Despite having effectively gone on hiatus since sweeping the 2023 Grammy Awards, a lot of people are still thinking about boygenius. Lucy Dacus is no exception. Her bandmates Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers both lend vocals to songs Dacus wrote about them ("Most Wanted Man" and "Modigliani," respectively) on her sumptuous, string-laden new solo album, major-label debut Forever Is a Feeling, and she recently confirmed that she and Baker are dating.
After asking if I might happen to have a secret cousin living in Virginia — she knows someone who shares my surname — Dacus admits over Zoom that she's definitely a little overstimulated amidst all of the press in the run-up to the LP, but she's a good sport about it; when Exclaim! speaks with her, the feeling arcs beyond a sense of polite cordiality and stretches its arms out into a benevolence as soothing as the distilled quality of her voice.
She leans into this softness on Forever Is a Feeling, getting more vulnerable about the moments and people she holds dear than she ever has before, threaded together with the austere imagery of art museums populated by rosy-cheeked cherubs and renaissance scenes. The record's swooning orchestration is the ornate frame surrounding it, but Dacus's achingly tender songcraft is clearly the pièce de résistance.
To commemorate the release, Dacus took the Exclaim! Questionnaire and opened up about TikTok theories, meeting Bruce Springsteen, and that concussion she had when she played "one of the best shows" in Toronto with boygenius.
What was your most memorable day job?
I've had a couple. I worked in a photo lab. I've worked at a theatre selling tickets. But probably most memorable was, for four days, I unceremoniously took over my friend's shifts at a Chinese restaurant and failed spectacularly. My friend was booked 12-hour days, eight days a week over her finals, and so basically she taught me how to answer the phone and was like, "Just come in and do it." And it was not okay.
Who would be your ideal dinner guest, living or dead, and what would you serve them?
Labi Siffre. We would eat — maybe a good soup? Just something comforting and easily talked over.
What is the meanest thing anyone has ever said about your art?
There was a popular opinion on TikTok a couple years ago that I would be more successful if I wasn't fat. So… that's a weird one.
On a better note, what's been the greatest moment of your career so far?
I'm so lucky that I have so many answers I could say. The top ones that just came to mind are playing either London or Madison Square Garden with boygenius. Those were shows that felt one of a kind; like I could die after those and it's okay if I never top that. I don't even really need to try to top that. I just gotta try to continue having good days.
What do you think of when you think of Canada?
Okay, legitimately, I've been thinking about Canada a lot recently, as probably many Americans are. I have a couple of friends that are moving to Canada with dreams of living off the land — and I know that your political sphere is maybe edging in the wrong direction the way that we are, but maybe not as fast. There is a serious part of me considering moving to Canada.
Who's a Canadian musician that should be more famous?
Charlotte Cornfield. Quick answer. I am obsessed with Could Have Done Anything, that whole record. Some very special songs on that, songs that always plant me in a specific point of time. Charlotte is so sweet and should be getting her flowers.
What has been your most memorable or inspirational concert that you either played or attended?
I saw Broken Social Scene on September 11, 2011 — or was it 2010? — in Richmond, VA, and that's the first show that I ever went to that made me want to play music. Really, it was a before-and-after thing. I went with two of my closest friends, and I was just like, I need to be a part of whatever that is. They're one of my favourite bands.
What a beautiful full-circle moment to have them open for you guys in Toronto.
Oh my gosh, and what sucks is I missed them because I was concussed!
I was gonna say, I know that was a couple years ago now, but are you doing okay? I know concussion recovery can be brutal.
Yeah, I did shows with the concussion, so it was long-concussion [post-concussion syndrome] basically. I didn't recover in the way that people are supposed to. I do get migraines now. I'm sensitive to light. Sometimes I get brain fog more easily, but overall, I'm back to life. That show was still so special — like the lights, everyone coordinating the lighting to be this rainbow. That was one of the best shows, the Toronto show.
What are your current fixations?
Ross Gay is a writer that I really love, and I'm on the way to read everything that he's ever written. He wrote this book called The Book of Delights, and he put out a Book of More Delights, and I'm reading that right now. It really works like an SSRI for me. If people want little doses of the light to uplift them, he's such a well-spoken, beautiful noticer of things. I had a Charli XCX summer the way everyone else did, and it was legitimately so good. Oh! The Clairo record. I was really into Orion Sun; she's incredible.
What was the first album you ever bought with your own money?
It was three albums, actually: it was Pearl by Janis Joplin, The Best of the Animals, and Aladdin Sane by Bowie. And I felt very cool.
You should. That's an unrealistically cool answer, actually. What has been your strangest celebrity encounter?
I did meet Bruce Springsteen, who's probably the one guy on the planet that meeting would affect me. I'm not super star-struck by people; I've now met a lot of people, and I'm like, "Yeah, you're a person." But he's so important to my dad, it just feels like another thing — and what was so strange is I actually saw him across the room and was like, "I need to leave. I don't think I can handle this." Then I turned to leave, and we bumped into each other. He's seemingly a really great guy, but what really shocked me is that he was familiar with my music and boygenius's music. Yeah, pretty surreal.
Wait, maybe the actual strangest is Lana Del Rey DMing me to open for her.
How do you spoil yourself?
Expensive food. That's my one vice, because I feel like — I think it's because you have to eat, so I can kind of tell myself, "This is, you know, however much I'd spend on groceries, so it's really just this much extra to have an amazing meal." There's a lot of ways that I still scrimp, just out of habit, but the one luxury I've really embraced is excellent food.
What is the greatest song of all time?
"Jungleland" by Bruce Springsteen. "Both Sides Now" or "A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell. This is a simple one, but to me, it's like a periodic-table-of-elements song: "Bless the Telephone" by Labi Siffre. "I'll Be Seeing You" by Billie Holiday. Sorry, I guess I'm saying all of them.
