TRNSMT 2025: 'I think she felt like I was a mini her,' Lucia & the Best Boys look ahead to TRNSMT

Lucia & the Best Boys have been receiving rave reviews since first bursting onto the scene in 2017. The band released their debut album in 2023, Burning Castles, and have been championed by people like Elton John and Shirley Manson. 2024 saw them tour with Manson’s Garbage and The Last Dinner Party, before being shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year award.

Now frontwoman Lucia Fairfull sits down with Glasgow World to talk Burning Castles, how those songs have evolved since their release 18 months ago and touring with Garbage.

Glasgow World: You're just off the back of your own UK headline tour a few months ago, how was that?

Lucia Fairfull: “Yeah, it was March, and it was great. I feel like we're really lucky. We just have such a kind of loyal bunch of people that care about our music and want us to succeed. And it just feels like that's grown like, even bigger off the back of going on tour with Garbage and the Last Dinner Party who also have such loving fan bases. And so, yeah, it just felt like a really good mix of people that you know have been following us for however long, and also kind of newer folk as well. And yeah, it was nice to play the Galvanisers Yard, because we've been working our way up that SWG3 ladder for quite a while. So it was nice to finally get there.

GW: It feels like SWG3 is one of those places where you could just have that as a concert circuit on its own.

Lucia: “I know it's mad, it's mad, but I mean we've never had a bad gig in there. I don't know what it is, but you just feel the energy so much in that venue, or in those multiple venues.

GW: One of the things I've seen on Instagram is that you've been asked to play quite a lot of older songs from like 2020? How was that kind of getting those back out again?

Lucia: “Yeah, it was really fun. We were really focused on our debut album, Burning Castles and playing those songs live. It was such a moment because we hadn't been able to play them live for so long. I know it's mad to think that we're still talking about lockdown, but it really was such a prominent period of time for us, considering I would go into our studio and I'd be like, ‘I've written a new song’, and we would learn it, and we'd play it live, and it would evolve over time. We didn't get to do that with Burning Castles as such. So to play that for a period of time was really lovely, and obviously we still play songs off of that live. But I think it's also been really nice to kind of hear how, actually, a lot of the songwriting on old songs and new songs aren't too dissimilar. It's been inspiring to merge all the sounds together, and also create new versions of old songs that I feel are more say more about who I am as a person now than when I wrote them. And I think it's also just really fun when you see people are still discovering those songs that you wrote, like 10 years ago. It's mad.”

GW: Have there been any of the songs, either the more recent ones or the older ones, that have surprised you in terms of the reaction you've got from them when you're playing live?

Lucia: “Well, I think Blue Heart is one that was one of our heavier songs. It was always a song that we liked playing live, but I felt disconnected to after a period of time, and we didn't play it live anymore. We had a very small following when we released Blue Heart, and to be able to bring those kind of songs back into rooms, like Galvanizers in front of like 1200 people or whatever, and see them be being played in a light that you always hoped and dreamed they'd be played when you were, like 19 and you wrote them. So yeah, that's quite cool. And it always gets a really good reaction, because we've kind of added some real playfulness into songs like Blue Heart life.”

GW: Going back to Burning Castles, it's been 18 months since it came out. You've obviously spent the last while promoting it and playing it, how does the album feel to you now?

Lucia: “You know, like, none of those songs really got the opportunity to evolve live, and they only lived on computers, and bar a couple. And I just kind of saw them in this electronic pop world, and that's what they were meant to be. So that's what we made them. And I think it's really fun that we got to make our mark in that genre, in that world. I don't like shutting myself off to just one particular genre. And at the time as well, although it is super modern and pop sounding, one thing that I really did want to make sure at the time was that it would be timeless. And that didn't, to me, necessarily have to be within the production. It could have been the songwriting. And to me, I still feel that way about it. I feel like it's timeless. And it's our first album. Of course, I'll always feel precious. It's a precious thing. But, yeah, I feel like it was very much an important part of the journey, but I'm very excited about what the next part of the journey is.

GW: You spoke earlier about being on tour with garbage. How was that experience?

Lucia: “Yeah, it's funny. I used to listen to Garbage a lot. I mean, I still do. I've been listening to their new album. It's amazing, but it was bizarre because I had kind of spoken to Shirley [Manson, Garbage frontwoman] in dribs and drabs on, like, Instagram before and Ally [Scott], our drummer, was actually in one of their music videos a couple years prior to that tour happening. And it was weird usually you'd think, if you were going on tour with a band that you kind of, you know, idolised and looked up to, with Shirley being Scottish and just a really powerful human being. You would think it was a bit daunting, or you'd get star struck, but I just felt like, we kind of both said this to each other, we felt like we'd known each other a long time. It's almost like we're related. I felt really connected to her. And I think she felt like I was, like a mini her. And it was just really nice to have this very powerful female energy. You know, she's done it all. She's seen it all. She's super successful, and she got there because she's been herself throughout her whole career, and she's never let anyone walk all over and I found that really inspiring. The way she got up on stage every night, and the whole band, to be honest, it was just really inspirational for us to get to watch that every night, and she gave me such words of wisdom. And it's definitely one of the most important memories that I have.”

GW: And then, obviously, you’ve got TRNSMT in July, what are you looking forward to after that?

Lucia: “Yeah, we're looking forward to TRNSMT. We've played a couple of shows this summer, but we've not been in the kind of festival world, in a way. We’ve been recording, and we've been in that world, and it's now just kind of that big waiting game time. But yeah, I feel really good about it. I think, as you get older, you just grow more confident and not in the way when I say, ‘give less f****’ as in you don't care. It’s not that you don't care about your art or where it goes, obviously you care about that, but I think you just learn to let go less and not deep things too much, and take things with a pinch of salt and not feel too worried about trying to fit in or be something that people will like. I think that as we've gotten older, we're definitely in a hot kind of spot of that feeling just now. So I'm really excited. I feel like it feels really original and raw the new stuff that we've made.”

You can catch Lucia & the Best Boys on the Main Stage of TRNSMT 2025 on Saturday, 12 July.