An unravelling marriage is never easy to live through. But when the break-up takes place during the bewildering early months of a once-in-a-century pandemic the potential for lasting trauma is dialled up significantly. And when your soon-to-be-ex husband is also the drummer in your acclaimed indie band . . . well, suffice to say Lucius’ Jess Wolfe had a lot to get off her chest as she toiled on the group’s fourth album, Second Nature.
“It was a coping mechanism,” she says of the new record. “How can we get through this?”
How Wolfe, her ex Dan Molad, and the rest of Lucius got through it was by making an exquisitely sad disco LP. No genre combines euphoria and angst as irresistibly as disco. And on twinkling laments such as Dance Around It – “Sweep that under the rug/gotta a whole lot of space but nowhere to run” – Wolfe sprinkles glitter-dust over her heartache.
“What if we can force ourselves to dance through it?” she says, recalling the goal she and Lucius songwriting partner and co-vocalist Holly Laessig set themselves as they reconvened last year to begin the project.
“Maybe we can get through these challenging times in a way that actually lifts us up.”
Wolfe was hurting. As was Molad. And yet, after two years of rolling lockdowns and general worldwide suffering, the last thing they wanted was to put more misery out into the world.
This was a very Lucius way of approaching a challenging situation. Since breaking through in 2014 with avant-garde pop of their second release, Wildewoman, they have never taken the easy or obvious route. And so with Second Nature one of the goals was to create a break-up LP that encouraged the listener to jump up and down with joy.
While there are celebrated examples of bands surviving romantic strife – one thinks of Fleetwood Mac – the split between Wolfe and Molad was a huge stumbling point
“It felt honestly a bit selfish to expect people to delve into something heavy after the fact that we’ve all been in heavy moments together for the last 2½ years,” says Wolfe, zooming from her kitchen table in Los Angeles.
“I felt the last thing I want to do is listen to something sombre. Get me out of here. I want to wear bright clothes. I want to be sparkling and shimmering and glistening. And I want to dance.”
Dancing through the heartbreak is a long-established pop tradition. But while there are celebrated examples of bands surviving romantic strife – one thinks of Fleetwood Mac – the split between Wolfe and Molad was a huge stumbling point. Could Lucius survive?
“Me and Jess would have continued on no matter what happened,” says Laessig. “But Pete [Lalish, guitar] and Danny are our bandmates. And have been since the beginning. That was definitely a big part of the difficulty of the separation. Neither of them [Wolfe or Molad] wanted to lose that. And that was a worry. We were able to work through it.”
Finding resolve
Second Nature isn’t simply about the specific marital woes suffered through by Wolfe and her ex. The album is about surviving lockdown and walking into the sunshine on the other side. And about Lucius finding the resolve to continue after stepping away from the spotlight since their last full studio long player, 2016’s Good Grief (in the years since, Wolfe and Laessig toured as backing players to Roger Waters).
Lucius, in other words, much like the rest of us, have been through a lot. On the new record you can hear them celebrating the return to normality (of a sort) while just about holding back tears.
“Something that we always like to play with is the juxtaposition of the mood music against the lyric,” says Wolfe. “Not letting the lyric indulge in itself too much. Or the music indulge in itself too much. I like the idea of a song making you groove but then, when you listen, you say, ‘oh God, I want to cry’.”
Second Nature was produced by Dave Cobb and Brandi Carlile in Nashville. Carlile is a transformative figure in country music – openly queer from early in her career and an artist who has refused to kowtow to the conservatism streaked through the Nashville music business.
She is also someone whose influence is far greater than her record sales. In blazing her own trail, she is credited with clearing a path for a new generation of female country artists. These include Marin Morris and Kacey Musgraves, who in 2021 released her own divorce album, Star-Crossed.
Lucius were thrilled to discover they had a fan in Carlile. She, for her part, embraced the opportunity to step outside her comfort zone by making a pedal-to-the-floor disco record.
Lucius are one of those special bands who invite you into a reality of their own devising
“She stands up for rights of every kind. It’s not often you find someone who is a gay female icon in country music,” says Laessig. “Who is fighting for the rights of all people. She is constantly supporting other artists – specifically other women. Lifting them up.
“We’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by women who do support each other. There’s this idea that women are always very competitive. And they’re pinned against each other. In our experience, that’s not the case. There’s room enough for all of us. It’s important for us to be supporting and lifting each other up. And creating more of a community.”
Dark drama
Lucius are one of those special bands who invite you into a reality of their own devising. The best example is perhaps Wildewoman, the pop version of the terrifying journey through the tunnel in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Driven by shiny melodies yet full of dark drama, songs such as Monsters (“I know I’m older, but there are still monsters in all of my closets”) and You Don’t Sit There evoked artists as far-flung as the Shangri-Las and Bat For Lashes. And did so in fashion both thrilling and unnerving.
That distinctive mix of sunshine and shadow was accentuated by the manner in which the duo presented themselves. Wildewoman’s cover repurposed Evelyne Axell’s Ice Cream, a provocative pop art painting with erotic overtones from 1964. Meanwhile, in their photoshoots and on stage, Wolfe and Laessig cultivated the uncanny, mirror-image look of the twins in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, with matching horror-show frocks and bouffants.
This caused an immediate impact. Vogue hailed the pair as “a ’60s girl group transported to the modern day”; the Guardian pitched them as a mash-up of Arcade Fire and Haim (“Arcade Haim”). Were they surprised their scary twins image looked prompted such visceral reactions?
“When we were starting out, we were a very small band. Nobody knew us. You don’t have a stage show,” says Laessig. “We like theatrics but there’s no budget for it. I guess, we’ll be the stage set. We have to create an eerie otherworldly thing.”
The most efficient way to do so was by dressing exactly the same, she says. “Initially we were co-ordinating our outfits. And then, on our first trip to South By South West [a hipster showcase in Texas] a friend said, ‘you know you should dress head-to-toe exactly the same – freak people out’. We were like, ‘that’s a good idea’. It was an effective way to bring the show wherever you went.”
Laessig has to strain slightly to make herself heard over the gurgles of her 11-month-old baby. Early parenthood is another of the melodramas stirred into Second Nature. And while Wolfe was of course delighted that her best friend had become a mother there was some pain too. We all compare ourselves to the people to whom we are closest. It wasn’t lost on Wolfe that, as her marriage was unravelling, Holly and her husband were starting a family. She had to take a moment.
“I remember when she [Holly] first told me they were going to start trying to have a baby. There was this bitter sweet thing, because we were always planning on doing that together. We do everything together. We sing together. We dress together. We do all these things. So it was bitter sweet. I was so happy for her. Clearly this is the right time for that. When else could it be a better time?
“But at the same time I was like, ‘Oh, I was starting over and she was continuing on in a way’. It was actually a lesson in how strong our bond was. She was so sensitive to my experience. And I was so focused on being as supportive and loving of a friend and auntie that I could be. It deepened our partnership.”
– Second Nature will be released on April 8th. Lucius play the Button Factory in Dublin in September
