Interview by Tegan Jaimie
Photography by Marilena Vlachopoulou & Bethany Grace

Lucia and the Best Boys are a tidal wave of musical force spearheading Glasgow’s thriving music scene renaissance. The latest evidence of this lies in the success of their most recent EP ‘The State of Things’ which sees them back for a second wave with a slate of remixes. Not one to stick to the status quo, each collab was handpicked by vocalist and songwriter Lucia Fairfull, a champion for other women in the industry. The remixes are as diverse and eclectic as Lucia’s own music taste.

We sat down with the front woman Lucia to chat about the band’s latest releases, being a woman in the industry and how her lyrics, glisteningly raw as they are, are to be used as a musical confessional for the younger generation.

LET’S START WITH YOUR ‘COVER GIRLS’ IGTV SERIES, WHICH YOU BROUGHT BACK LOCKDOWN STYLE. WHAT WERE YOUR REASONS FOR WANTING TO DO COVER SONGS?

There’s a couple of reasons. One reason was literally just for fun. I learned to play guitar through playing covers. I didn’t go to a single guitar lesson and I learned through watching people do covers on YouTube and stuff and I used to love doing it. When you’re young you sing songs all the time, throughout your life, whether they just pop into your head or whatever. So it’s a fun element to add and people can also see what kind of music I’m into by the songs that I’m covering.

The other reason, which I guess was the more important reason was that I wanted to use my platform to celebrate women in music. Because, and it’s not just in the music industry, women get pushed to the back a lot of the time. People don’t realise how many women there actually are in the music industry, they just always assume that it’s men. Even from the outside people become ignorant because the actual music industry itself only promotes mainly male artists, which I’ve personally struggled with. I’ve played festivals where I was literally the only woman on the lineup. 

ALMOST LIKE THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE… 

Yeah, exactly and I’ve started to notice a lot more sexism within the music industry as I’ve gotten older. Initially I was a little bit more naive and I was just really focused on wanting to do music. But of course, there was always that element of me that was like, am I allowed to be aggressive or this bold on stage? Or does that come across as unattractive or intimidating? I always had that slight element in my head. But there was also that part of me that was just like, I don’t really care.

It’s interesting that you say how aware of it you were, regardless of how you handled it, that it’s still subconsciously in the background as part of being a woman in the industry.

100 percent and I know that I’m lucky that ever since I’ve been about 17, personality-wise, I’ve always been quite direct and confident. But some people aren’t like that, you know. It’s hard coming into the industry when you want to do music as a woman. I want to lift people up and I want people to notice and recognise other women in the industry. So with ‘Cover Girls’, I was going to artists that I felt were inspiring or weren’t getting the limelight that they deserve. Obviously, we’re still a growing band and I can’t give them all of that but I still felt like it was important to collaborate with them.

WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT PERCEPTION OF THE GLASGOW MUSIC SCENE? 

It’s such a good time to feel proud to be a Glaswegian band because the Glasgow music scene is thriving so hard. There are so many amazing bands and it’s the one thing that I always end up getting passionate about in an interview. I cannot fault it in any way. There’s no competitiveness and it’s such a safe space to be a creative. I’ve met so many people since first moving to Glasgow and I feel like it’s been really inspiring. To be on the same boat as so many other people and grow with so many other people that have also become like a family to me. But everything that I’m doing right now is to make my voice heard and be a worldwide band. A lot of people we speak to in London are like, ‘Oh, I want to come to Glasgow’, whereas before when I first started everyone would be like, ‘when are you going to move to London?’ And I was always like, ‘nah, why do I have to?’ And the fact that none of us have has created this rock-solid recognised scene here. And we have always said if you move together, you’re gonna make bigger waves. We’re all different artists, everybody has their own thing going on but we all move together, which is a really nice thing to experience.

TALK TO ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHY YOU DECIDED TO RELEASE A SLATE OF REMIXES FOR THE ‘STATE OF THINGS’ EP.

I have such a wide range of taste in music and for me, the remix EP was one that I’ve always wanted to collaborate on more with other women artists. I do a lot of writing sessions and I always end up in rooms with men, like don’t get me wrong I’ve met some great people through that and they’re all very talented but I’m at a stage where I’m like you have to practice what you preach. I choose wisely which songs I thought would suit the artists the most and I wanted to keep the EP really diverse. Rather than just being like, I’m a band, so I should get other bands to remix my EP because I care about all types of women in music, not just my type of women in music. Like for example Chlobocop, she’s just doing her own thing and I’ve always found her really inspiring because she’s such a strong character and she stands out from the crowd so much. Then there’s Jessica Winter, I’ve done writing sessions with her and she is so multi-talented and she did this proper 90s Cher version of Let Go, which at first was very humorous but after listening twice I was like, this is so fucking good.

YOU MENTIONED PAST WRITING SESSIONS, HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR SONGWRITING HAS PROGRESSED OVER THE YEARS?

I think it’s changed drastically, but at the same time has stayed very much the same. I’ve never been someone that writes about political things or you know, universal worldly things. It’s always been more about very personal things that I know loads of people in the world will have experienced. I’ve always  naturally wanted to be very direct within my lyrics and wanted to connect with a variety of people, but particularly the younger generation because I know what it’s like to grow up and go through challenges.  I always aim to be direct and offer connections so that they know that they’re not alone in these situations because I had music that did that for me when I was younger and I wanted to be able to do that for other people.

You recently released the music video for ‘Forever Forget’, collaborating once again with director Rianne White and set designer, Furmaan Ahmed. What is the creative process around bringing your lyrics to life?

It’s funny a lot of people I speak to say they find the videos the most tricky part or at least the most tiring part but I love it because I’m such a visual person. As soon as I start writing a song I have imagery in my head and more times than not the images that I have in my head whilst writing are the ones that I end up using for the video. Rianne elaborates on those ideas and Furmaan brought the set design to life, both adding their twist to it.  We just got on so well, it’s so much fun.  

I like that it gives the song its own space so people can visualise in their head when they’re listening to it. It’s important to give yourself an identity and it’s important just as a creative, I guess, to experience other things and work with other creatives in different ways. My favourite part is just seeing some small idea that you had in your head all of a sudden come to life as an actual thing that you can watch.

YOU TOUCHED ON THE IMPORTANCE OF IDENTITY, COULD YOU ELABORATE ON THIS?

I think, you know when you’re younger and you go through so many phases well I feel I’m still such a chameleon, like, I was talking to my friend the other day about this actually and I think it must be a creative thing because when you’re so attracted to visual things I feel like it makes me want to be a different character every day. I get that musicians should have a very specific kind of image because it makes them more identifiable and I’m not saying that we don’t have that but I think we have really slowly built our identity and people who listen to us will recognise us. I’m so easily influenced by like, a movie or something I see or just how I’m feeling, and I love dressing up. The boys are also the same as me. They definitely have very individual styles and they dress how they want to dress but I think with us all spending so much time with each other, we’ve morphed into very similar styled people which is a very good thing. But we also still have hints of our own characters.

YOU’RE SET TO GO ON TOUR WITH DREAM WIFE – WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO WHEN YOU CAN START PLAYING GIGS AGAIN?

I don’t want to get my hopes up and I know that this has been a hard time and nobody should rush straight into going back to normal life but I am still really looking forward to the day when we can do that. I think we’ve evolved a lot during lockdown, spending a lot of time with ourselves and reflecting a lot. I’ve become a lot more certain of who I am and the music I want to make and I think the boys are very much the same as that. I think that our live shows are just going to get so much better because we feel so much more comfortable in our own skin. I’m looking forward to playing all the songs that we’ve released during lockdown that we haven’t had the chance to yet and yeah, I’m just really looking forward to being inspired by that side of life again. Also seeing other bands play live because I used to love going to gigs as much as I loved playing them.

You can keep up to date with Lucia & The Best Boys on instagram or via their website