Lucy Dacus chats about moving out of Richmond, being ‘nervous’ before her show at Brown’s Island

One of Richmond’s most successful singer-songwriters, Lucy Dacus, is swinging into town this week for a concert on Brown’s Island.

“It’s always very special to come back to Richmond,” the 27-year-old said. Although she acknowledged, “I’m always the most nervous when I’m playing Richmond shows.”

The lifelong Richmond-area resident has been living in Philadelphia since the start of the pandemic.

“I originally meant to split my time between Philly and Richmond. Then the lockdown happened when I was in Philly, which made me live there and leave Richmond in a way I never meant to,” Dacus said. “That has felt like a huge loss, like I never really thought I wouldn’t live in Richmond, but I am pretty sure that I will move back at some point. It will always be home.”

A ‘big look in the past’

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Dacus grew up in Mechanicsville and graduated from Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School in 2013. She also studied film at Virginia Commonwealth University before pursuing music full time.

Her latest album, “Home Video,” released in June of last year, was inspired by people and experiences in Richmond.

“I knew I wanted to use the home videos that my dad took of me growing up because this whole record is about this big look in the past and like putting words into the stories of my own life,” Dacus said.

The Richmond connection is felt throughout the album, and the music video for the first single, “Hot & Heavy,” was filmed at The Byrd Theatre in Carytown.

“I went to the Byrd so much growing up, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to watch my own life at the Byrd?’” Dacus said.

The cover art for Dacus’ “Home Video” album was taken at The Byrd Theatre.

Courtesy of Lucy Dacus

“The Byrd is such a beautiful place, and I have always had this sort of magical feeling when I am there,” she said. “Other cities don’t have places like the Byrd. It’s very special that Richmond has that, and I hope that it stays open forever.”

“Home Video” landed on dozens of 2021 year-end lists, including Billboard, The New York Times, Pitchfork, NPR Music, Time and Variety.

Rolling Stone described her third album as a “coming-of-age memoir” and named Dacus “one of the best songwriters of her generation.”

With the confessional nature of the album, Dacus herself began to open up more, writing an essay for OprahDaily.com about how she “sort of did but sort of didn’t” come out. In a New York Times interview published at the same time, she described her sexual identity: “Gay is the overarching word, queer is the better overarching word and more specifically bisexual or pansexual.”

Hometown jitters

Dacus said performing in her hometown is different from other places.

“I will look out into the crowd and be like, ‘Oh, there is my second-grade teacher,’ or ‘There is someone I went to church with,’ or someone who was in my ballet class in middle school,” she explained.

“I’m on stage and being flooded by memories and also still having to keep it together and sing,” Dacus said. “I don’t get to be like, ‘Hey, how have you been?’”

Dacus said she is looking forward to some pizza from 8½ and going to Perly’s and Stella’s, but most of all, she is looking forward to seeing her parents, who still live in the area, and her brother who lives in Tennessee, along with her hometown friends.

“It’s really a ‘food and friends tour’ whenever I come home,” she said.

When she takes the stage Friday, she will be joined by Australian artist Courtney Barnett.

“I was a huge fan of Courtney Barnett before I started writing music, and she has this amazing gutsy quality to her, while also being really approachable,” Dacus said.

Barnett and Dacus are sharing a few tour dates, with Barnett closing the show; however, the Richmond show is different.

“For this one, because it’s a hometown show, I will be closing, which feels very surreal,” Dacus said.

Dacus is no stranger to sharing the stage with other indie artists. In 2018, Dacus was a part of an indie supergroup alongside Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker. The threesome continue to collaborate, with Bridgers and Baker joining her on the tender “Please Stay” on “Home Video.”

Later this year, Dacus will embark on a European tour. And she is continuing to write new music.

She said her writing inspiration comes from both her feelings and experiences.

“It feels like I don’t really get to choose,” Dacus explained. “I know inspiration by the feeling that I get in my body. It feels like I get possessed by a memory or by a set of words or this scene that I am looking at, and things start to click.”

An avid reader, Dacus says she also draws inspiration from books.

“I think that finding authors that are really good at expressing the minutiae of life — that’s very inspiring to inhabit somebody else’s voice and try to write as beautifully as someone I admire,” she said.

At the concert, Dacus will be raising money for the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, an organization that provides financial support for abortion services in Virginia.

“I hope people enjoy the show,” Dacus said.

Katherine Lutge Follow Katherine Lutge

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