Switched on Pop - Lawrence: the kick-ass eight-piece family band reshaping the music business

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

In today’s volatile music industry, many artists struggle to navigate the pitfalls of touring, the whims of social media, and the inequity of exploitative contracts. But Lawrence, an eight-piece band led by siblings Clyde and Gracie Lawrence, provide a beacon of hope. Combining exceptional talent, savvy business acumen, and a familial bond, they've forged an uncanny path as a band. From testifying before Congress to tackle industry monopolies, to managing their tour logistics and branding, Lawrence seamlessly blends the artistry of music with the realities of a family-run enterprise. Their perseverance and authenticity shine through their newest album, aptly named "Family Business.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. There's so much conversation about the hellish state of the music business. Artists are being exploited by concert promoters. Social media is deluding music. It's impossible to make it as a touring band. But for all the impossibilities, there are also Beacons of Hope.

One of them is the band Lawrence. Lawrence is an eight-piece band made up of some remarkable talents. They're led by brother and sister duo Clyde and Gracie Lawrence. Clyde was the youngest person to ever join the Songwriters Guild of America at age six when he scored a Hollywood film. Gracie dropped out of college to join the family band as a lead vocal powerhouse, and she's also soon to star in the Max Show Sex Lives of College Girls. But Lawrence are no strangers to the challenges of the music business. They've literally testified to Congress about how it needs to change. Yet they've worked hard to cultivate a real community in person and on the internet that over 10 years has taken them from touring small college venues to recently playing MetLife Stadium in New York City.

It's truly uncanny to have a successful eight-piece band that operates kind of like no other, like a family business, which is also the title of their new album. I spoke with Clyde and Gracie about what it means to be a family business, and I think you'll find that their experience and their music, has a lot of hope to offer. Here's Gracie and Clyde. Gracie and Clyde Lawrence. Thank you so much for joining me on Switched on Pop. Thank you for having us. In an era of solo acts and computer-based production,

you have chosen the exact opposite path. You created an eight-piece band that you call a family business. And you even sing about it not being an ordinary kind of arrangement. Welcome to the family business. You'll be the witness. This is not ordinary. What is the story of how you formed this family business? To start from the very beginning, Clyde and I are siblings.

So obviously, we met in our living room playing music. From there, like, actually just played shows around the city as kids. And we should clarify the city. The city is New York City. Yeah, the only city. This is the second time the other day, if I made a joke. Yeah. You texted someone being like, are you in the city?

And they were like, yeah, let's meet up. And then you're like, great, like, here's the time and place. And then they were like, oh, I thought you meant L.A. Isn't it so, like, well-known, though? You're getting in trouble for your feeling. I'm not going to stop doing it. Which, I'm with you. This is the city.

I mean, come on. Like, I'm going to keep doing that forever. But, yeah, I mean, we played shows around New York City as kids. And then when Clyde went to college and I was in high school, he met the rest of our band. And kind of formed from there. And so it is really a collection of... And some of the people, you're glazing over some. of them are from like way earlier.

Yeah. So me and Gracie grew up playing together. We met Jordan, who's like one of our best friends when I was probably five or six. Gracie was like one or two. Then our drummer Sam is someone that I met in middle school. And then when I went to college, yes, then we met the other four people in the band. So all eight people in the band are like friends, not hired guns or anything. Friends from like a non-professional part of life.

And we've been, we just hit our 10-year anniversary with the exact same group. In your title song of your latest album Family Business, you describe a very casual business culture of your band, sweatpants instead of suits. Step into the office of Lawrence, the coffee is boring, and sweatpants unnecessary. Meetings happen at 3 a.m. The meeting starts at 3 in the morning. It never gets boring and sleeping is secondary. There's no dotted line to sign on. Is this the reality of running a band, or is Lawrence more buttoned up behind the scenes?

I think what's funny is it's kind of a mix. We take the business side of it extremely seriously, and Clyde can speak to that even more. I think, like, since we were really little, we took it really seriously and made sure that our organization was, like, tight. But I think that the culture of it is really fun. and silly at times. And I think that's the nature of, like, creating something that you're really passionate about with people that you're really close with.

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think, like, those things you mentioned are, like, examples of true late nights, mixing, work and play, no dress code, no formality, really, of any kind are all, like, hallmarks of, I guess, what you could call our organization culture, but we all take a lot of pride in the fact that we do run a really tight ship in terms of just like the efficiency of the organization in terms of like logistics and even

budgeting and all those kinds of things. Like in order to make an eight piece band, and product. Yeah, and product, of course. We put so much detail-oriented work and that requires like real project management skills. I mean, the spreadsheets we have are, our, our, are ridiculous of they're more impressive than our music. Yeah, you're not just an eight-piece band. Like, you truly are also a business. You obviously don't have like a HR department and marketing department. We do have a guy that like in the band who has like made it his mission to understand how to run a merch business.

We have a guy in the band who's like come to know everything about insurance and trucking. You know, we really do have these things. I do a lot of the accounting and bookkeeping for the band. I do a lot of the marketing. And you know so much more about like, branding and marketing and have come to learn that and study that more than a lot of people that do do that professional. I feel like you need to put on your liner notes. It's like, we do. Can I show you our liner notes? Wait, literally that is our liner notes. Base in logistics. You are literally,

we just finalized our liner notes today. You are, could not be more nail on the head. Here are the family business liner notes right here going down the order of the band. All right. Clyde Lawrence, you're the co-founder, chairman of the keyboard. That's appropriate. You do have the keyboard for of you. Do you have a chord that might... Exactly. Head of accounting. Wow. Gracie Lawrence.

Yes. Co-founder, chief vocal officer. Absolutely. Epping. And head of marketing. This is amazing. Jordan Cohen, co-chair of the saxophone committee, product manager, director of logistics.

Johnny Co. Executive director of guitar operations, head of IT and sonic specialist, Sam Askin, tempo strategist, equipment operations and supervisor. Michael Karsh, low-end controller, travel technician. That's comp-troller. Comp-troller, excuse me. Yes.

Oh, man, I definitely did not get an MBA. Sumner-Becker, co-chair of the Saxophone Committee, VP of merchandising and sustainability. That's important. Not all corporations have the sustainability officer. Mark Langer, high-frequency manager, topist of the top brass must be a trumpet. Exactly.

So, I mean, those are tongue-in-cheek, but those are all like fun references to the actual jobs that people have. You know, like Mark High Frequency Manager, he literally is setting up all of the wireless that's on stage every show. Like all those are examples of real things. When we set out to create this eight-piece band, like we knew that there's two options.

Either that can be like a lot of people that are kind of sitting around and like splitting money a lot of ways. Or you can turn that kind of double-edged sword into the other edge. which is using and activating eight really smart, invested people who are going to be way more invested in it than anyone else you could hire. It also means that you get to travel potentially with a slimmer team.

Your whole business team is slimmer. It's not just paying the eight of you. It's paying everyone that supports the eight of you. And if you are also running all of those support operations, that means you actually are potentially running a business. Exactly. So we have a way smaller team. We have an amazing team.

We have management and lawyer and some people that are on our touring crew and stuff like that, agents. Right. But overall, yes, our operation outside the band is way slimmer than most other bands would be. Okay. So, Lawrence, tell me about how it functions. Are we talking oligopoly, family-run business? Are we an anarchist cooperative?

Are we a democracy? How do you go about making both creative and business decisions? Yeah, what's the flow chart of this eight-piece plus all of your additional support team? So there's a couple different aspects to our business. There's touring and there's merch, and then there's also, like, what you might call, like, our own indie label that is sort of, like, in charge of creating our music and distributing that music. And I would say the touring and merch stuff, because everyone's so invested in that, we try to have everybody have buy-in on most of the decisions that are being made, but people take ownership of their areas within that. So, like, the one guy that's in charge of merch, he'll bring to the group, hey, we're thinking of having this be the product line for the thing. Let me know what you think.

You know, like, everyone has their different departments. We try to all weigh in on the touring stuff. Ultimately, I think Gracie and I are in charge, but other people are really in charge. Like, Jordan is our tour manager, and, like, he is very much owning that and, like, brings people decisions, ways in. And, like, we really, over time, have come to defer

to the people in the areas that they've become true experts. Gracie, I feel like I have to fact-check this because, you know, Clyde did jump in and gave a very eloquent response, but maybe he's a good politician. Is he actually a dictator, you know, in cheap's clothing? Right, right. Or is this true?

Right, right. You know, I wish I could give you kind of like a bombshell story, but unfortunately it is the truth. Yeah. I think... I'm just doing my journalistic job, fact-checking. Of course, and we respect that. No, I think it's really accurate.

I think, like, because it's called Lawrence and because Clyde and I kind of consider ourselves, like, the founder of it, I think a lot of the creative decisions have to flow through us. Like a lot of what the identity of what the thing is still always flows through us. But so many people in the band have so much power, even creatively, to do so much within it. This is a distributed corporate model. Some call this like holocracy if we're talking corporate speak.

We probably know more than me. Let's get into the corporate speak a little bit because it's actually in the music. Yes. Your song. promotion is about paying your dues, wearing a suit, slogging through a commute. It's under a bow diddley beat and has this great sort of George Michael chord progression. Nailed the references. Yeah. There's like, dang. Nice. You just did 60 plus dates with the Jonas brothers. Yeah. The other week you opened for the Rolling Stones at MetLife Stadium. You're heading out

what is likely to be the biggest tour of Lawrence yet. So what does it mean for Lawrence to get a promotion. I think in some ways that song is so referential and so like us almost playing a character. I think what it meant is maybe something similar to what our song like don't lose sight off of our last album Hotel TV kind of alluded to, which is like you just keep going. It's kind of a song that commiserates a little bit and complains a little bit. But at the same time, it's like this very like chugging along song. Yeah, it's like it just, it kind of just is like, gotta keep going, I'm doing my thing, I'm doing my thing, got to get a promotion.

So I think there's some element of that to it where it's like so much of our thing is just like, on to the next, keep going. So I think that that to me is, even though that's not technically what promotion means, like a little bit what the song feels like, even the way that it's produced is just very like continuous. Yeah, it's a song about grinding it out

and it's a song about like the constant rat race of like trying to move move up in the ranks and whatever. And I think that like compared with some of our other songs where we speak about it in terms that we really do relate to, that song felt like a fun one to talk about it using like the parlance of of jobs we really don't have, which is more suit wearing, commuting to the office, nine to five jobs. Right. In some ways like promotion is like the cousin of family, like the evil twin of family business where family business is pretty.

authentic to our story and to our life. And promotion is sort of us like putting on characters a little. But we relate to it. Yeah. Gracie Lawrence, college dropout, never held a corporate job in her life. And she's telling us what it's like to wear a suit. I know. That's my biggest fear.

You're actually also the head of marketing of a corporation. It's true. That's true. Yeah. That's amazing. Just put me in a cubicle. But there, but there, no, let's not do that. I won't. But there also is some personal detail in there.

You sing about testifying for your family. Right. Clyde you testified, you testified, you testified to you testified to Congress about needing to break up the monopoly of ticketing and promotion, which is Ticketmaster. Most of the issues we face stem from the fact that Live Nation Ticketmaster often acts as three things at the same time, the promoter, the venue, and the ticketing company. The Justice Department is looking to file an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster.

The Department of Justice is taking aim at Live Nation. Using it of using illegal tactics to maintain a monopoly. Attorney General Merrick Garland didn't mince words when he announced a lawsuit earlier today. That conduct is anti-competitive and illegal. So why did you testify? And also, why have you chosen or maybe needed to work with Ticketmaster for your next tour? Yeah, all really good questions. over time, we were becoming increasingly aware

and increasingly frustrated with ways in which deals for artists across the whole industry, but particularly in our experience, settlements at shows. Settlements at shows. Yeah, so when you play a show, your deal is typically not just a particular fee for playing the show.

Your deal includes you getting kind of a percentage of profits, but profit for anyone who doesn't know profit is, is defined as like gross minus costs. Right. So how you define gross and costs affects profit. It seems like a pretty obvious number of profit, right? Let's say in an ideal world we're going to split the profit 50-50. In a very simple example, if we make $100 as revenue and the costs are $40,

and there's $60 a profit, we split it evenly. 30 bucks each. So simple. What if I all of a sudden start saying, oh, well, that $100 that we made, which is the revenue, actually $10 of that, that isn't really the revenue. That's more of like this special other fee that we're going to count towards this other thing.

So actually $90 of revenue. And in terms of costs, actually like there's a bunch of costs that I have that I'm going to add to the pot that count as costs that we're sharing. But then there's a bunch of costs that you have that don't get to get added to the pot. Right, all of your travel costs,

all of what it takes to run a ban. Yeah, right, sure. So let's say, you know, so then let's say there's still $40 or cost. So now it's 50 that we're splitting. So you get 25. But remember, you still have all those costs that didn't get to count towards the ones that we were splitting. That's a super oversimplified example. But those kinds of little things are happening all the time.

I remember I got to meet up with you once before and you told me that maybe counter to what one might expect of what happens backstage after a show. Everyone's relaxing, have a good time. someone else is loading out for you, maybe, you know, you're at the merch, people meet table meeting fans, people are having a drink, whatever. Oftentimes you're like haggling over line items of whatever this, like, this split is at the end. Yeah, I mean, that's partially because I enjoy doing it. You grew up in New York. Yeah. But it's also partially because I have witnessed how often it does not get corrected those little things. Or, you know, it's hard because sometimes these costs are things that are not being provided. And only some of, someone at the show could know whether they were provided or not. Do you know what I mean? Right, right. And yeah, I just think.

Can you give an example of that? Like amount of security or like a person? Yeah, I mean, that's a great example. I mean, the most simple example, which has happened before. And by the way, the examples I'm giving are not explicitly things that happen at Live Nation shows. They happen at a lot of shows. Live Nation is the biggest company. So a lot of these things.

Yeah, Live Nation Ticket Master. So a lot of these things have also happened at Live Nation shows of the experience. But, yeah, we've had examples where there's a line item for $1,500 for, like, production manager to be on site for the show. And there's no production manager on site for the show. Or, you know, things as simple as that. This math literally doesn't add up. There's so much of that, too.

And so, honestly, the whole testifying thing was just, like, a snowballing off of that, to be honest. You had written a piece for the New York Times. Yeah. This whole Taylor Swift thing happened. The ticketing. I don't know when I'd get the tickets because ticket. Master Crash, et cetera, et cetera. And so there was just such an increased appetite from, like, the public for just

stories about live music. Even if our exact set of things we were complaining about were not, like, exactly the same as the reasons why Tick and Master may or may not have been a fault for the... You helped reveal another side to it. Yeah. We were talking about the side of fans being frustrated that they can't get into shows, but you helped reveal the side of, as an artist, what does it... I wrote...

First, I just wrote this open letter that I thought... Oh, maybe I'll post it on social media, whatever. It was at the suggestion of a friend of mine who's in the policy world. And he was like, people are really interested in this stuff. And I've got people asking me about it, whatever. It ended up getting running the New York Times as an op-ed, which then was like really snowballed into, yeah, they asked me if I was down to testify about it at Senate. And it was kind of just one of those things where I was like, I'm now to just keep talking about these same things, keep making my same points, talk about things I really think I'm right about. And your and Jordan's involvement was less about whether Live Nation Ticketmaster is or is not a monopoly.

Like you're not brought in as a trust expert. Yeah. I don't know. This guy seems to know a lot about business. You do too. I think I know a lot about my business. Yeah. You know, so it's like I think that like it has been important to me the whole time to speak about things that we feel like we are experts in, which is the deals that we have firsthand experience going over with venue.

in the moment and the ways in which those feel unfair and other deal points that feel unfair. We're kind of like, hey, if people at Senate want to hear about that, great. We'll talk about that there, you know? So you are working with them ticketing this next tour, yeah? Yeah. They own many, most of the venues that were playing the next tour. I mean, at the end of the day, that's a reality of we did, we played a lot of shows with Live Nation before and Tiger Master before this tour.

They are the biggest company. That's why when I have complaints about the industry at large, they are the most effective people to direct them at. Right. Is the same reason why our upcoming tour is Food Live Nation, too, because they're the biggest company. There are other companies, too. I think also the fact that you have had these major accomplishments with them is not to be discredited either of like... Well, I mean, yeah, what Gracie's referring to is that I think hopefully as a result of something, some of these conversations.

One of our biggest tangible, easy to understand and digest pain points is that someone is taking a large percentage of artists' gross merch sales at the end of the show when that feels unfair on a number of levels. Right. They didn't print it. They didn't bring it. They haven't done anything but give you a place where you can sell it. Yeah.

And we're not getting a cut of their bar. We're not getting a car or their parking. We're not getting a cut of consent. of concessions, not to mention that like taking 20% of gross when cost of goods is about 50% often means taking about 40% of our profit. So like, you know, we could do the math again, but it comes out being a lot. Anyway, Live Nation eliminated all of that. And I think it's awesome that they did that. So I think that that's a big win. And like now when we're at Live Nation owned venues that we're playing this fall, we will save 20% on merch.

That's very significant. Yeah. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you.

Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No. No. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app.

Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly Democratic cities for ICE, raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE.

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I don't need a hip replacement. I'm doing just fine in the Brooklyn basement. I'm doing just fine. I don't need to change shit. Just fun. The refrain of your song, hip replacement, which is very funny because you're all very young, suggests that there are certain musical and commercial pressures that you refuse to bend to. Yeah.

What are some of those pressures and why this response? Well, first of all, we live in New York, the city, as I referred to it earlier. We don't live in L.A. and so you'll hear a little bit of L.A. bashing in that song. I think that's honestly a really big one. Our whole operation exists very unto itself. We kind of do our own thing and are able to kind of dip a toe into the L.A. pop music scene when we want to

and then not when we don't want to. A thing we kept writing about was like the idea of like hype and like, you know, trends and those kinds of ideas kept coming up a lot in the writing of this album and how, and it became kind of a meta-conversation of like, Hipp Replacement was almost the song that came out of the conversation of, do we give a shit at all about this music fitting into any particular box of hypeiness and what's going on in the world? And I think it's a very common conversation that artists have all the time when they're making something is like, what are other people going to think of it or how do we want, how do we want people to think about it?

And I think this song is almost like a meta, like, interpretation of that conversation. And it's sort of the one end of the spectrum of saying, like, fuck all of that. And just like we can keep doing our thing and not worry about that. Not to mention one of the things I'm proudest about of that song is that while being sort of a take down of like the hype machine, it's also an homage to one of our favorite band's Tower of Power, who famously has a song called What Is Him? Yep. And I mean, anyone that knows that song will hear the influence of Tower Power in general. Yeah.

Big horns. Yeah. Big horns. Right driving bass line. Exactly. And so like for us to take the concept of like hip in the context of a Tower Power song and then talk about hip replacement. Yeah. You know, I don't need a hip replacement.

Yeah. I'm doing fine. And that was kind of fun to be able to combine all of that wordplay into one sort of cohesive. You were generous enough to invite me down into your Brooklyn basement one time where you have your studio. You obviously have track and all kinds of wonderful studios as well. But the place where you work is it feels very at home. Like you're in an apartment. It's literally a home.

Yeah. Where two of our band members live. Yeah. And we also have a studio. Yeah. You're not leaving the Brooklyn basement. Exactly. Exactly.

There's a lot of references in there. There's a quick homage, the Jackson 5. Yeah. I wanted to ask about one particular reference, and I don't know if it was deliberate or if I'm just hearing things. I have no idea what that's from, and I don't think Jordan will tell us. So maybe you know.

Yeah, Jordan won't tell us. Jordan, put that, Jordan Cohen, one of the producers in the band with us, put that into it. And I was like, what's that from? And he wouldn't tell me. And I was like, is it something that we are going to need to, like clear as a sample and he was like no. So I don't know what it is. Do you know what

it is? I can get Jordan on the phone. No, no, no, no. I think I know what it is. Well, I know what it is for me. Wow, it's really similar. But I don't think it's same sound, but it sounds so similar. It's all the same sound. Totally. This is Scrillex's Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that moment, which is so fun. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you know the original. He's actually sampling a YouTuber

who had completed the fastest solo cup tower. Stop. Oh, I think I've seen that video. And at the end goes... But in the context of Steel X's really intense dubstep,

it takes on this like... Yeah, it's great. Terror, horror moment. So anyways, that's what it came up for me. I'm glad to be associated. That makes sense. Yeah. I never thought of Dubstep and Lawrence.

We like to combine everything. But there also is, I feel like, part of the way that the song functions as a commentary on what is hip, not the song, but the concept. It also refuses to conform to any sort of pop

formula. In some ways, it kind of feels like, yes, you have this really fun refrain, but it's kind of let's just let our band show off a little bit. Yeah. 100%. This song is like, we have so many live arrangements that go nuts and we're like, let's have this song

be just like a grab bag of all like the craziest shit we can dig up. Let me play a moment. Yeah, Horn Soli. Is that where we're going? Yeah. I can not wait to hear that live. Yeah. Same.

Because there's a lot of editing in there. In fact, perhaps you share a little bit, perhaps with a dubstep because I feel like you have taken a contemporary horn arrangement but then really played with things, chop things up, thrown things, left, right, center, moving all around. Yeah, exactly.

And it really shakes you up. Our guitarist and the other main producer, along with Jordan, in the band Johnny, Kind of as a background in making that style of music where it's like super chop. Back when we were in college and we were just starting to like find our sound, he was on his own making really cool like music that was sort of that choppy. Glitch music maybe. Yeah, like where it's like, yeah.

And then we always thought it was really cool and then started introducing small bits of it into our music. We have a song on our second album Living Room called The Heartburn song where the entire riff of the song is like, We played this riff, like, different versions of that on, like, every different instrument. And then Johnny just went to town and chopped it up. Oh, fun. And it's really, really cool. And so we've always, like, had that in the back of our mind. It's something that's, like, a cool part of our sound.

And we, yeah, we did exactly what you said. It was, like, that was actually, like, a chopped up thing of, like, a bunch of different horn takes of different parts that we wrote. And then we kind of, like, collaged it into that. So you're going to have to write it again on charts so you can do it live. I just did that. So, yeah, we knew that we had this eight measure horn break. And Jordan and I composed seven different horn solies. Like, it was like, I wrote two, he wrote two.

We collected, we like collaborated on three. We were just like kind of on the fly, just kind of freestyling them and just wrote them out, brought them into the session. The whole horn crew played all seven of them. So we had seven different ones. And then we brought them back. and chop those seven into that. So that's like the first measure is from like, that's from like one of them.

But then what might have been from a different one. I don't even remember. So I just had to do exactly what you just said, which is go into the original charts, figure out actually like autopsy, which ones were from which, so that we could have a suitable horn chart to at least start learning it for the live arrangement from.

It's such a fun moment. So let's move from the sort of commentary on the larger expectation. of music to maybe the more interior. On the personal side, the song, confident, I'm insecure, moves from these business expectations to individual expectations. And Gracie, you sing about the expectations of making your family proud. I'm not dead, don't want an about, but I need to know that if I die that you'll be proud of me.

And everything I'm away. I teared up in the second verse. Oh, sorry. Oh, thank you. Sorry. as a vocal powerhouse and one of the faces of the band, what do you want to say in this song to fans and listeners that may not, what they might not see behind the sort of confident facade? Yeah, I think that that song was just really honest.

And I think that it was written in a moment of like total train of thoughtiness. That's T-H-O-U-G-H-T, not T-H-O-T, but interpret it as you will. Maybe both. And because of that, it, I think, naturally lent itself to having the message that it had, which I think now I can look back on and say is like, it's a song about how confidence and insecurity are not mutually exclusive from each other. And you can be a person who is, who is confident, who's outwardly confident, but also inwardly confident and still have moments of extreme insecurity. And I think for me, I am performer. I'm someone who, I hope, exhibits confidence and feels confident in a lot of things about myself. And yet I was still, like, going through a period of time where I was, like, extremely insecure about many, many things about myself. And I kind of, I was struggling how that, with how that could even be. Like, I always thought of myself as this person who had a lot of confidence. And then I was like, but maybe I secretly don't. And I think that the song just came out of that confusion. And

ultimately, by the time we get to the last verse, it's sort of a celebration of the idea that you don't really have to decide between the two. I love that there's this transition that happens in the way that you sing the chorus. I'm confident. The first time was we hear it, you really belt, I'm confident, and then kind of whimper, I'm insecure. Yeah. Some great text painting. Thank you.

And then by the time we get to the end, it's one of your greatest vocal moments, and they unite. there is no separation between the two. Yeah, thank you. That was a hard one to sing because there was, as you're saying, there's so much to play with in the lyrics. Like, the lyrics are so descriptive and they're describing feelings. So how much do you want to lean into singing the feelings versus letting the words do it themselves and keeping everything really neutral? And I have a tendency to, because I have like, I do a lot of acting stuff, want to be really personality driven. But then in moments, is it too much when the words are coming so quickly? And it's like, so that was a really hard one to figure out how to sing. And I really relied on Clyde and Jordan and Johnny and John Bellion,

who's another part of our family business. And so I think I was having trouble myself being objective about myself because I, the song was so personal to me. But even though the song was from something I was feeling, it became extremely collaborative. Do you think any sort of like language or rituals that help you know when you're dipping into, this is marketing department, Gracie, and this is, I need to be extremely vulnerable right now. Can you give space to that? And it's something like typically doesn't happen in a normal workplace. Yeah, I think what's interesting is that it's a great question. I think what's weird about this job and maybe is the distinction between having a job in the arts and not, is that those,

even when you're doing business roles within the artistic space, you're still that person. You're still the person who's singing. I'm confident that I'm insecure. For me, at least, I feel like there is no separation of church and state of, like, the person singing the song and the person making sure that, you know, the tour poster goes up on time. I think, like, that's all the same girl.

And I have, you know. And your confidence and your insecurity are thread through all of those. roles. Yeah, and not to get too specific about it, but I really hope that anyone who's arriving at our music, like, via social media, which is like so many people nowadays, that they're getting to know us to, through the captions or through whatever it is, that it still feels like us within that medium. I think that that song really, like, speaks to you, to help someone get to know you the most of any of our songs because I also think like a funny thing about you is like you have so much energy on stage and you're so like come off

as such an extroverted person on stage but you can actually be introverted at times and like I could see somebody meeting you and being like thrown that you're not like shot out of a cannon the way you are on stage sometimes you grew up on a stage so it makes sense I mean I imagine you're quite comfortable there. Yeah. In some ways, I'm more comfortable, like, performing than I am getting offstage and having, like, a social interaction. Yeah. Yeah.

I feel like that song really, like, lays it out. I don't know. I just love that song. And that was probably one of the songs that most of any song we have, Gracie just really, like, wrote most of it and just came in, presented it to me as, like, here's this thing I wrote. I was like, that's... I mean, you did a lot of it, too, ultimately. I came in and definitely helped, but, like, I remember that being one of the songs that I was most just like, oh, this is great.

Yeah, I appreciated how quickly you understood that song. Like, I remember playing it for you, and so often we play each other's stuff, and it'll be like, yeah, no, I think, I get it. I think I just, I don't get it. It would be like, we cherry pick part, like, I'll play you something or vice versa, it'll be like, this is great. That one part in the course is like, great. Let's, you know, and then it's like, let's grab onto that and then build around it. Whereas I think when you played me, however much you had of I'm confident that I'm insecure, I think I was just like, great, let's finish it. Yeah. That's great. Yeah.

There's all sorts of ways in which you expand further on this metaphor. I think that Clyde, you're the only person who's ever made corporate speak sexy in your great romance on Circleback. Thank you. But I think really the most powerful and genuine emotional moment occurs at the very end. You bring in yet another family member, Lee Lawrence, I'm guessing grandfather. Yeah. And my dad's in there at the beginning. And your dad is in there at the beginning.

And the two of you as children. Yeah. Clyde, do you want to say anything? Hello. Okay, Gracie, what do you want to say? I'm going to say, I love you. Thank you. I love you.

It's a really sweet moment. And your grandfather gives you some really sage wisdom, or maybe just appreciation, which I'm witnessing right now. And it's about that no matter, perhaps working with a sibling and as a family and as a sort of larger extended family as your band, is a smart thing to do, because you'll be able to get through any disagreements. Well, your brother and sister. So it doesn't necessarily always mean that it works out that it's forever. I don't envision you're getting into a fight. However, if you did, the fact that you have that close relationship to make it easier to get back on track again

than if you were complete strangers, talk to each other, you listen to each other, you work on what has to be done. Maybe you give a little, you take a little, and you get it right. Your bond is stronger than any one disagreement. And what I just heard is that you are, it seems pretty honest with each other. Yeah. Very. Yeah.

It's like, it's okay to be like, I don't like that verse. It's not working for me. Yeah. And I think we're good at knowing how to say those things to each other, but I don't think anything ever gets left unsaid, like, ever. Yeah. Maybe you have. Maybe it all, yeah.

But yeah, I think our last album, we realized, as we were close to completing it, that for all the things we'd written about, and for all of the interviews or other contexts in which we have talked about how we were siblings, We had never written a song about our relationship with each other. And so we wrote this song, Figure It Out. That's the last track of our last album, Hotel TV, and it's about a fight that we had. It felt so cool to have that song in the album,

and I think that that was something we really carried into family business was like we love talking about our relationship. And so it felt like conflict resolution, which is the final track of this album, was a cool follow-up to that where it's diving further into this idea of like, what are the challenges in our relationship or what are the, what are the unique things that are presented by us running this thing together? And then, yeah, it felt like involving our grandfather. I literally just like let the voice memo roll and just interviewed him about his life and asked him for advice. And we had no specific knowledge of what we wanted him to say exactly. And it was a really moving process actually to, to like, combed. through what was probably a 30 to 45 minute conversation and figure out how to tell a three minute story. Final question for you all, in the spirit of your grandfather and reflecting on you all, do you have any advice for anyone who wants to start a family band or business with their siblings

or extended loved ones? That's such a good question. I don't think we've ever thought. I don't know. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of parents will come up to us and be like, how do I get my kids to play music together? Like, we get a lot of that. This is my secret question. I have two very young children. Right. I want them to be in a band together.

Absolutely. I think a lot of it is luck. I don't want to undervalue that. I think, like, we have really complimentary skill sets. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. And we have pretty different. I mean, we're very similar in a lot of ways, but I think we actually have pretty different personalities in a lot of other ways. So I think there is a.

very lucky, like, we balance each other out quite well. And lack of competitiveness as a result of that. Yeah, we're different genders. We're four years apart. Like, we never were competitive growing up at all. So I think that there's a lot there that was lucky from the beginning. Your voices are also really distinct. And different.

Which makes a really fun blend. Yeah. I don't know how you successfully sing with such a wonderful rasp and your endless belting. I don't know how you also continue to do that night after night, but they blend in this really wonderful way. Well, it's funny, too, because I feel like a lot of sibling harmony sounds very similar. Right.

And Clyde and I sound really different from each other. And we have a little brother who's an incredible musician as well, and his voice sounds really different than ours. I don't know what happened. We all just have very different voices. But Clyde and I have such a similar taste in music that we kept writing to the same things. And I think that no matter who you're working with, if it's a sibling or not, the point we touched on earlier of like it has to be someone you feel really comfortable being really honest with is just so important.

And I think finding the balance between taking it really seriously and not taking yourself too seriously. And that's like in terms of two siblings that might be working on something together or that's also not that I should give parenting advice. but like the fact that our parents like from when I was writing a song from when I was five years old they would like be like oh this is great and then would give me like oh like what did you mean by this lyric or what you know like they just took it seriously they were talking to me about it the way they would talk to someone who was like showing them a song that they wrote not like a five year old doing some cool random thing and like I think that that really just made me be like oh, like, this is a real thing I can be thinking about.

But then by the same token, like not pushing us ever and us not pushing each other ever and always being willing to joke about it and realize the ridiculousness of the ride that we're on. I think finding that balance is a big key to our, not necessarily just our success as a band, but our success in our relationship. I also have one more thought, which I know I started saying. I was like, I have no advice on this. And I'm like, let me tell you. We're together all the time.

And finding the moments of what we should be to each other and in different moments is really, I think, been so powerful. And it's all just instinctive. Like, I could cry. Just even talking about this. But, like, I remember when we were on tour last year for, like, four months, I was just going through a really hard time personally. And I remember we were, like, backstage and had so much to do.

And we were, like, working on this thing. And I was just. not functioning that day. And I just remember Clyde being like, let's just like go take a walk. Like, let's go take a walk. And just like totally put everything else on the back burner. And I remember that not feeling like,

it's weird because in the one hand, I'm like, oh, he chose to like not think about work for a second. But at the same time it's like we could have. It's like the most strategic work decision. It is a strategic work decision. But also like that's the same kind of thing we would write a song about. So it's all like really interconnected, but like being with people that you love and doesn't have to be your family member, but someone who kind of gets you from all perspectives and all angles and all moments of your life is just really valuable if you're going to be spending that much time together.

We are each other's siblings, business partners, creative partners, roommates, busmates, you know, therapists, best friends. We are so much of all those things to each other. and we have to always remember that we have to be all of those different things to each other and that those are different. But then also that in some ways a lot of those roles are the same and overlapping. And that's the challenge and the fun of it. I want to give you all a lot of credit. I also think I would love to read your parents book about parenting because someone did a good job, it seems. Thank you so much for joining me, Gracie Clyde.

It's been a lot of fun. There's so much more fun stuff on this album. Thank you. Thank you so much. This is so cool. Switched on Pop is produced by Raina Cruz, edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brandon McFarland, illustrations by Ilaas Gottlieb, community management by Abby Barr. Our executive producer is Nashat, Karwa, a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and a production of Vulture. You can find more of Switched On Pop at Switchedon Pop.com, where we've got merch. You can subscribe to our newsletter, and you can find our social feeds at Switched on Pop.

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