Jess Wolfe from Los Angeles and Holly Laessig of Cleveland — the frontwomen of indie pop band, Lucius — met in Berklee College of Music in Boston. The first time they sang together, there was an instant connection.
“It was an automatic musical, vocal kinship,” Wolfe said. “We have very different voices separately of one another, but together, it formed pretty instantly this third entity.”
“I think it was an accident at first because we were both gonna sing the melody. And we just both started singing it, and in the headphones ’cause we were in the studio … it sounded like a double tracked vocal,” Laessig said.
Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig
CBS News
They moved to New York to form a band and began to dress alike – and then look alike, reports CBS News’ Anthony Mason.
“We had a friend, our friend James, who was like, ‘I mean, you sound like one, why don’t you dress like one,'” Wolfe said.
Laessig said their look is still morphing every day. “It definitely helps you become a different person… It’s like a character. I think that was part of it for us from the beginning. You know to feel like we can also be transported along with the audience.”
They released their debut album, “Wildewoman,” in 2013. Their follow up, “Good Grief,” lifted them into the top 100 of the Billboard’s album chart. Their new album, “Nudes,” includes a performance with Roger Waters, who they met at the Newport Folk Festival in 2015.
“Jay Sweet, who runs Newport called us up and said Roger is doing a surprise set, and he’s lookin’ for some singers, and you’re the ones. Can you do it?'” Wolfe recalled. “That show was incredibly special… Just an unforgettable moment and afterwards, he wrote us and said we’re brothers and sisters now, let’s do this again. And, oh, by the way, I’m doing a concert in the desert with Paul McCartney, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Who. Do you wanna do it?'”
They performed at the Desert Trip Festival in California last spring and then joined Waters on his world tour. It was long, but it introduced Lucius to a new audience. Wolfe and Laessig have been singing together now for 13 years.
“It’s like any relationship or thing that you find in your life that feels sort of, I don’t know, dreamlike, or perfect,” Wolfe said. “There was never a moment where we said, ‘we shouldn’t be doing this.'”
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