Being on tour, it's really easy to stop knowing people that you want to know, because you're not sharing experiences; you're not existing in the minor moments of somebody's life.
— Lucy Dacus
When you're a kid, you learn whatever your parents think until you start taking in media. Because all your friends are your age as well, media is the third parent that you ever have. So I think about that a lot, what visual imagery is teaching us, and media in general having a huge impact.
I just feel like you're being realistic if you can laugh at yourself.
I haven't studied history - I couldn't give a discourse in medieval literature - but I am a personal historian, and I do a lot to take in the histories of the people around me.
I love Led Zeppelin!
Whenever I'm trying to understand people that I don't understand, or things in people or even in myself, I'll say, 'When did this negativity get here?' I try to think back to how I was raised to deal with things, and then consider how the person that I'm dealing with grew up.
A journal is your completely unaltered voice - it's just for you. And if you know that voice, and you like it, you can bring it out to everyone else, and that's the most honest and vulnerable thing you can do.
There have been a couple specific instances where I've felt like I couldn't survive without interacting with a certain person. I've been involved with some pretty manipulative people who have told me the same thought: that I can't live without them.
I've been journaling longer than I've been a musician, longer than I've been an artist, longer than I've been a writer in general.
I would not say that my relationships are becoming shallow; if anything, some of them are really being tested in a way that I'm so thankful for my friends that call me and still want to talk.
I think I've had extremes of being unable to exist outside of my own head, and then I only am existing for other people... There's a middle ground where I should take care of myself and other people.
Even people that are close to me or people that are acquaintances... The only question I get now is, 'How is music going?' It's an overpowering quality of my life now, the fact that I write songs. It's weird to navigate what that means socially.
My mom is an elementary school music teacher, a pianist, and a singer, and my dad plays guitar - he's a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. My mom does musical theater, too. All of those influences were around.
Music was always encouraged as a passion and a hobby, but I was never told, 'This should be your job. You write music and record for a living.' It doesn't happen for people.
There's a lot of art that's about loss and sadness, but I would love it if hopefulness were more of a cliche. That's the work that always sticks with me and emboldens me in life.
I like to think of hope as a fact and something that wins out always. Whether you're hopeful or not, actually, you do get through what you're in the middle of. When you're in it, you don't feel like that's possible. But time and time again, we're proven wrong.
The media, and how we're taught to read it, has a huge impact on who we become as people.
You have to laugh at things in order to let them be what they truly are. Because nothing is only sad. Nothing is only funny. There's context to all of those things.
For a while, I called myself an agnostic, which was me wanting to maintain a connection to the culture I was raised in while also undercutting a lot of the beliefs I had.
I can't imagine being in a tour bus. It would be nice, but I think it costs $30,000 a week to rent. And I can't imagine spending what many people make in a year on a vehicle for one week.
We were so limited on time for 'No Burden' that we didn't get to overthink anything. There was no going for the perfect take, or even going for three takes. It was kind of nice because what you're hearing is our first impulse.
Really unfiltered personal writing is cool to me. I'm like, 'How did you show that to everyone?'
From the very beginning, I had a lot of female role models in music. I would go to shows, and there were always women fronting bands and playing guitar or backing up and playing drums or bass in a band. That probably contributed to my belief in myself to go out and perform for people.
It's weird to get asked questions that I don't know the answers to... But I like getting questions I don't know the answer to because maybe it's the first time I've been asked to articulate these things.
If there are people who treat me wrong, I either talk to them about it, or I don't talk to them anymore. It's been the most thoughtful and considerate thing I could do for myself and other people. I am going to try to do that forever.
Even if somebody wanted to tell me what one of my songs meant to him or her, I can't do it - I would be probably put to tears every time.
I really believe in hopefulness and respect people that are hopeful. I think I'm at my best when I think hopefully.
Speaking and singing were equally common in my house. I started songwriting about the time that I started forming sentences.
If you can come out from under pain, why wouldn't you? You definitely can. There's no question.
I never considered a career in music because it was too unattainable. I just didn't believe it was possible.
I really enjoy navigating the business aspect of having a band, and there is a great amount of instinct. You don't wanna work with people who make you feel weird, even if they're super qualified.
I guess the point of that song 'Troublemaker, Doppelganger' is trying to navigate the worth of beauty and if it's hurtful or helpful to value beauty. If it's a curse or a blessing. Is that something really negative and morbid, like the hearse, or is it the limousine - a glamorous symbol of enjoying life?
I take photos, I used to make films, I journal incessantly, and I really value the documentation of life. Because it's almost like you are making something special by wanting to make it exist in an object - on paper or even just in the computer - making these recordings, making this music.
I don't retain facts very well when it comes to music history.
It's true that no child is born knowing there's an evil thing. You learn what is ugly.
It's one thing to make something, and then it's another thing to put it in front of other people.
When I finished reading '100 Years of Solitude,' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I got really sad. I thought, 'This will never happen for me, for the first time, ever again.' Then I opened 'Beauty Is a Wound.' It's a completely different story and writing style, but it has a similar place in my heart now.
I think a lot about my obsessive need to document things and what it's going to mean in the future.
What's cool about Matador is that everyone I've met there is just so chill and really into what they're doing. Everyone that works there, there's just such a lack of ego, and there's such a commitment to what they're doing. They all like each other.
I'm going to name my daughter Emily.
People actually tell me that I'm living my dream. And I'm like, 'It's a little more nuanced than that.'
I've been adjusting to what it means to be a songwriter, figuring out what I like about it and what I don't like about it and what it means to me as opposed to other people.
The phrase 'no burden' largely captured what I wish people believed about themselves.
It's important for me to write songs that feel good to sing every night and remind me of my core, truest beliefs.
