Lucy Pearl - Interview

FROM THE ASHES OF THREE OF THE NINETIES' BIGGEST GROUPS COMES A GEM OF A NEW BAND

In this era of corporate mega-mergers, when name brands combine faster than DNA, it makes sense that music would find its own way to make the most of the power to be found in new alliances. The term supergroup--which refers to the getting together of members of several blue-chip bands to form a team of all-stars--has become a punch line in rock recently, as musical pedigrees alone have failed to ignite audiences, who perhaps smelled a marketing ploy. The new soul-hip-hop power trio Lucy Pearl, however, proves that what looks good on paper can also work beautifully in the flesh.

Raphael Saadiq, vocalist and guitarist for Tony! Toni! Tone!; All Shaheed Muhammad, DJ for A Tribe Called Quest; and Dawn Robinson, one of the founding members of En Vogue, had all bid farewell to their enormously successful groups, as well as to the rigors and constraints that accompanied that fame. Robinson, for one, had had enough of being told where to stand and what say. They had all been looking for their respective second act when old pals Robinson and Saadiq hooked up with Muhammad a year ago, and they decided to form a loose musical consortium: a forum for experimentation and a home base from which to run solo ventures. It was, as Robinson says, "a no-brainer. We had no fear. It was all about freedom."

So far, that freedom has meant a safe haven in which to craft songs full of silken hooks, great beats, and the minutely personal lyrics around which they could wrap their pristine voices. In a climate where R&B songs often feel manufactured rather than written--not to mention cooked into mush by dozens of producers--Lucy Pearl offers songs that are cool yet not overly slick, and genuinely catchy rather than hyped. As Saadiq explains, the name Lucy Pearl suggests "a real loose feeling and a sound that's precious like a pearl. If Lucy Pearl were a woman, she'd be black and Latin, singing blues as she walks down the street with a Fender Telecaster guitar on her back and pushing three Marshall amps."

Though the old-school funk of Stevie Wonder and Sly and the Family Stone (which guides neo-soulsters like Maxwell, Macy Gray, and D'Angelo) also drives Lucy Pearl, the trio's freshness clearly owes a debt to rock and rap, not to mention influences as diverse as No Doubt and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Robinson, for instance, says she identifies more readily with a punk-and-rock icon like Debbie Harry than with today's hip-hop hotshots, and that she dreams of someday collaborating with No Doubt's Gwen Stefani. "Growing up I always hung out with kids of other races," Robinson says of her own cultural credo. "My mom said, 'Why do you want to have all these white kids around? Stick with your own kind.' And I'd say, 'I know my own kind. I want a world where there's more than that.'" Certainly, Lucy Pearl is asking for more--and getting it.

Their recent hit, "Dance Tonight," could well turn out to be one of the most infectious radio singles of the year. After its debut on the Love and Basketball soundtrack, the sexy celebration of a night on the town hustled up the charts, cutting through the acres of teen pop in its path. As Muhammad says, "It's one of those carefree, let-your-hair-down songs that people relate to quickly. And musically it's just different, it's not like anything else that's out on the radio." Also stoking the fires of legend are Lucy Pearl's epic live shows, which strip post-ironic crowds of their froideur and turn them into dancing, sweating soul rebels. "I wanted to throw myself into the crowd and join the mosh pit," says Robinson of one such recent Lucy Pearl performance. Having successfully revamped one rock staple--the supergroup--why not take on another? As of today we live in a world where a former member of En Vogue can ignite a mosh pit--and that's no punch line.

Longtime Interview contributor Alison Powell profiled Katie Puckrick in the February 2000 issue.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.
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