Ravinia 2023 Issue 1

DEARIE CHEN We didn’t realize we were creating a nationwide fan base—those college kids would disperse all around the country. On that very first tour, we had over 100 people who were excited to see us, even though we had never played in Chicago before. I TO THOSE ALREADY IN THE KNOW , brother-sister duo Lawrence is one of today’s most relatable, unshakable, soulful pop tastemakers, who’ve spent the last decade steadily building a fan base one college basement party and online follower at a time. For folks just finding out about vocalist/ pianist Clyde and co-singer Gracie Lawrence—along with their band that’s basically been together since the jump—chances are the connec- tion will be equally immediate, if not already unconsciously familiar thanks to their smash single “Don’t Lose Sight.” Not only did the track get international traction thanks to a mammoth Microsoft commercial sync and countless viral Tik Tok/Instagram moments, but it landed in the top 20 of the Shazam charts in the US and took a prime slot on Top 40 radio to become the highest ranking entirely independent track of 2022. Lawrence has since been seen on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert , as well as mega-festivals Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Outside Lands, along the way to their Ravinia debut on June 16, ap- pearing in between British jazz/R&B giant Jacob Collier and burgeoning folksy pop trio Tiny Habits. However, the troupe’s meteoric rise is far from an overnight success story, but rather a slowly marinating journey stocked with exponential artistic development every fascinating step of the way. “Gracie and I grew up playing music together around our house, and then with our friend [and saxophone player] Jordan [Cohen], who was our neighbor growing up. We played music with him all the time,” explains Clyde of the group’s genesis in their native New York on a steady diet of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and Randy Newman. “Then I met this amazing drummer named Sam [Askin] in middle school. Sure enough, Sam and I ended up both going to Brown University, where we brought together a handful of other guys and started up with Gracie and Jordan. They would come up to Prov- idence [RI] and we would play con- certs just about every weekend, either on the Brown campus or at a club or a neighboring college in New England. We just slowly but surely built a buzz, building a fan base of college kids. Eventually, we were having such a good time with it, and we had seen enough people at those colleges get excited about what we were doing, we decided to just dive right in to touring and making records after we graduated, even though we had only ever played shows in this small area of the country. We didn’t realize that, all that time, we were actually creating a nationwide fan base because all those kids would graduate and then disperse all around the country. When we came to Chicago on that very first tour, the numbers were still small, but we had over 100 people there that were excited to see us, even though we had never played in Chicago before.” Come 2016, those road-tested tunes made their way onto Lawrence’s full-length debut, ever-so-appropri- ately titled Breakfast as the ultimate starting point, which benefitted from shout-outs by NPR’s All Things Con- sidered and Steph Curry’s social me- dia, plus some seriously heavy hitters behind the scenes. The project includ- ed production by Grammy-winner Eric Krasno (Lettuce, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Soulive), while featuring addi- tional players from Lettuce, TTB, and Snarky Puppy, all equally renowned throughout the jam band scene. “Working with [Eric] was just so incredible, with his wealth of knowl- edge about making records and being in a band,” recalls Gracie. “He had so much to contribute to a band that was really just starting out. From our per- spective, we came in with most of the songs written and we were trying to find a way to bring this sort of funky, soulful, poppy sound that we had kind of test-run in college basements to the recorded context. And Kras, he was incredibly helpful in being sure the decisions we were making were appropriate for a record. Also, he’s just a great songwriter and musician him- self, so the ways in which he contrib- uted were multiple that I couldn’t even describe. We were just trying to figure out a way to establish this sound that could appeal to people from a lot of different generations, and make sure that Clyde and I are both represented on the record as vocalists, which is an unusual thing in and of itself, having two lead vocalists. [There were] a lot of things we were trying to balance and make sure we got in this first batch of songs.” Just two years later, the band was back with the long-player Living Room , which shot up to number two on the iTunes R&B/soul chart, scored a slot on Spotify’s “New Music Friday” playlist, and yielded a late-night tele- vision debut on Last Call with Carson Daly . Whereas the initial batch of tunes had been built in front of audi- ences and ultimately sculpted in the studio, the sophomore set was crafted on the fly, this time co-produced with the Brooklyn-based Eli Crews. “ Breakfast was like, ‘Here’s an album that we’ve written. Let’s go in, record it, and stick to the ways that we’ve been performing it for years now.’ And like Gracie said, with tons RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 85