Sibling duo, Clyde and Gracie Lawrence have had a passion for music and performing since they were very young. Gracie pursued acting, while Clyde, the youngest member of the Songwriter’s Guild of America, pursued composing.
Their talents eventually melded into their eight-piece soul-pop band Lawrence. Known for their high-energy vocals, explosive melodies, and old school sound, the band has earned over half a million monthly Spotify listeners.
Their new single “Don’t Lose Sight” is a powerful anthem about perseverance and determination. The single is the lead track off their upcoming third record co-produced by Jon Bellion & Jorgen Odegard and their first release on Bellion’s Beautiful Mind Records.
We chatted with Clyde and Gracie about the single, album, and more!
Excerpt from the podcast:
Can you tell me a little bit about what the writing process was like for the song?
Gracie: We were in LA and I was waiting to hear back about an acting job that I had been hoping to get for months. Sometimes these processes go on for months. I heard the day before the session that I didn’t get the part and those things are always a little heartbreaking, but for some reason this one just hit harder. Maybe it was because I was in LA too so it was like a little unescapable. We live in New York and there’s a nice little bit of like distance from that world, but in LA everything is a billboard and you just can’t look away. I was feeling really down about that and kind of incapable of contributing to any writing that wasn’t about that. So we had this writing session with Clyde, myself and this amazing producer Jorgen Odegard. Clyde and Jorgen started playing these chords and putting the groove together. And I was just like, ‘can we please write about this? Because I don’t think I can literally contribute if we don’t write about something that is related to a recent failure and either optimism about it or something about it. I just don’t know how I can contribute otherwise.’ So it kind of spun out from there and then everyone contributed.
Clyde: Then we took the song from there back to New York and worked on it with several of the guys in the band, as well as Jon Bellion. We just kind of took it to the finish line, added all the horns, did all the Lawrence stuff and a billion background vocals and that was kind of the song.
Gracie, did writing the song help you process that and be more accepting of it?
Gracie: I don’t know if I accepted anything more or less, but I think that having a product, having something tangible that you’ve created out of a bad feeling is I think how I feel every time we write a song. I think when you get really upset about something, it just feels like you’re stuck in an unproductive bubble. The nice thing about song writing is there’s something sort of lazy about songwriting and it feels like you’re not really doing work, but it just kind of happens. So there’s something so nice about the idea of the thing I do to calm myself down or the thing you do to think through something ends up being this extremely productive thing. And I think that just feels so good. I don’t know if it’s like a bandaid or working through it, but it’s just definitely – I think it’s a silver lining.
This is your third studio album and first since signing with Jon Bellion’s record label, Beautiful Mind Records. Bellion is also co-producing the album. What has it been like working with him qnd has he given you any advice that has really stuck with you?
Clyde: Yeah, it’s been really awesome working with Jon. This is our third album and on all three albums we’ve always brought in someone to sort of be an extra member of the family and just to kind of shake up our normal routine and to give us new things to learn from. Working with Jon has been fantastic in that way. He’s just given us a ton of not only great ideas and taught us a lot of literal tricks and tools for our production and writing, but also just become such a great friend and gives us such great advice about navigating life as artists in the music industry. It’s just been such a fun and like rewarding relationship.
Gracie: I think Jon, for his own project, he has such a strong identity, but I would say that he’s such a good song writer that’s he’s a bit of a chameleon and his contributions to our album never feel like, ‘oh, we’re doing that Jon Bellion thing in our song. It’s like he’s just another member of the team who has really absorbed the things that Clyde and I like, and the things that the rest of our production team like and feel are valuable and important. He’s sort of taken on that mindset and helped towards that goal rather than an agenda of his own in any way. So that’s really admirable and I don’t know a lot of people who are capable of doing that and fully understanding…
Clyde: Especially someone who is so successful as Jon and hides such credibility in the space that he’s become so successful to have as little ego as he does, while still being able to bring amazing ideas to the table is just really awesome.
Gracie: I was like the first thing he said to us. He was like, ‘I don’t want this to be about me. I just want to help. Add the 10% for wrinkles on the thing.’ And ultimately his just being around us has added so much.
Listen to more of our interview with Lawrence on our podcast!