Headliners, no matter the genre, usually are a person or band who has an ethos.
— Lucy Dacus
I was always writing. I've always been attracted to words and stories, communication.
Before I even pick up a guitar, usually the words are done. So I'm not first and foremost a musician. I'm first and foremost a writer.
I think in 'No Burden' there was a lot of positivity on the record.
I couldn't have imagined working on a film I didn't believe in.
I value the people who are willing to make themselves vulnerable and share work that is sensitive and maybe even hard to sing sometimes. Because that's the music that provides the most solace and solidarity to the world.
I was always taught to be grateful, and so the question came early: What is there to be grateful for? Why is life supposed to be so good? That's still a question I try to answer all the time.
Hopefully when you listen to a song, you can say, 'That's me,' or 'That's someone I know' - you relate to it in a way that's cathartic.
Every breakup is preceded by a bad relationship. So breakups should be cause for celebration and triumph.
I always wrote songs. Elementary school, middle school. It didn't feel more creative than speaking. It was just normal to do that.
Joan Didion's 'The Year of Magical Thinking' comes to mind as an example of a piece of media that I really respect and would hope to emulate: just her courage in looking at her husband's death and the attentiveness that she has in how she looks at it, and the unflinching gaze that she communicates from looking into death.
I heard during our label-searching that some labels hire statisticians instead of A&R people. They'll reach out to the bands that will statistically perform best monetarily instead of going out to shows and having an opinion on which music is good or bad.
I was adopted, and so was my mom. And so I just was in tune with how life can be intentional. I feel like maybe that helped me to not feel super entitled to a lot of things as a kid.
In middle school, you're figuring out how you're affecting people, and sometimes you're affecting people negatively. And what sucks is that it can affect people for their whole lives. I didn't realize I was a part of that.
Film is like sculpture, writing, acting, technical arts, all sorts of arts. And that's why I wanted to do it for so long, because it would include so many places for attention.
I don't even drink coffee. I try to avoid becoming reliant on any substance.
There is no 'stop' - there's always 'go' on both sides: always keep writing, always keep recording. I don't find them to be segmented processes.
I feel like the expectations have gone up. It's not a complaint, but it's a little intimidating. People are like, 'Oh, you're on Matador. It's kind of a legendary label - you're going to have to live up to all those other bands.' I guess it's not that explicit.
There was never an 'a-ha' moment when a spider bit me and I knew I could write songs. For that reason, I don't know if I'm always going to be able to. I want to write songs forever, but it's an elusive thing.
In film school, you get skills, but then you get lackey jobs, working on projects that you probably don't care about. And there's something in me where I just couldn't bring myself to edit some misogynistic rom-com or movies that I would have hated to be a part of. So I knew I just wouldn't get any work because of that.
I think 'Historian' is ultimately a positive record, but I was a little bit worried about taking people into a dark world. I tried to do it with as much care as possible, but it's not easy to ask people to think about death or loss or confusion.
When I'm on a stage, it's just me, singing a song with words that I wrote and I believe in. And if I don't believe in them anymore, I'll stop singing that song.
Writing has never been an intentional endeavor to me. I know a lot of people have experiences and then sit down and try to sort them out through song, but whenever I sit down to write, it comes out hackneyed or overly saccharine.
The main way that being adopted has shaped my songwriting is that I was asked at an early age to consider the circumstances that led to my life, and in a way, I was introduced to how fragile and unlikely life is from the beginning.
I have a huge note on my phone where things just start popping up. It doesn't make that much sense to me at the time, but once a song is finished, I can read into it and figure out who the characters are in my life.
A breakup is a state of mind that needs encouragement and needs hopeful, forward thinking.
Questions don't easily die within me until they're answered, and so being able to write a song and put words to complex feelings is part of my process of understanding and letting go of things.
I hear a lot of artists become kinda self-referential, and a lot of people that tour a lot tend to write about the perils of being on the road later in their careers.
Four months after we released 'I Don't Want to Be Funny Anymore,' the album came out on EggHunt. Three months after that, we officially signed with Matador. That's not a very long time: half a year between the first flood and the final signing.
I will say it is funny that writing a song about not wanting to entertain people is what got me a career in entertainment.
My dad plays guitar in the church band, so it's like music as a service. He plays at old-people homes, so that's like music as a gift.
I don't have any weird gimmicks. I do put on lipstick for the show. That's what separates it. 'Cause I don't wear makeup at all... That's probably the closest thing I have to a routine.
'Night Shift' is the only breakup song I've ever written.
I've written in the middle of a conversation or the grocery store or at another band's concert or in the last moments before falling asleep. It's pretty unpredictable. I think it's always flowing, and sometimes I'm not listening. There's no formula for when I'm going to be able to be a good listener to myself.
Humans are fascinated with communication. I was always drawn to words and stories, staying in touch with your feelings and being open to what's around you.
I've talked with friends about this: when you write about yourself, that's what people connect to. When you write a sermon or a lesson, that may not reach people. I've learned a lot from people who have been writing about themselves.
I'm not a big risk-taker - being bad just wasn't worth my time or the risk of having the consequences for it. So maybe I'm a little bit lame for that.
Negativity, in general, is one of the things that holds people back, and you have to see what's holding you back to get away from it.
It seems like there's a real world for new ideas in Philly.
I don't end up writing songs in my journals, but I'm sure that my ability to write songs has been helped by how consistently and impulsively I try to get my life into words through the journals.
I was the funny one in my group; there was a lot pressure to be responsible for everyone's happiness. I didn't like watching other friends of mine be called the 'pretty one' or the 'smart one.' That had no depth, and it didn't match how I knew them.
Usually, I'll just be walking from my house to somewhere else, and melodies and words will start coming up, and I'll have to run home to write it all down.
My favorite music is when the sound is supplementing the message. I don't think it's dramatic; it's cinematic.
'No Burden' is not necessarily ferocious.
Yo La Tengo were a major inspiration for me because they're one of the first bands that I got into on my own, separate from my parents, when I was in high school. I have all their albums. That's the place we'd like be in someday.
That's my main complaint with Murakami: that he writes these complex males and then really static women.
I called it 'Historian' because I feel like most of my creative efforts are efforts to capture something or to document it.
My mom is an elementary-school music teacher. For her, music is an educational tool.
You don't have to make something in order to retain your identity as an artist or a writer or a creative person. A lot of people think they have to be producing in order to maintain that identity.
I'm never writing as a character.
