On the power of friendship in creative collaboration

In thinking about the history of musical duos, they’re frequently characterized by underlying tension. Sometimes that’s creative tension. Sometimes it’s romantic or sexual tension. Your partnership, by contrast, is characterized by a really deep connection and alignment between the two of you to the point where you basically merge both visually and harmonically. How intentional was that choice, or was that an emergent quality?

Jess: I think that was just us. I think there was always just a respect for one another’s strengths, and I think we just happened to have personalities that complement each other and we’re not competitive with each other. We’re competitive together as a team, but I think that the first pillar of our strength together is just recognizing what each other brings, and therefore we can’t be us without both parts.

Holly: Yeah. When we first started, we were friends, but it was more like friends through friends, and we decided to work together first. And then, became deeply connected through work. So, I think what Jess is saying is that it came from a work mindset, and looking for the complementary work partnership. And so, that’s what we started with. And then, the appreciation and then everything kind of grew around that.

Jess: Yeah, and it has fluctuated. I’d say we’re close as ever. Even from pandemic on, it got stronger through life’s changes and difficulties and blessings. Our familial relationship got even closer. Obviously, as babies come into the world, and lockdown, you’re very, very intentional about who you’re spending your time with. And not that we weren’t really close before that, because we were, but it was also like we were just nonstop working. So it was just a different dynamic.

The pandemic drove a lot of people apart as well. The fact that you’ve been able to maintain such a close relationship and partnership for so long is impressive. Do you have any advice for people who are operating in creative partnerships about how to maintain that positive relationship over time? It’s a stressful profession.

Jess: Yeah, it is stressful. Work with people who celebrate the good things that you bring to the table. Work with people who bring out your strengths, and you find a healthy partnership. It can be hard to work with other people, but if you allow yourself that ability to really just recognize and appreciate what other people can bring, you have so much more at your disposal for both you and them. It can be a really fruitful, wonderful thing, that community.

Holly: Agreed.

What are the strengths that you feel like you bring out in each other?

Holly: You could break it down into multiple things. If you’re breaking it down into songwriting, I feel like Jess has a really good melodic sense, and I like lyrics. Not that we don’t do both, but we both kind of excel in those. And then, as far as performance, Jess is really good at styling and curating visual aspects.

And then of course, personality wise. I mean, we just have different personalities, so we kind of attract different things. I mean, she’s definitely the social butterfly of the two. She always brings all kinds of different people together. And I think I’m good at working with all different kinds of people. I’m just not as good at bringing them together.

Jess: Holly has a really amazing communicator ability. She doesn’t need to take up space unless there’s a reason for it. Everything is intentional. And so, it makes talking to her really comfortable and respectful. And it’s just a really strong quality that I think a lot of people don’t have.

And musically, we have different types of voices. I have more of a belty alto tenor voice, and she’s got this light and airy soprano. We can fill in the other, but it’s with a different texture. So, we can really play around with so many different sounds and dynamics that only we can do as a unit. It brings out the strengths in our own voices that much more.

Holly: It is fun.

You have some very intensely personal songs in your repertoire about heartbreak and loss. How does that writing process work, given that you’re so merged in your performance? Does that carry through to the songwriting process as well, or is that more individual?

Holly: Some of them start individual, and then we kind of bring these ideas to each other. And because we’re best friends and in each other’s business all the time, then we know what each other is writing about. It’s easy to know, “Okay, this is where they’re coming from and how can we make this.”

Jess: Yeah, it’s a very unique dynamic because we observe the other person’s life from such a close proximity, so we’re really able to not only know what’s going on, but actually comment or interact within that idea or feeling because we’re witness to it.

So, it allows you to write a bit from the other’s perspective?

Holly: Yeah.

Jess: In the closest way you can be without being that person, I would say. You know? Pretty unique.

It is really unique and you spend a lot of time with other musicians, solo acts, bands. How is your relationship different than what you see other musicians experiencing in their work? And how do you think that changes your experience of being a musician and touring? Do you see it as a materially different way of being a musician?

Holly: Oh, no. I feel like all musicians are so different. All the bands are so different in dynamic because it’s just different people in each band. I mean, there’s things to relate to with the lifestyle of being on the road all the time between different bands. But each band is put together by such different people. There’s always such different dynamics and you’re not privy to everything. So I think it’s hard to say for me.

Jess: I think that automatically we’re a team, and you have a built-in community when you have a teammate. And so, nothing has to be done alone. I mean, that in itself is huge. We have a lot of friends who are solo artists and not having that perspective or not having that other person on the other end on the days that it’s harder to do what we do. We have the other person sort of cheerleading. Just makes the process that much easier to accomplish something with a partner.

For us at least, it just works better. It’s just so helpful to have a teammate who believes in it, who can champion, and who can support when it’s challenging. And who’s with you, who wants similar things, to accomplish similar things. It’s hard work, so being able to split some of that is clutch, for lack of a better word.

Holly: In some bands, it’s like there’s a lead, but maybe the drummer and the singer are the two that are like us. Where they’re both been in it from the beginning, but you don’t see that represented in the same way. It’s almost like the difference with us is that we’re representing ourselves as a co-front. And so people, instead of saying, “Oh, I love the drummer of that band” or “I love the lead singer” or whatever, a lot of times it’s like, “Oh, I love their friendship.” They love this concept of these two people as a lead, which I guess would be different than other people.

Jess: And they’re also like, “Where’s the drama? Come on. Show us the drama.” And I’m like, “Honestly …” I mean, we’ve had drama as a band, obviously. I was married to the drummer, but we don’t have that much drama. We create our own little fun drama in the band. We’ve got some funny text threads that no one will ever see. It’s just true friendship.

Friendship is particularly important in an industry where a lot of people can feel alone in their effort. So, it is incredible to have a partner.

Jess: It’s true.

You’ve moved between producing your own work and releasing it as Lucius, and then working with other musicians. You took six years between Good Grief in 2016 and your next full length, all new material album, Second Nature in 2022. During that time you toured with Roger Waters, and worked with some incredible musicians like John Legend and The War on Drugs. How do you choose between focusing on collaborating with other musicians, and when to focus on writing and releasing original work?

Holly: Going on tour with Roger [Waters] felt like a great opportunity we couldn’t turn down, and we didn’t know that a pandemic was on the other side of it, so it was never meant to be that long.

Jess: But the pandemic offered us a lot of time to write, so we actually were able to truly sit and reflect and in this way that we maybe never have been able to do, except in the very, very beginning.

Holly: Yeah, yeah. I think after that experience of being away touring with someone else’s project, as fruitful as it was and wonderful, it also made us realize how much we want to do our own thing, and build and tour, and make music for our own project, rather than be away that long. I think we’ll always collaborate with people, but not to that extent.

Jess: Yeah. It was fun. We had fun.

Holly: It was awesome.

Roger Waters is such a massive production to tour with. Did you learn anything from that experience that you are bringing back to how you’re approaching your own music or what you want out of your own music?

Jess: Attention to detail and never really settling on something until it’s actually settled. He was such a perfectionist, and every night would watch the show and take notes on lights and visual and band arrangements. And every day during soundcheck, we worked on something to improve something. And I think making sure every moment matters to the audience and doing what we can to achieve that.

You recently recorded Wildewoman and completed a 10-year anniversary tour. What led to the decision to revisit that album? Did anything surprise you in revisiting that with your fans across the country?

Jess: How meaningful it was to all those people. That record really connected us to a fan base and built a relationship with those people, and it was really meaningful. Every night we had a mailbox at our merch table, and we told everyone that they could write us a letter. We had notepads there with pens. And so, we ended up reading a couple every night on stage, and they were just super meaningful. That was a huge part of the tour. That album was the thing that gave us legs for the first time.

I think that playing a record or most of the songs from the record for 10 years or plus, the meaning of a song changes. The way that you play it evolves. And being able to celebrate that instead of just … Not that there’s anything wrong with remastering and celebrating in other ways, but for us, it was about we recorded that ourselves then, and here’s us recording it now after having played those songs for so many years, and so many things have evolved, and this is that record now. It was just a fun way of celebrating really.

Holly: Yeah, I mean, listening back also when we were recording stuff was funny because we hadn’t listened to it in so long. It was kind of like relearning everything, but it was really fun.

You hadn’t listened to the album?

Holly: Yeah.

Jess: People don’t listen to their own albums that often. It’s everyone else’s record.

Holly: We played a bunch of those songs for years and years, but it was funny to listen back to the record and see how certain things had drifted or shifted.

Jess: We were in Brazil on the Roger Waters tour, and we went to Milton Nascimento’s birthday party. And I remember part of the party, we were sitting in his pool lounge area and listening to his album with him sitting there. I was like, “You know, that’s pretty baller.”

So, how are things shifting in this new … now that you’re in this new phase with families that you’re starting? What are you feeling pulled towards at this point?

Holly: Well, the record that we’re working on now, that we’re going to release, is kind of all about homecoming. Coming back to a place that feels home, kind of like Wildewoman. Like our roots a little bit. And that I’m sure has something to do with feeling home in this sort of domestic part of our life.

Jess: Yeah. And you just work harder with more purpose. A little less blindly. We say yes to things with a little more intention. And you understand the value of things a little on a deeper level.

I mean, I’m not a mom yet, but soon, and I already feel that, even just watching my godchildren through Holly, the purpose changes. It evolves. You want to make a legacy for your family, and you want to do things with thought and care, especially because your time is divided in a different way. And so when you’re working or when you’re putting something out, it needs to be with a certain type of intention and purpose that didn’t exist before. You don’t have that …

Holly: Dilly-dally time.

Jess: Yeah, endless open range of anything. You want that selfishness, which can serve you really well in a musical sense. But yeah, it’s just not as readily available.

So, what are your goals at this point, entering into this next phase creatively or career-wise?

Jess: Coming back to ourselves as a unit and working on stuff the way that we did when we first started all together. We have so many ideas between just the four of us. So, really allowing ourselves to explore those ideas and see how we can come to the output within our own home, so to speak. That’s been really rewarding. I think probably for all four of us.

There’s also an ease about it because we just know each other so well, and we each have different roles that we fulfill in the studio. Yeah, so that’s really nice.

Holly: We’re going to put out more music. We’re going to keep touring. And where we’re at now is kind of coming back to ourselves after reaching out into these different genres and things that interested us, but maybe felt a bit more of a costume or something. We’re coming back home to ourselves.