lucky break didn't have it together at 22. that's exactly what makes 'made it!' so good.

Words by Matt Keenan

Photo Credit: Addie Briggs

If you've ever been 22 and completely lost — not in a romantic, finding-yourself-in-Europe way, but in a genuinely disorienting, who-am-I-and-what-am-I-doing way — lucky break's debut record is going to feel a little too familiar.

‘made it!’ is out now via Fire Records, and it’s the kind of album that almost sneaks up on you. lucky break spent the time between ages 19 and 23 doing what most of us do in our early twenties: falling in love, making big moves, getting her heart broken, and slowly (sometimes painfully) figuring out what she stands for. She turned all of that into eleven songs, and we’re so glad she did. 

"It captures my life from 19 to 23 as I was going through major transitions," she says, "finding my inner compass and figuring out how to live in alignment with my values." It's a lot to carry, and most definitely a lot to make into a record, but that process is a cathartic way to process it all. 

The story of this record begins when lucky break fell in love for the first time. Sweet! She then moved abroad to teach English. Brave! She then got ghosted (properly, thoroughly ghosted), and then got sick on top of it which is not so sweet and not so brave. So with nothing but time on her hands and her feelings in a bedroom in a foreign country she started writing. 

It can almost be a cathartic release when you’re heartbroken in a place where nobody knows you. There’s no one to check in on you, and no familiar comforts to reach for, and you don’t have to put up any version of yourself that needs to be maintained. It’s just you and your thoughts alone, and for lucky break, what came out of that room was ‘made it!’, a record that feels like you have nothing to lose.

The album was brought to life between LA and San Francisco with Grammy-nominated engineer Jessica Thompson and friend as well as co-producer Elliot Woodbridge. This album blends together everything lucky break grew up loving – pop, country, 90s indie, with sounds reminiscent of Pavement, Liz Phair, Lucinda Williams, John Prine, and Joni Mitchell heard throughout. It’s warm and lovely, like someone made you a playlist for your drive home. 

Finding your inner compass isn’t really a particular moment, it’s not a single conversation or journal entry or a song. It’s more like clearing out a room that’s very messy, figuring out what’s yours and what isn’t. 

‘made it!’ sounds exactly like that process, it’s not a record that’s figured itself out, but that’s the point. It’s honest in the way that happens when someone stops trying to portray themselves as having it together and just starts talking. 

Take “Head Down,” a bright,  guitar forward track that opens with the line "mass produce destruction, get out of bed." It’s shiny, almost cheerful in composition, but just slightly deeper it’s holding something sharper. It holds an awareness that looking away from hard things and uncomfortable feelings is its own kind of choice, and it’s full of lyrics that land differently at 23 than they might at 30. 

What sets this record apart from a lot of the ‘coming-of-age’ records is that it’s not trying to romanticize confusion, it’s just telling you exactly what it was like. Here’s what I got right, and what I got wrong. That kind of honesty is rarer than it sounds. 

Perhaps one of my favorite things that draws you in about ‘made it!’ is the way it's quietly hopeful. It’s about someone who went through something, and came out the other side with a clearer sense of who they are. The hopefulness lives in all the details, the album and the artwork was all made by lucky break herself, including the limited edition zine and sticker pack all in this little visual world that is all her own. 

I also fell in love with this record’s relationship with influence. lucky break intertwines together the sounds of Pavement, Liz Phair, Joni Mitchell, John Prine, Lucinda Williams. She also wears this lineage openly, and without apology. The way this record is strung together, and so transparent about where you come from it takes confidence. 

This record is about a bedroom abroad, and a first heartbreak, and it got written because there was nothing else to do. It’s imperfect, it’s somewhere between the ages of 19 and 23 and it’s lost, slow, and finding its way back to itself. It’s about growing up that doesn’t look like growing up while it’s happening and only makes sense once you’re on the other side of it. 

‘made it!’ by lucky break is out now via Fire Records. I’m so excited to share that I had the chance to sit down with her to talk growing up, getting lost, and writing your way back.

Best Left Magazine: First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. Congratulations on the release and we’re such big fans of it. 

lucky break: Thank you sooo much! That means a lot - Best Left is so cool.

You use the phrase "inner compass" like you know what it means now, but what did the search for it actually feel like from the inside? Was there a specific moment between 19 and 23 where you felt something shift, or did the change happen so gradually you almost missed it?

lucky break: I think I use that phrase the way some people might use “intuition,” but I like it because it feels more quantitative. I think a lot of the time we stigmatize emotions—especially women’s emotions—as things to be pathologized. I think one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that emotions are information, that they’re to be taken seriously. In my life, emotions are guides that lead me towards the right relationships, creative endeavors, and environments.

Tell us more about the name of this record, what does "made it!" mean to you now versus what it might have meant at 19? Is the exclamation point relief, or something else?

lucky break: It’s got a couple of meanings. One is that I made it! through this tumultuous period of life. That I made it! In a literal sense, because this record was done in a very DIY sort of way. The exclamation point, to me, is punctuation. It signifies an end. When I was 19, making it was probably some very limited idea of success. Now, I think making it is more of a process—it's not so much what you do, but how you go about doing it.

Do you think you understood what you were going through while you were living it — or did the songs teach you something about those years after the fact?

lucky break: I think I understood what I was going through, but I was sort of in denial about it. I didn’t want to grow up, I didn't want to see my relationship deteriorating. I didn’t want to follow these patterns of life that capitalism seems to require. I see the songs now as my true voice speaking to circumstances where I was often operating in resistance to what I knew was right or true.

Would the record sound different if you wrote it today, with more distance from those years?

lucky break: Hahaha, yes! All of these songs were written in the moments where i was feeling them. They’re unedited.

Is there anything on ‘made it!’ that still feels vulnerable to have out in the world? Something where you listened back and maybe thought, oh, that's a lot?

lucky break: Honestly, it’s the interviews that freak me out! I love vulnerable music, and I'm honored that people think the songs are vulnerable. But to me, I write the songs because they give me permission to say anything out loud. The interviews are scarier.

Is there a version of yourself at 19 that you had to leave behind to become who you are now? What was she like?

lucky break: Aw, wow. What a sweet question. So therapeutic. it’s making me think, I think at 19, I was extremely anxious nearly all of the time. I didn’t have the tools or the vocabulary to cope with it very well. I think I am much kinder to myself now. I know how to take care of myself.

Looking back at those four years from the outside now — does it feel like a long time ago, or does it still feel pretty close?

lucky break: It feels like forever ago, but it haunts me. It haunts.

Did writing these songs help you understand yourself better — or would you say you wrote them because you'd already figured something out and needed to say it?

lucky break: I think the songs helped in that they allowed me to move through things. They kept me from staying in one place, and that allowed me to grow, which allowed me to learn about myself. It’s hard to learn about yourself in the exact moment you’re living in. I can only truly understand myself in retrospect, I think. These songs were me figuring things out in real time.

Debut records carry a lot of weight — this is how people are going to meet you for the first time. Did that feel like pressure, or did the circumstances of making it (the bedroom, the heartbreak, the isolation) actually insulate you from that?

lucky break: Oh yeah. I had no idea if I would even be signed when I started making this record. I made it out of necessity. I was not thinking about it being an introduction in any way - especially because I’d been making music for many years prior.

What do you know now about being 19 that you really wish someone had told you?

lucky break: Hahaha. That man is NOT your husband!!!!!

Is there anything about that 19-to-23 stretch you'd actually go back to — not the hard parts, but maybe the openness, or the not-yet-knowing?

lucky break: Yeah. I was so open hearted. I felt everything at the max. I think now I'm much more realistic, much more jaded, much more analytical. Sometimes I wish I could fall in love the way I did at 19, with absolute abandon. But it's not good to fall in love with absolute abandon. You have to protect your own life, and make sure you keep your relationship with yourself. That makes falling in love a little less… all-consuming. But I like to think it’s the mature thing to do. But what do I know???

We'd like to thank lucky break for taking the time to sit down with us, and be sure to check out ‘made it!’ now wherever you get your music.