Performing at Sheffield indie hotspot Make Noise Studios, ‘Lucid’ ended their four-year hiatus with a bustling headline gig.
Afterwards, the band talked about the value of independent venues in empowering female artists.
Made up of lead singer Shannon O’Shea, 24, guitarist and vocalist Molly Clark, 24, and drummer Toby Maiden, 25, the band was joined on bass by multi-instrumentalist Zak Michaud, 23, for their return.
Formed by Clark and O’Shea in 2015 in their hometown Cambridge, the band moved to Yorkshire as they started university in Sheffield and York and found success on both the local circuit and Radio, with their single ‘Casanova’ enjoying ten weeks on Cambridge 105’s unsigned chart.
Their success hasn’t come without challenges in the Yorkshire music scene, which Lucid is tackling with their return, alongside championing independent venues for the next generation of female artists.
O’Shea said: “We tried to get a gig in York for ages and nobody would take us because we ‘weren’t their sound’ It’s interesting because you ask ‘So what is your sound?’ and it’s all-male indie bands.”
The band have also faced struggles and misogynistic comments due to being a female-fronted indie band.
Clark added: “I’m biased but I love and adore Make Noise. They have been so good to me as my workplace and like, there’s a lot of horrible music industry men in the world and they are some of the nicest music industry men I know.
“Everyone deserves to have that opportunity, that’s where we started when we were 15/16 so it’s just really important to let the youngsters have a go without having a filter of ‘this is not our kind of music’ or ‘you don’t have anything on Spotify’.”
O’Shea said: “I will never forget being turned around to by someone in the industry and them being like ‘You have to be sexy on stage because sex sells and that’s the only way you’ll get anywhere’, and we were like 19 at the time, it’s just not a healthy mindset to be giving young women.
“I think independent venues are really good at making sure that women are at the forefront and not getting pushed back.
“We don’t see many all-girl indie groups or female-fronted indie groups, like you look at festivals and it’s all big indie male bands and there’s so much great female talent and I think we really want to push that.”
Lucid finished their interview with some words of advice for inspiring female artists.
“If you feel comfortable and you feel happy with what you’re doing that’s the most important thing, don’t let anyone tell you that you’re writing the wrong stuff or you’re behaving the wrong way on stage, and you don’t need to wear really short skirts for anyone to pay attention to you.
“Wear what you want, do what you want, say what you want.”
You can support Lucid via Instagram, Facebook, and streaming via Spotify.