The affable Philadelphia singer-songwriter Lucy Stone brings her listeners an irresistible bedside pop genre with the release of her magnetizing track “Lucid Dreaming”. The song features one of the catchiest basslines we have heard this year and nothing sounds sweeter than Stone’s warm vocal tones.
Lucy Stone and bandmate Max Steen also write in another project together called Vexxed and they just came out with an official video that you can check out here.
Impose Magazine presents its readers an interview with the straightforward, charming and talented Lucy Stone below.
So let’s start off with where you grew up?
“I grew up outside of Philadelphia in a town called Wyndmoor which borders Germantown and Mt. Airy. Being spitting distance from the city was great as an adolescent – my parents were way too trusting of me so I spent most of my time wandering around with a pack of friends trying to break things/find someone to sell us forties.”
Have you moved around a lot?
“Nope! We moved from Conshohocken to the house my parents currently live in when I was 3 or 4, which was great as I didn’t have to lift any boxes because I was 4. I moved to West Philly when I was 18 to attend Drexel for Music Industry, and after that lived in Brewerytown, Fishtown, Kensington, and now currently, South Philly. I also briefly fake-resided in Nashville with intentions to move, but everyone was too nice and it creeped me out. Lovely city, though.”
When did you begin writing and playing instruments? Was there something that really inspired you?
“I distinctly remember being 9 years old, watching American Idol with my parents, and having to sit through that first episode where every single person sings “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” and sucks at it, and thinking to myself in my little 9-year-old brain “I could fuckin’ do that” – sans the fucking, also definitely while doing a bad rendition of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. My mom bought me my first guitar probably a year later when we drove past a music store that was going out of business (my mom loves a deal) – she bought me a very small classical guitar, and herself a steel string, which I later commandeered once my tiny baby fingers could handle it. I took 2 lessons, decided they “were not for me” and taught myself. Writing came pretty much as soon as I could play 3 chords, so singing, writing, and playing all sort of happened simultaneously. Also, I really loved doing impressions as a child, so I feel like most of my singing experience came from trying to mimic my fave “pop-tarts,” (pop-star, I was small and dumb).”
What were you listening to a lot of growing up? Were/are your parents passionate about music? What do they like to listen to?
“Quite literally a bit of everything (even country! And I don’t just mean that one country Ween album). My parents are incredibly passionate about music. My mom is a visual artist but has played guitar since her teens – she was also involved the NY “scene” in the 70’s and 80’s and toured with bands like The Talking Heads, Devo, and Laurie Anderson while she was dating a former partner who was a touring member. My dad has been an audiophile his whole life – he can talk about any band and knows every backstory – all my friends would rather hang out with my dad than me because he has better taste in music and is also funnier. We listened to a lot of the classics – Beatles, Neil Young, Mamas and the Papas, Black Sabbath – as well as more contemporary artists like Radiohead, Ween (<3), Belle & Sebastian, The New Pornographers, The Avalanches, Cibo Matto, etc… My parents still do a lot of new music, but admittedly my mom has the same Vampire Weekend record in her car for 10 years, and my dad recently told me he would “give Father John Misty a chance.”
How would you describe your music to others who haven’t heard of you before?
“Very good.”
What albums/singles or icons influence your sound?
“Again, quite literally everything, and a lot of the time I am influenced by things and patterns that I don’t like. A bit of a process of elimination. When I was getting really into recording (in my parent’s bathroom, great acoustics), I was really inspired by Elliott Smith’s recordings. Also, Rihanna for life.”
Also, I am not sure if you play with anyone else but if you do have members, what’re their names and how long have you known them?
“I have in the past, but currently have just been writing and recording with my bandmate from Vexxed, Max Steen, who I’ve known for about 3 years.”
You just released a demo track on the 30th of March called “Lucid Dreaming”. Do you have future plans to release some more work?
“Yes! I am about to record a B version of the second song I’m releasing called “Sheryl on Shrooms,” and I’m going to release both versions, with an EP after that – I will not tell you when, because I do not know, but it will probably be at the end of the summer.”
“Also, I decided that “Lucid Dreaming” isn’t a demo anymore, because it sounds good, and recording on a 12 string is hard and I don’t want to do it again.”
And If you could give some solid advice to any musician struggling just starting out, What would you tell them?
“Finish what you started. There are so many songs I gave up on that probably would’ve turned out fine if I had just seen them through, but for whatever reason, I got defeated. Also, do not, I repeat, do not, make music to please other people, or make music a certain way because you think people will like it more and it will bring you commercial success (I have done this). It might, if you’re extremely lucky (it didn’t), or you might spend the rest of your career making multiple iterations of the same song in a musical equivalent of the movie Groundhog Day. If you’re trying to follow a musical trend, it’s already over. Instead, make your own shit the way you want to make it, in whatever way feels most natural to you and give yourself time to figure out your own style and find comfort in it. Make genuine music, because there is an intangible quality of music when it’s made by people who were emotionally and mentally compelled to do so, and it’s really important.”
“Also, be nice. When your name comes up in conversation, people will either say “so and so was so nice when I met them!” or, they won’t, because if they’re smart like you, they also don’t talk shit.”
Your new track is very relatable to me and I think others as well. Would you like to speak about what the writing process was like and what you were going through at the time?
“Lucid Dreaming” actually came together in just a couple of hours, about 3 months ago. Max had been playing a chord progression around the house for a couple of months, and we were really bored in the studio one day so I laid it down, we went into a recording blackout and 6 hours later it was done.”
“I have a lot of lucid dreams, and I can’t tell if it’s because I smoke too much weed or because my subconscious wishes I could fly, but either way, I like it. I woke up that morning having had a specifically weird one that I kept waking up from but wanted to revisit it so I stayed in bed for like 14 hours. At the time I was casually seeing someone long distance – it was fizzling because you can’t have a relationship with someone via text – and I was trying to tell them about it in 200 characters or less when I realized that the best part of my day was when I was asleep. Not bad, necessarily, but not great. I got ghosted shortly after that.”
