Scottish indie pop band Lucia & The Best Boys make heartbreak sound magnificent on “Big Romance,” a towering duet with The Last Dinner Party’s Abigail Morris that channels the ache of wanting someone back into an utterly irresistible, beautifully cinematic chorus. In conversation with Atwood Magazine, frontwoman Lucia Fairfull reveals the friendship that gave the song a second life, her newfound confidence as a singer, and the close-knit Glasgow community fueling ‘Picking Petals,’ a boldly theatrical sophomore album brimming with the sheer joy of making music together.

Stream: “Big Romance” – Lucia & The Best Boys

I have never let myself feel restricted by the expectations that an artist should stick to one thing.

* * *

Heartbreak can make one person feel like a whole universe: The dream, the wound, the apology, the second chance you keep reaching for even after the door has closed.

Exhilarating, redemptive, and utterly all-consuming, Lucia & The Best Boys’ “Big Romance,” featuring The Last Dinner Party’s Abigail Morris, takes that oversized ache and blows it wide open into a towering, heart-thrown-open pop anthem that lives up to every inch of its name. Bold, dramatic, glistening, and delightfully infectious, the song channels old heartbreak into a cinematic rush of passion, pain, and release.

It really is a big romance – and a breathtaking reminder that the biggest feelings are often the ones that make us feel most human.

All the time that we spent now a distant memory
Don’t know how to fill the vacancy in my head
I would pour my heart into your big romance
Yeah I put my world in the palm of your hands
Now I do believe in a second chance
So won’t you come back?

Taken from Lucia & The Best Boys’ sophomore album Picking Petals, released July 31^st via Communion Records, “Big Romance” arrives like a showstopper already mid-flight: Sweeping, shiver-inducing, and larger than life, yet achingly human in the way Lucia Fairfull and Abigail Morris sing through the wreckage of wanting someone back. “I never wanted you to go, but here I am again and again, waking up alone,” Fairfull sings, and the hook hits with the force of a whole room remembering the same wound at once.

Lucia & The Best Boys have spent nearly a decade refusing to be narrowed into one shape.

Led by Scottish artist Lucia Fairfull, the project has moved through rockier textures, dreamy pop, synth-lit longing, and emotionally charged guitar music, all while staying rooted in Fairfull’s appetite for transformation.

“If people go on any streaming platform and listen to a few different tracks they may find quite an eclectic mix of sounds,” Fairfull tells Atwood Magazine. “I have never let myself feel restricted by the expectations that an artist should stick to one thing and have loved delving into different sounds that have all led to the making of this album we are about to release, which I do believe to be the best yet. And I do think there is something for everyone on this album.”

The album, Picking Petals, follows Lucia & The Best Boys’ 2023 debut Burning Castles, a record Fairfull still loves but now hears as deeply tied to her early twenties. The new music marks a bolder, freer chapter: Written partly in the Scottish countryside in weather-beaten bothies, then brought back to Glasgow’s Castle of Doom studios with producer Yves Rothman, and shaped by the creative community Fairfull has built around Glasgow, Picking Petals carries the force of an artist coming home to herself. Where Burning Castles had to imagine its scale through lockdown distance, this record was made to capture the loud, electric charge of Lucia & The Best Boys in full flight. It’s collaborative, instinctive, and steeped in the people and places that make her feel most alive – the landscape, the band, the friendships, the divine feminine energy she feels in the Scottish land, and the thrill of finally singing with full command of her own voice.

“Picking Petals has captured everything I love about music,” Fairfull shares. “It feels like the most collaborative body of work yet as well as fully embodying who I am as a person right now. I didn’t really have influences or inspo artists whilst making it, my inspo was my friends and my band and the talent and beauty that surrounds me in Glasgow and Scotland on a whole. This also might sound ridiculous, but I’ve never felt like a better singer than on this album, it’s been empowering to write and almost find my voice in a way I haven’t before.”

‘Cause I never wanted you to go, go, go
I never wanted you to go, go, go
But here I am again and again
Waking up alone
(I said I’m sorry, I miss you)
I never wanted you to go, go, go
(I said I’m sorry, I want you back)

“Big Romance” carries that empowerment through a song that almost didn’t make it out alive.

Fairfull first wrote it around age 23, and it was once intended as a major single for Burning Castles, but the track resisted every attempt to force it into shape. Years later, after revisiting it at the piano, Morris encouraged Fairfull to keep going and asked to sing on it once it was finished. That push changed the song’s fate. What had once been a difficult, overworked demo became something newly open and alive – reimagined from the ground up, built from restraint rather than excess, and finally given the kind of dramatic lift it had been chasing all along.

“There were about three different demos that existed, all of which were way more dramatic than the current version, maybe not in the best way,” Fairfull recalls. “We all thought ‘Big Romance’ was going to be a big single on Burning Castles, but it was just so hard to crack even after spending hours on it, to the point where it felt like we were just trying too hard and needed to let go of it for a while.”

“I remember calling Abi one day after revisiting it whilst sitting at my piano and she was very persistent that I had to make it work and said she wanted to sing on it when I was done, and that’s what happened,” she continues. “We approached the instrumentation side of things starting small and building upwards, rather than going in full guns blazing, it really felt like we had to start from scratch and reimagine it.”

Fairfull’s patience is part of what makes the final version so powerful. “Big Romance” has all the sweep of an ‘80s pop classic – the scale, the ache, the sense of lights rising at the exact moment the heart breaks open – but it never collapses into empty grandeur. Fairfull and Morris make a formidable, spellbinding pair, their voices circling each other with theatrical force and lived-in feeling, turning apology and longing into something almost communal. The production builds with live-band warmth and romantic tension: Glowing keys, surging drums, brass blooming at the edges, and vocal lines that seem to keep climbing toward the sky. “I said I’m sorry, I miss you / I said I’m sorry, I want you back,” Morris echoes, and suddenly the song becomes more than a plea to an ex. It’s the sound of two artists giving an old feeling a second life.

“I think it came to be the way it was by starting from scratch with the instrumental and trying to be really casual about it and forget that I’d been trying to make it work for years,” Fairfull says. “I went into the studio with my band and we literally just played it in the most real and organic way we could and built it up from there. I knew I wanted it to build slightly but in a more romantic and subtle way using live brass and with the dynamic of Abi and me singing together.”

I’ve been sinking into this
overflowing feeling
And I’d like to find some
emotional healing before I go mad
‘Cause through it all I was losing sight
Now all I see is what I’ve left behind
But I do believe in everything that we had
So won’t you come back?

This dynamic also changes the song’s emotional center. What began as a heartbreak song from Fairfull’s early twenties now feels broader, warmer, and more generous – not only about romantic love, but about the platonic romance of friendship, artistic belief, and the people who help us carry our old selves into the present. Morris’ presence is more than a feature; it’s part of the story. Before The Last Dinner Party, Morris even played keys for Lucia & The Best Boys on a few Scottish dates, and that history gives “Big Romance” its extra charge. This is not two voices thrown together for scale; it’s a long-running creative bond turning an old wound into something triumphant.

“This song was initially written about a heartbreak in my early twenties, but it feels like much more now, not necessarily through the words but through its journey and what I’ve experienced with this song, including having Abi on it and the video we made with Sal Redpath,” Fairfull reflects. “It’s not just a song about romantic relationships anymore, it’s about romantic platonic love too.”

Across Picking Petals’ ten songs, Fairfull’s appetite for pop spectacle finds plenty of room to roam.

The opening “Back Inside My Heart,” conceived within the first two days of her sessions with Rothman, arrives on a muscular surge of synths, its emphatic chorus built to fill a room. “Better For The Worse” sends sparkling octave mandolin through a driving, rain-soaked rush, while “You Look Like Somebody in Love” brings Scottish folk violins into a sweeping portrait of devotion and regret. The title track strikes a more unsettled note, its clipped, marching middle eight giving way to a soaring guitar solo as the image of a thistle blackening as it wilts becomes a distinctly Scottish expression of exposure and acceptance. Every arrangement has its own personality, yet Fairfull’s commanding delivery holds this wonderfully varied record together.

“Lonely Girl,” featuring CHVRCHES’ Lauren Mayberry, offers perhaps the album’s most affecting expression of the community Fairfull treasures. Years before their collaboration, Fairfull would hear “The Mother We Share” playing through the speakers at Forever 21, where she worked, and marvel at the Scottish accent carrying across the shop floor. Now their voices meet on an effervescent song about belonging and finding your people without abandoning the place you come from. The distance between those moments is extraordinary – a young artist once inspired by hearing someone who sounded like her now standing alongside that very singer, offering another generation the same reassurance. “I want people not to feel alone,” Fairfull says in the album’s accompanying biography, and the sentiment gives “Lonely Girl” a significance far beyond its infectious melody.

Fairfull’s determination to build a life in music began with an unexpected upheaval.

At eleven, a car accident left her with a broken leg and abruptly ended her childhood devotion to dance. Recovering at home in a small Scottish village, she picked up her mother’s guitar and began pursuing another way to express herself. The transition came with its own difficulties: Stage fright became so severe that Fairfull sometimes fainted during school performances. With her father encouraging her to treat busking like a weekend job, Glasgow’s bustling Buchanan and Sauchiehall Streets became an unlikely training ground. By seventeen, she was opening for the Bay City Rollers at Barrowland Ballroom, a venue where her grandparents had once danced. This October, she returned to headline that same storied room herself – a remarkable homecoming for an artist who once struggled simply to stand before an audience.

Her musical circle has become as gloriously unpredictable as the songs themselves. Fairfull’s bandmates also make metal music together as Gout, while their friend Euan contributes fiddle to Picking Petals and fellow Glasgow artist Lizzie Reid has joined Lucia & The Best Boys onstage. Fairfull calls these musicians her musical north stars, a revealing admission from a singer whose presence can feel so singular at the center of a towering chorus. Her confidence has grown alongside her willingness to share the spotlight, and the album’s elaborate arrangements draw much of their vitality from the people standing beside her. For all its flamboyant scale, Picking Petals is grounded in the simple pleasure of making music with people you believe in.

“I’ve always been the songwriter, but this process opened up a heartwarming universe where it felt safe to lay out the darker and more playful pieces of myself,” Fairfull reflects in the album’s accompanying biography.

That’s why “Big Romance” feels so immense: It understands that a song can outgrow the life that made it. Time has not dulled its ache; it has deepened the meaning around it. What once belonged to one heartbreak now belongs to persistence, friendship, timing, community, and the hard-won redemption of finally seeing a hard-to-crack song bloom exactly when it was meant to.

Together, Lucia & The Best Boys and Abigail Morris have delivered a dramatic, all-consuming pop anthem for the ages –

– one that is blissful and wounded, theatrical and true, impossible to shake because it’s still becoming as it plays.

“I never wanted you to go,” Fairfull sings again and again, but the song itself proves the opposite of loss: Nothing this alive is really gone.

In candid conversation with Atwood Magazine, Fairfull revisits the years “Big Romance” spent in limbo, the friendship that gave it a second life, and the Scottish musical community at the heart of Picking Petals.

For a song born from someone leaving, it’s remarkable how much of its story belongs to the people who stayed.

‘Cause I never wanted you to go
I never wanted you to go
I never wanted you to go, go, go
(I said I’m sorry, I miss you)
I never wanted you to go, go, go
(I said I’m sorry, I want you back)
But here I am again and again
Waking up alone
(I said I’m sorry, I miss you)
I never wanted you to go, go, go
(I said I’m sorry, I want you back)

I said I’m sorry, I miss you
I said I’m sorry, I want you back
I said I’m sorry, I miss you
I said I’m sorry, I want you back

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:: stream/purchase Picking Petals here ::

:: connect with Lucia & The Best Boys here ::

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‘Picking Petals’ – Lucia & The Best Boys

A CONVERSATION WITH LUCIA & THE BEST BOYS

Lucia & The Best Boys (Lucia Fairfull): If people go on any streaming platform and listen to a few different tracks they may find quite an eclectic mix of sounds. I have never let myself feel restricted by the expectations that an artist should stick to one thing and have loved delving into different sounds that have all led to the making of this album we are about to release, which I do believe to be the best yet (fancy that) And I do think there is something for everyone on this album.

Lucia & The Best Boys: I would say “Blueheart” is a song I’ve found myself going back to recently as we decided to play it live again for a few shows last year. It’s a lot rockier than what we make now, but it’s also one that I don’t cringe at when I listen to which I think is normal for when you hear your past self’s songs!

One that I feel is technically a deep cut in my eyes is “Big Romance” ft. Abigail Morris… it was written about 6 years ago and has lived so many lives. It’s all been a highlight to be honest, I enjoy every part of the process as high stress as it can be, I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Lucia & The Best Boys: When you release an album, it’s so new to other people but been a part of your everyday for a long time prior to that, in this case for me Burning Castles was a work in progress over the course of 5-6 years including through lock down, plus the time after it come out, so when it came to writing this new album I felt ready to let go of Burning castles and was really excited to move forward as it does feel very attached to my early twenties and sometimes like any songs can be, it was almost a little too nostalgic for a while…but I’ll always love that album and feel grateful for the incredible memories that I have of making it and to everyone that championed it and my favourite songs off it remain to be “Butterflies” and “Angels Cry Too.”

Lucia & The Best Boys: Picking Petals has captured everything I love about music. It feels like the most collaborative body of work yet as well as fully embodying who I am as a person right now. I didn’t really have influences or inspo artists whilst making it, my inspo was my friends and my band and the talent and beauty that surrounds me in Glasgow and Scotland on a whole. This also might sound ridiculous but I’ve never felt like a better singer than on this album, it’s been empowering to write and almost find my voice in a way I haven’t before…

Lucia & The Best Boys: My friends. Nothing makes me feel more inspired and driven to want to chase my dreams that’s seeing people I know shining whilst doing something they love. Our pal Euan who played fiddle on the new album is probably the best fiddle player I’ve ever seen and I get so much joy out of watching him play! My whole band have another band, it’s a metal band called Gout and I would say that even if you don’t care for metal music you’d probably still enjoy them. Lizzie Reid (who I’ve been friends with for a long time) has been playing shows with us but is a musician in her own right and she can play so many different instruments and has an incredible voice, you can tell she just puts so much time into her craft… The list goes on forever!

Lucia & The Best Boys: There are two places I feel at home and at peace with myself, the Scottish countryside and making music, so when I put these two together it’s heaven on earth for me… I’ve become more intrigued by the culture as I’ve gotten older as I’ve been more exposed to the lands here, I feel incredibly connected to it and I feel very alive in the divine feminine energy it brings.

Lucia & The Best Boys: Both songs felt like really fun and freeing songs to return with, especially because a lot of songs that have come before have been quite mid tempo, theres something playful and youthful about them, but at the same time show how much I’ve grown… I think it says that this album was really about letting go and doing exactly what I want to in this moment.

There are two places I feel at home and at peace with myself, the Scottish countryside and making music, so when I put these two together it’s heaven on earth for me…

* * *

Lucia & The Best Boys: I wrote it when I was around 23 and there was about 3 different demos that existed, all of which were way more dramatic than the current version (maybe not in the best way…)!

We all thought “Big Romance” was going to be a big single on Burning Castles, but it was just so hard to crack even after spending hours on it, to the point where it felt like we were just trying too hard and needed to let go of it for a while.

I remember calling Abi one day after revisiting it whilst sitting at my piano and she was very persistent that I had to make it work and said she wanted to sing on it when I was done, and that’s what happened! We approached the instrumentation side of things starting small and building upwards, rather than going in full guns blazing, it really felt like we had to start front scratch and reimagine it.

Having Abi on this song now, and seeing how many people have been introduced to it through her too makes me feel like the journey was worth it and truly paid off.

Lucia & The Best Boys: This song was initially written about a heartbreak in my early 20s, but it feels like much more now, not necessarily through the words but through its journey and what I’ve experienced with this song, including having Abi on it and the video we made with Sal Redpath. It’s not just a song about romantic relationships anymore, it’s about romantic platonic love too.

Lucia & The Best Boys: It just very naturally needed up weaving its way in perfectly, I don’t think there’s always an explanation for how a song that you wrote when you were 23 can live its best life and have more meaning than ever 8 years later, but it works and I’m so happy to see it being enjoyed by others now.

Lucia & The Best Boys: I think it came to be the way it was by starting from scratch with the instrumental and trying to be really casual about it and forget that I’d been trying to make it work for years…I went into the studio with my band and we literally just played it in the most real and organic way we could and built it up from there. I knew I wanted it to build slightly but in a more romantic and subtle way using live brass and with the dynamic of Abi and I singing together.

Lucia & The Best Boys: I hope that so many different things are taken from this album whether it be that you listen to it and it makes you inspired to write music, or it makes you inspired to tell your crush you like them, or tell someone you love them…or to go into nature…I also think that for some people it be a coming of age album even if it isn’t for me. I hope it inspires across the board and allows people to feel things easier.

Lucia & The Best Boys: Cloth are one of my favourite bands right now – I can’t stop listening to Pink Silence. I also love Night Tapes, Witch Post, and Tarran. I have a playlist on my Spotify that I add my favourite songs to every month and do a deep dive on my mailing list!

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:: stream/purchase Picking Petals here ::

:: connect with Lucia & The Best Boys here ::

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Stream: “Big Romance” – Lucia & The Best Boys

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