Lydia Luce on a Favorite Songwriting Gig and Working as a Session Violinist

Photo credit: Ryan Usher

Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?

We travel in a 2004 short school bus named Seaweed. We’ve converted it into an RV with solar panels and a two-burner stove. It has got around 100k miles on it and we’ve had to do several repairs. Most recently we had a water leak in the water pump and water was spraying all over the bus. We also recently replaced the fuel pump. We lost our grey water tank day two of our first tour in Seaweed but we just got that fixed too!

How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?

Luckily we can cook in the bus so we are able to buy our own groceries and pull over and cook a meal any time we need to. I even have a mini blender and make smoothie bowls each morning on the road.

How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?

Not many (knock on wood). I actually haven’t broken a string in years.

Where do you rehearse?

I have a studio above my garage so we usually use that space to rehearse.

What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?

Plastic Eyes – “So I can see your face again”

Describe your first gig.

My first gig was probably a violin recital when I was very young if you can call that a gig. My mom was a classical conductor and I grew up in the classical world playing in her orchestras.

What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?

I am currently a session violist/violinist as a side job to being a songwriter. I used to work for a company that hired me to write songs as gifts to loved ones. I truly loved that job.

How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?

It really fluctuates. At times I’ve made most of my income from streaming and at times it has come from string recording jobs and freelance work. I imagine it will always fluctuate but hope that it stays consistent.

What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?

At times I’ve tried to make music to please other people and I have learned that it is never authentic when I do that.

Luce grew up in a strict musical household where her mother was a professional conductor for the Ars Flores Symphony Orchestra and learning the violin was not presented as a choice. A virtuoso from six years old, she excelled in numerous philharmonics. She obtained her master’s at UCLA in the viola, but knew her path was not that of a professional classical musician. She studied ethnomusicology, performance and songwriting at Berklee, traveled and studied Ghanian music, then worked at world music label Smithsonian Folkways Records. She has performed viola and violin with artists like Eminem, Rob Stewart, Dolly Parton, and Willie Nelson.

Luce also leads Lockeland Strings, a community arts organization that puts on monthly showcases of local artists accompanied by string quartet arrangements, alongside performances of new contemporary classical pieces from local composers. It partners with a new nonprofit each month to give a platform to organizations including the ACLU of Tennessee, Girls Write Nashville and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee.

Garden Songs, her latest EP, was released in June 2022. Connect with Luce online and on the road.