Lucy Woodward
A sit-down with the ever moving Lucy Woodward
Grounded in embracing who you are with new album “I Need To Roam”
Lucy Woodward makes no secret of her ultimate desire with the title of her newest album, out now! “I Need To Roam” is soaked in multilayered flavours, with fingerprints from all over the world on it. She creates and records, she sings and she writes, she finds time to volunteer. Join Concertology for a rollercoaster of a conversation with this Transatlantic singer-songwriter.
We met Lucy on a sticky hot afternoon in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Speaking with broad New York hand gestures and showing a genuine interest in other people’s journeys, she makes us a few cups of tea, and then we sit down. The lush garden of the art centre where we take a seat is bustling with life, birds flying over non-stop, insects buzzing, the air vibrating. We can taste Lucy’s impatience to release “I Need To Roam” to the world!
The journey started with promoting your hit single “Dumb Girls” 23 years ago, and now you are on the brink of releasing your ninth album. This whole creative process of moving forward and re-inventing yourself seems to be a big part of the “I Need To Roam” philosophy, is that right?
As I get older, I try to align my personal growth with my creative growth. I really want to mean what I say, and say what I mean. I feel I am getting truer to myself and I want to make sure my life is full of that, because that feels right. This is my ninth album and every record sounds different from the previous one. When I was younger, I used to really care about people having trouble where to “put me”, and in which musical category. But I don’t worry about that as much now because people will either get me, or they won’t. But it’s been painful in the past. You might make a record that wasn’t as popular as you had hoped for. Then you find yourself performing for a crowd of 21 people. But those fans have often travelled long and far to come see you and you give your all, no matter what. There is taking chances and risks in being creative. A vulnerability. And something special emerges from these experiences, just as it would in your personal life. And you grow from that. You learn about yourself in a deeper way and there is always beauty on the other side, waiting for you.
The album was recorded across Rotterdam, rural Virginia, Los Angeles and India.
And mixed in Spain and mastered in North Carolina!
How did all these locations on the globe seep into your music? What does your process look like?
The record is really a collection of ideas coming to life between the previous record and this one. All of them have been building up for so long. I wish I was the type of person who could wake up and write a song a day, but I’m not. I like to lay out the idea and structure of a record, and then write my way into it. I get super focused and things start to come to life. When I’m in that process, I go through all of my journals, all of the notes and voice memos on my phone, and all of the bits of paper I have lying around. I go through them for hours, days, weeks, sometimes only landing on a title, part of a poem or an entire song. I mostly journal when I want to say something but I’m not quite sure what it is yet. Something has to come out, usually a mood or feeling. Then I notice rhymes or rhythm in what I’m writing. It morphs from something “Lucy” did to something “a character” did and all of a sudden a single journal entry has just turned into a song. It is similar to pre-production for a movie, I suppose. It can take months.
But still, how did all these working locations come together on “I Need To Roam”? Can you show us an insight in the logistics of it all?
My band, The Rocketeers are based in The Netherlands. Jelle Roozenburg on guitar who I wrote most of these songs with. Udo Pannekeet on bass and Niek de Bruijn on drums. My brothers. We have been playing together for almost nine years and have toured all over Europe together. We discovered we had something special while playing festivals in the COVID times, and knew we had to make a record. We went into the studio and recorded some jams. This was different for me, as I’m used to working one on one with another writer. But it worked.
My dear friend Todd Wright lives in Virginia. He was my guitar player in 2003 when I released and toured my first record. Two years ago, I brought him the idea of “Troubadoura”, one of the songs on this album. It practically wrote itself, but was a difficult song to sing. The melody starts very low and goes very high. We knew we had something so I went back to Virginia a second time with a start of a song called “Wonderland”. Todd had the idea to come to Rotterdam to record my band, then do the vocals in Virginia at his studio. In the meantime, Jelle started sending me song ideas with melodies and chords. I would work on those ideas with Todd, writing a song a day. That is how the whole album took shape. Louk Boudesteijn (of New Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra and Bonsai Panda) started playing me really beautiful rhythmic guitar parts which became “Roam”, which is another example of how the songs came together. So Todd and I ran with that. And, of course, another gorgeous addition to the record are the vocals of Varijashree Venugopal, on “Wonderland”. We all went to to Spain and mixed the record with my friend Nic Hard. What an incredible time…though I had food poisoning most of the week!
“I Need To Roam” is an album with nine tracks and leans heavily again on The Rocketeers’ musical foundation. What stories would you like to share about some of the songs?
One of the first songs that Jelle Roozenburg presented to me was a track that would later become “Always”. It had an Americana folk hymn feel. I wasn’t sure about that direction yet for this album, yet it was so incredibly beautiful. This soft, sweet song challenged me, because I am used to being “big and groovy”. I let go of that thought though when Todd had the idea to write about how precious life is and who we are, even after we are long gone from this earth. It was the first single of the album, knowing the rest of the record had a completely different sound. It was a little slice of life which I want to hit people gently with first, easily and gently, before the groove starts.’
The things you do besides your musical career struck a chord with me too. When the war in Ukraine started, you were quick to get there for support. For “I Need To Roam”, I am sure you were also inspired by volunteer work you did in Rwanda for young refugees who had fled Afghanistan when the Taliban closed their borders.
My work in Rwanda was working with young Afghan refugee girls who grew up not being able to express their voice, sometimes even use their voice at all. The girls were the inspiration for a song which became “Dust”. We had done a show at Ronnie Scott’s in London last year and were talking about the future record and figuring out how to do it. Jelle went home and started to play around with this melody the next day. It had a Stevie Wonder and a Brazilian vibe to it. Shortly after that I went to Rwanda and realized what the song was about. Similar to the song “Hush”. Grow into the world and embrace who you are, and we all have a voice. I am now working on a proposal for music academy in Nairobi. There is so much we can do to help the world through music.
Where does the love for volunteer work come from?
Volunteer work has always been a big part of what I do. When I grew up, we did not always have a lot of money. When I was 9 years old, my mum surprised me by saying for Christmas that year, we would be sending donations to Africa instead of getting gifts. Not an easy message for a kid to hear in that time of year, but it was the first time I realized the importance of it. Thanksgiving is our biggest holiday. I used to volunteer in soup kitchens in New York and LA. The people who come were unhoused, or had no place to get a hot meal. In another life I would be a full time volunteer.
If listeners take just one feeling away from “I Need To Roam”, what do you hope it is?
Speaking for myself, what I love taking away from a record, is the feeling of staying connected to it. To the voice, the feel, the music or lyrics. So that’s what I hope for this album: people feeling connected to it and knowing that they can go back to it any time they need.
Speaking of roaming… When you don’t know where you are going, what is your advice?
Take a walk and keep moving forward. Sometimes I don’t know what to do on that walk – enjoy the silence, listen to music, a podcast or an audio book, or the news. Where do you want your head to be on that walk? How do you want to come out from that walk? In the past few months, I have been listening to audio books because I want to be transported to a different place. I try to fill the inspirational dome in my head with whatever I really need in that exact moment. I can be anywhere that way. We all need the space for clearing our head. If I were to roam in the literal sense and get on a plane, it would be somewhere warm and with a lot of good food!
This new album comes highly recommended, even Late Night Host Jimmy Kimmel promoted it.
I did a four day residency in his house band indeed. It was a really cool opportunity. It’s really interesting to see how these shows are created. Behind the scenes is fascinating, so many micro universes going on at the same time. A friend of mine is the musical director and asked me to come sing for a few nights. I sang 12 or 13 different songs, sometimes for the audience, sometimes “bumpers” going into commercial. It was really fun and I am psyched to go back and do it again in December.
