Words by Annie Barber
Photos by Izzy Leach and Ronan Park
Scotland has a long history of producing exciting and iconic female fronted bands. Though the trend can be charted back to the 60s, it has carried on well in to the 2020s and is now experiencing a resurgence. One of the bands at the forefront of that renaissance is Lucia & The Best Boys. Led by Lucia Fairfull, the band draws on indie, rock, and alternative influences, and has shared stages with the likes of Wolf Alice and Alanis Morissette. One of the first venues Lucia played was Glasgow’s Barrowlands, supporting The Bay City Rollers, at just 17. Now, she will be playing her sophomore album, ‘Picking Petals’, at that very same venue but, this time, as a headliner.
“I can confidently say, [it is] my favourite thing that I’ve ever made,” Lucia says when speaking about the album. This status is well deserved; it is a sophisticated and mature account of Lucia and the band’s experiences from the last two years, and an impressive collection of songs. The name ‘Picking Petals’ came to the group during an early writing session that birthed the album’s title track, and it was one of those serendipitous moments where everything clicked into place. She says, “I felt like it just had this power that I’d been really striving to capture in a song, as a songwriter, for a really long time, and I think, as well, it was the first time that I felt almost like I’d captured everything that I wanted this album to feel like in one song.” Since the album draws heavily on Lucia’s connection with nature, the title feels very fitting. She reveals, “I associate the idea of ‘Picking Petals’ with this very kind of sweet youthful romance of like ‘he loves me he loves me not’… which falls under the narrative of a lot of the songs too.”
The album’s opener, ‘Back Inside My Heart’, is a standout track and the perfect introduction. Lucia recalls the making of the song, saying that it came to fruition in just two days when she visited producer Yves Rothman in LA. She says, “I walked over to a synth and started playing this like quite monstrous kind of ‘So Sweet I Could Die’ bass synth sub,” which she says “instantly” took her back to the making of the earlier track, which was written by Lucia, Ally Scott, and Christopher Ballantyne from the band, as society came out of lockdown following the pandemic. At the end of those first two days of working with Rothman, Lucia recalls him asking ‘so who’s doing your album then?’ and she responded ‘you are.’ After that initial session, Lucia invited him to Glasgow, to record the rest of the album at Mogwai’s studio, Castle of Doom. She says, “it felt really important for Yves to have insight of my daily surroundings and… I really wanted to bring in our local community to be a part of this album.”
Lucia has long been involved in Scotland’s — and the UK’s — creative scene. She has a core group that she works with in her capacity as an artist, and it’s something that she doesn’t take for granted. Having those networks that she can come back to and rely on is something that has allowed her artistry and creativity to flourish. Not just the Best Boys (Scott, Ballantyne, and Adam Campbell), but also long time photographer Ronan Park, and her other collaborators, she says, all see her for who she is and support her vision. She shouts out some of the album’s contributors: Euan McLaughlin who played fiddle, Campbell’s brother and his friends who played the brass section, and Lochlann Trenholm who played the harp. Additionally, the album contains two collaborations, ‘Lonely Girl’, featuring Lauren Mayberry of CHVRCHES fame, and ‘Big Romance’ with The Last Dinner Party’s Abigail Morris, both of which are emblematic of the strong sense of community that runs through the album.
Lucia says, “I think it’s just really important that we try to work together as much as possible, and keep that sense of community and what it is to be a musician in real life, and to create DIY, and how that makes us feel as humans — if you know what I’m saying.” Though she is not explicit, it is clear that she is alluding to the ever-increasing presence of AI. She adds, “it’s good to challenge yourself and also be a part of other people’s creative worlds as much as it is your own.” In a time when the technology seems to be inescapable, Lucia’s collaborative approach is both refreshing and much needed.
She reveals that she was mainly listening to traditional Scottish music during the making of the album. She says, “I am very much inspired by the sounds that I hear within traditional music, and the two different kind of sides of it where there’s escapism, but there’s also grounding and I love both of those elements mixed together.” Alongside this, she pinpoints some of her all time influences, citing Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, and Kate Bush. In fact, ‘You Look Like Somebody in Love’ contains a sample at the start which is very Kate Bush-esque. She says, “it wasn’t necessarily like a copycat moment… when it does come to artists that iconic, it’s cool to give them a nod, it shouldn’t be perceived as ‘well they’ve just ripped that off.’”
The album was made with the stage in mind, and as a reaction to the return of live music following the pandemic. In just over a week, Lucia will be stepping out at Glasgow’s Barrowlands to play its songs. “I’m not someone that gets nervous but I am… trying to say in my mind, ‘it’s just another show,’ because I think if I big it up too much I will get nervous,” she admits. “It goes without saying, it’s one of the most iconic venues steeped in history [and] to be a part of a long lineage of artists that get to headline there… is crazy.” Although Lucia has played the venue on a number of occasions, getting to headline it has been a long time dream of hers. Alongside the renowned Glasgow venue, the band will also be playing London’s Islington Assembly Hall and Manchester’s Band on the Wall. She reveals that the group has been putting in a lot of effort to make sure that they are “immersive” and “one-off” shows. Lucia & The Best Boys is one of those bands that gives their all at every concert; since they are working hard to make these ones special, each is guaranteed to be a night to remember.
She ends with a thoughtful and profound statement: “I’ll always be on a journey of finding who I am as an artist, I don’t think that’ll ever end. I think I’m such a constantly evolving and changing person when it comes to art and I want to embrace it rather than look at it as a negative.” That sense of growth and metamorphosis forms a common thread throughout all of Lucia’s work, and is particularly apparent on ‘Picking Petals’.
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