Lucius had a major opportunity when they featured on Harry Styles’ single “Treat People With Kindness,” as the band’s Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig sing the chorus completely unaccompanied by Styles. Strangely, though, they aren’t credited as featured artists on the song, despite their prominent role in it. Now, Wolfe and Laessig say that rubbed them the wrong way.
In a new Los Angeles Times interview, Wolfe says of Styles asking them to sing on what would become “Treat People With Kindness,” “We were like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ If it’s just ‘oohs’ and ‘aaahs,’ it’s not a big deal, and it’s a good opportunity for us, but we started singing and we were singing the whole chorus.”
Laessig added, “We thought he was gonna add on top after and that we’d be in the background.”
The feature then notes Styles “declined to list Lucius as a featured act or even to tag the duo on Spotify so that Styles’ millions of fans might easily find the rest of their music.” Indeed, neither Lucius nor Wolfe and Laessig individually are listed on the song’s credits on Spotify.
Wolfe continued:
“Two weeks later, they sent us the track, and it was literally us. We start the song, we sing every chorus, just us. We trade off the bridge. It is us and Harry Styles. Harry Styles and us. […] It just hurt. Here was an opportunity to spread the love a little bit, which he purports to do all the time, and it could’ve really helped us. I’ve been to Harry shows and he’s always been very charming and kind. We’ve sung live with him.”
Read the full feature here.
