speaker 1: your time, it'll never end. If you hate that feeling
Speaker 1: of finishing a show, you will maybe never finish Survivors.
Speaker 1: So there you go.
Speaker 2: To find previous episodes of Midnight Chats, simply search your
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Speaker 2: keep up as they're published every week at midnight. For
Speaker 2: more information on the music magazine that makes this series,
Speaker 2: visit Loud and Quiet dot com.