Exclusive Interview With Natalie Lucie

Natalie Lucie's first album The Light is more than an album — it's a proclamation. Penned during three lockdown-filled years of quiet chaos motherhood, the album is a self-recorded, soul-baring journey of healing, breaking patterns, matrescence, and love of self. Featuring songs that leap from intimate confessions to angry alt-rock battle anthems, The Light presents a rare form of intimacy — the kind that can only be attained through profound individual change.

We spoke to Natalie ahead of the June 27 release of her album to discuss her experience writing songs, working with Hattie Murdoch, female voices in music, and how she creates music on her own terms.

1. "The Light" seems so perfectly titled — not only metaphorically, but also emotionally. How did the concept of 'light' develop for you during the writing and recording of this record?

So I had the intro track written years and years ago, as a pop/dance song, and then in 2021 when I felt this pull to create something ‘big’ I was running through the songs I’d written recently and noticed that I had referenced 'light' in different ways in several songs, and I suddenly got it with this clarity that I needed to make and album, called The Light. It had many different references to light throughout the album - losing our light, chasing the light, dragging darkness into the light and returning to light.


2. This album was brought to life during such a unique creative environment — homeschooling, nap times, lockdowns. What did you discover about yourself as an artist by learning how to self-produce in the midst of it all?

It has definitely been a labour of a love and self-commitment, and the harder it got the more determined I got to see it through, and the more confident I became as an artist, weirdly. Because the process does unravel you, it does lay you bare and in a way that vulnerability requires so much surrender that you’re able to step into pure creativity with no expectation and no ego, just the process of bringing something into the world that’s yours, and if you’re going to do that against all odds you may as well make it as authentic and honest as possible. I think that’s what has happened, it’s helped me stand in my truth and claim myself as an artist in away I don’t think I could or would have a few years ago.

3. "Glue" has truly connected with caregivers and mothers online. It's honest, raw, and so eloquently subtle. Would you be willing to walk us through the process of that song — what inspired you to write it, and what did you hope to communicate through it?

Yes, I’ve been so honoured at the response to Glue, I’ve had women message me saying ‘this is exactly how my life feels, thank you for articulating it’. I think we’re at a critical point in motherhood where so many mothers are conscious of the trauma they’re carrying from the generation above, and refusing to pass it down to their children the way they had it dumped on them. 

So they’re trying to heal themselves, hold space/forgiveness for the parents who harmed them and simultaneously raise their children with empathy, patience and softness when they never received that - usually whilst also working a day job and carrying the majority of the mental load with no supportive village - and its just debilitating at times. I wanted to express that saying ‘thankyou for being the glue that holds us together’ is actually not enough. 

We don’t want to be glue. We need support, we need rest, we need to be seen, we need other people to step up and work on themselves so that we have other people to leave our children with that aren’t permanently triggering us. It’s exhausting. Women being told they’re ‘superheroes’ is violating, frankly. We’re not superheroes, and we’re collapsing.

4. Your evolution from solo work to long-distance collaboration with Hattie Murdoch appears almost symbolic — expanding the circle of creation. Did that collaboration have any impact on the album's overall tone?

I think so, yes, although Hattie really honoured the directions I was going in with any of the tracks we collaborated on. Because she’s an artist herself I think she just really saw and understood the process I was in, and I would just say "I've hit a wall with this one, I'm not sure what it needs, maybe different drums or something missing in the second verse?" would assess it herself and add what she agreed it needed, and always did that perfectly. She’s incredibly gifted at just knowing what a track needs when it’s 90% there but ‘something’ is missing…she finds that missing piece so quickly. She’s also mixed and mastered everything all beautifully for me, I really couldn’t be happier. 

5. You address themes of healing, matrescence, and cycle-breaking — both deeply personal and yet also relatable. Do you envision this album as a concept album, or rather a collection of moments in time?

I was nervous to call it a concept album as I wasn't sure if it flowed as smoothly as a concept album should, and so I would say definitely more of a ‘moments in time’ album. But actually the people who’ve heard it so far do seem to feel it flows well, telling a story, so perhaps it is a concept album after all? It’s certainly got a beginning and an end with stories in between.

6. "Save the World" is musically different from "Glue" — more of an anthem, with a bit of an edge. Where does that song fall in the emotional story of the album?

Save the World is definitely a point of catharsis on the album! Whilst Glue is really about the overwhelm and despair, Save the World is the fight back, it’s where the ‘outliers’ of society realise there’s actually nothing wrong with them, and that they’re important in this world. It’s a love letter to anyone who’s ever been made to feel othered, especially the creatives, the introverts, the big thinkers. I think those people are magic.

7. You've articulated beautifully the desire for mothers and women of a particular age to feel worthy to create. How do you see your work altering how women — and mothers, in particular — are seen in music?

I never expect to have much impact as the tiny DIY artist I am, but I also do believe in the ripple effect. I think every time a mother or a women over 35, 40, 50 has the sheer audacity to say ‘I’m going to pursue something artistic, because actually I exist too, I’m not invisible or ‘too late’’, it gives a little more permission for others to do the same. 

I know that I personally am always inspired by seeing other people’s creative courage, so hopefully even at a small level I may help that visibility of mothers in music - not just the famous, major label, already ‘made it’ mothers, but the normal everyday musicians who are juggling it all, still working to pay bills, no nannies, no team - there are plenty of us out here!


8. And lastly, if one sits and listens to The Light all the way through, what do you want them to be left with? An emotion, a question, a sort of clarity?

Hopefully, for the people who connect to it, they will feel seen and heard and have a sense returning to themselves the way that I did when I created the songs. I would love it if people felt a little lighter as a result of listening. 

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