The band, fronted by siblings Clyde and Gracie Lawrence, dish on opening for the Jonas Brothers and support from Jon Bellion.
Family is where it all started from with Lawrence -- and that's how they continue to vibe as a band. Over the weekend, the band hit the stage at the iconic Yankee Stadium to open for the Jonas Brothers in their hometown of New York City.
"I feel like playing Yankee Stadium twice, two nights of it is so large that I actually can't, like, conceptualize of it. So being nervous isn't even an option," Gracie Lawrence told ET ahead of the back-to-back sold-out shows. "It's like every sort of kid who wanted to star in the middle school musicals dream to be playing to a crowd that size and I couldn't be more excited to be doing it with our band in this way and with the Jonas Brothers. They're amazing."
Like the famous trio from New Jersey, Clyde and Gracie -- who are the children of filmmaker Marc Lawrence -- have been making music together since childhood while growing up across the water.
Along the way, the duo has expanded their musical family, with the band now consisting of friends from various stages of their lives -- Sam Askin (drums), Sumner Becker (alto sax), Jordan Cohen (tenor, baritone sax), Michael Karsh (bass), Jonny Koh (guitar) and Marc Langer (who raps and plays the trumpet) -- and creating a music collective that they believe happened naturally.
"I think that on a certain level, it was always very, like, planned and intentional," Clyde told ET about starting the band. "Gracie and I've always known we want to be musicians. This is what we want to be doing. So, in a certain way, it was very calculated. But on another level, it was super organic, because this was just something that we started with our friends, and it's been lucky enough to build out into this thing."
For over 10 years, the group of musicians that make up the band have been creating and performing together, and developing a dynamic that has become more than a band, but extended family.
"I think that, like, that's a really important part of the vibe of our band, is that it's not hired guns," Clyde said. "It's not like, 'Oh, let's start a band.' It really started very organically, out of, like, every single person that will be playing at stadiums and arenas with us this fall, are also people that literally played at basement parties with us 10 years ago. And there's something really special about being able to experience that with our friends."
And while their sound is hard to categorize into one specific genre, their musical influences give listeners, new and old, a hint at what they can expect when hearing their music.
"I think that a lot of our biggest influences is, like, great music of the '60s and the '70s," Clyde said. "A lot in, like, the soul/funk genre, but also in, like, the singer-songwriter world. But then we're also super inspired by a lot of modern pop music and music from Broadway musicals and everything in between. Some of our biggest influences are people like Stevie Wonder, Randy Newman, The Beatles..."
"Carole King, Jackson Five," Gracie added.
Lawrence has released five studio albums, with their most recent being 2021's Hotel TV, which helped them get the attention of singer-songwriter, producer, Jon Bellion. After sending him new music and creating a friendship with Bellion, the time came for them to all officially work together -- and Bellion signed them to his label, where he not only amplified their music, but gave them the chance to work with other artists.
"Our relationship with him has evolved from everything from him helping to produce and write some of the music to helping us in a more, like, record label capacity," Clyde said. "To then, you know, him involving some of us in helping him work on other projects he's working on including The Album, the new Jonas Brothers album."
Clyde added, "It's been really, really fun and on top of all of that he's just become like a dear friend and another extended family member. This has been awesome."
Bellion also gave Clyde and Gracie the chance to use their range of talents on Tori Kelly's latest EP, Tori.
"It's been really cool to kind of do a bunch of that work, especially working kind of under Jon because there's so much to learn from him. And he's, like, so brilliant at setting the agenda and working with the artists to figure out like, this is the new sound," Clyde said. "When he brought us in when we were going to work on the new Tori Kelly album, I didn't know what direction we were planning on taking it, sonically. She's like one of the best singers on planet. She's done and can do everything from pop, gospel, like, you know, everything in between."
"It's just so fun to be able to just like pursue that 100 percent," he added. "Same thing with the Jonas Brothers project. You know, when he comes in and says, 'We're going to take it in this like, Bee Gees -- I forget exactly what the references were -- but this sort of like fun, yacht rock, like Hall & Oates thing. I was like, 'Oh, hell yeah!' Like, I can't wait to dive in and contribute in any way that I can."
Meanwhile, after two sold-out back-to-back nights, the band will continue to support Joe, Nick and Kevin Jonas for 60-plus additional dates through the fall.
"I think something that some people who might be new to us are finding out about us through this tour ... is that we are, like, super experienced from a touring perspective," Clyde said.
"I'm just really looking forward to, like, performing on in those settings," Gracie said. "I love the shows. I think the hard part about touring isn't actually the shows. That's the fun part. That's the reward. The hard part is traveling for that amount of time and not being home and how destabilizing that can be. But when you do it with your friends and family, it is a lot easier and really fun. This one's going to span multiple months. We're gonna go through all the seasons on the tour, but I think it's gonna feel a little bit like summer camp."
"It's going to be fun to ... have this, like, summer camp energy," Clyde shared. "I also personally am, like, super fascinated by the business of, like, touring and understanding the logistics and, like, the operations of just how something at this scale even functions. I'm excited to just kind of soak up as much as I can and just get to know people."
And not surprisingly, there's a lot of support from Bellion and the Jonas Brothers as Lawrence takes the stage and performs their latest single, "I'm Confident That I'm Insecure."
"Jon has been really involved in that and so enthusiastic about it," Gracie said of the new single. "It's extra exciting that we're getting to play this song at Yankee Stadium tomorrow, something that he believes in so strongly for us. As to the Jonas Brothers themselves, I don't know if they've given us any specific advice, but I mean, they're so nice, they've been so nice and supportive, and like, super excited to welcome us on the road."
For the fans who have been there to support Lawrence from day one -- and the fans they plan on making along the way -- there are exciting things to look out for in the coming months, aside from the fantastic show.
"I would say definitely for anyone who hasn't checked out the song, go check out the song, and there's going to be a lot of fun accompanying pieces to the song, maybe some videos," Gracie said. "We have a documentary that these filmmakers, Vagabonding Media, made about us. That's coming out every week on Wednesdays."
"We've got a lot of music and a lot of videos. As Gracie said, all this documentary stuff and we've just been kind of building it all up," Clyde added. "So, think through the tour and beyond. You can expect a lot of Lawrence music videos -- all of the above -- to really be flooding the airwaves."
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