More about: Lucia + The Best Boys

The first time Lucia Fairfull picked up a guitar was when she broke her leg at age eleven. Before the life-changing car collision she was a dancer - a girl who loved performing all kinds of styles. “It makes me think that maybe it would have always happened,” she concedes now - convinced that music was always coming for her, no matter how much she enjoyed dancing before the accident.

She was a big Gwen Stefani fan by that time, though formative records ‘Whenever, Wherever’ by Shakira and the Britney Spears cover of Joan Jett's ‘I Love Rock ’n’ Roll’ were the first singles she owned. It wasn’t until 2017 though, that she and her new band - then known by the mononym ‘Lucia’ released their first EP.

Her parents “were always very supportive” of her musical ambitions, even when it meant swapping college for working alongside a manager. Because as she puts it: “what would be the point of studying music when I could be out there doing it?” “They were never about ‘you have to do this [instead]” Lucia says. For the record, her mother has been everything from a model to a casino worker, while her dad sells potatoes. (His potato van doubles as the band’s tour bus.)

Lucia & The Best Boys today released their brand new EP The State of Things. It’s the second release since their transformation from just Lucia - a shift that was intended to make things clearer for a band who play live as a group, as well as a reference to that first ever output the Best Boy EP.

Alongside drummer Ally and bassist Chris, Lucia also wanted to make a change from someone who “spoke to younger people” and reassured them that the wreckage they were picking through was well-thrifted, to an artist making more grown-up music. The transformation was astonishing: while always a talented songwriter, Lucia Fairfull came back with a rare flourish on October 2019 single ‘Good Girls Do Bad Things’.

“It sounds cheesy, but there’s a storyline to them” Lucia says of the two EP’s that have come from the band since that moment of change. From the release of ‘Good Girls Do Bad Things’ (a kick back against “oppression in the industry”) to the catharsis of today’s new EP, Lucia & The Best Boys track a journey through heartbreak. When that Madonna-esque lead Eternity single was released in 2019, Lucia had begun a journey through a debilitating breakup. By early January and the full reveal of Eternity, tracks ‘My God’ and ‘Flames’ had suddenly taken on “a new meaning.”

When the time to write and record the emotional core of The State of Things came around - ‘Let Go’, ‘Perfectly Untrue’ - the ugly and devastating end of the break-up had rolled around. “I went to L.A. with the intention of drawing a line under it”, Lucia says, “it was a mix of emotions.” While she didn’t have the physical support of her family and friends with her in California, Lucia did manage to escape the place that reminded her of her “very good” old relationship. And as many of us well know, breaking up from someone who was good to you “is sometimes worse” than the alternative.

What emerged from those sessions was a raw flip-side to the Eternity EP. While the first release since Lucia & The Best Boys’ rebirth was vulnerable in a way that Lucia intended would “make the best” out of ugly situations of the kind “that everyone goes through”, The State of Things demonstrates more of a tremulous and gut-wrenching personal vulnerability. Sparkling with the neo-80s brew that’s been bubbling through much of the Glasgow scene in recent years, The State of Things is at once glistening and completely devastating.

Part of the rawness of the finished product comes from the fact that these songs are all mixed demos. No re-recording or re-takes, the emotion you hear in Lucia’s voice come from the eye of the storm: holed up in L.A. as she weathered the “most difficult thing I’ve ever been through.”

Then of course, the pandemic hit.

Like many of us during lockdown, Lucia had to keep busy in order to escape the true “depths of hell” that quarantine threatened. She holed up with friend and Ninth Wave member Haydn Park-Patterson, watching films that would inform her creative vision, filming the poised and beautiful 'Let Go' video for the extraordinary ‘Let Go’ and inventing TikTok dances for her songs. And now? It's the hoping for live gigs to return. (For the record, Lucia's "trying to sort out" some socially-distanced shows.)

"A constant guide to help me get through strange times" Lucia calls The State of Things. For others too, this EP will be a powerful and human confessional to comfort and share our sorrow.

The State of Things EP is out now on Sweet Jane Recordings.

More about: Lucia + The Best Boys