Lucius translates emotion into music on ‘Good Grief’

Lucius’ confusing, exciting journey since the group’s 2013 debut record is best summed up in two words: “Good Grief”. The five-piece indie pop outfit has relentlessly toured, become a colorful fixture on the summer festival circuit, moved cross-country from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and performed on network TV shows like Late Night with Stephen Colbert and Ellen.

The frenetic turn of events come out in full force on the group’s dynamic sophomore album “Good Grief.” Front women Jess Wolfe, Holly Laessig and their band explore ‘80s synths, funk and even straight pop cuts without straying too far from their Americana roots.

Just before Lucius left for another nationwide tour, we spoke with Wolfe on performing on network TV and how the record came together.

What was it like performing on “Colbert” and “Ellen”?

I mean it’s very quick. Before you know it, it’s over. Because of how short of a time you get to make an impact, you do whatever you can in the time that you have to have as much energy and be as alive and out there as possible.

What were you hoping to accomplish on the new record?

Just honesty… By the time we were able to sit down in a room and start thinking about songs or going through our voice memos and our lyrics and our journals and stuff, we were ready to purge. Just so much — so much feeling, so much emotion, so many memories, and the fact that we weren’t able to release that at any other time made it more intense.

I was reading that you and your producer were looking to lots of different references on the record – German avant garde and more pop music like Taylor Swift. How were you able to marriage all of these different influences while recording?

[For] each song, we would each find one song that would directly inspire it. From Judee Sill to Beyonce, the reason why it was so diverse and eclectic is because each of us had a different sort of idea of the landscape of the song. When you think about recording a song, maybe the guitarist is thinking about the guitars and the vocalist is thinking about the vocals and the drummer’s thinking about certain production elements. It helped us to think outside of our usual sort of approach.

Lucius performs tonight at Royale in Boston, on Thursday at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY, on Friday at Webster Hall in New York and on Saturday at Union Transfer in Philadelphia, PA.