Hair still damp from a morning swim, Lily Richardson – one half of indie pop-rock sister-duo duo CLEWS – is bubbly, fresh-faced, and attentive over Zoom.

“We’re going to have the best chat!” she chirps, already enthusiastic at the thought of dissecting her music, and considering everything that has led her and Grace to this special moment: the long-awaited release of their debut album, What’s Not To Love?

Renowned for their stirring harmonies and lush, cinematic songwriting, CLEWS have long been darlings of the Australian indie scene. Previously signed with Wonderlick Entertainment and now proudly independent, the duo has been a favourite on the triple j circuit, has sold out headline shows across Australia and the UK, and has supported the likes of Ocean Alley and Albert Hammond Jr. of The Strokes.

Their break-out hit, Museum, debuted in 2018. But it is only now that the sisters felt ready to release a full-length album into the world.

“When we did our first EP and first signed to a label, I think they actually wanted us to release an album straight away,” Lily reflects. “And we felt like we didn’t have a clear vision of our sound, or didn’t want to commit to a full-length project.

“Looking back, I don’t know if that was the right decision by us. It maybe would have been better to give people something to sink their teeth into when we were first on the scene.”

But now, after label push and pull and personal discovery, CLEWS had grown into themselves. “We’ve been on the scene for such a long time, we felt like we had our sound. We were creatively ready and knew what we wanted a bigger body of work to sound like.”

Lily exhales. “You know, there’s a lot of pressure around the first album. So we wanted it to be really special. But at the same time, I suppose any release is like a time capsule or a particular snapshot of that era.”

CLEWS worked closely with producer Ben Stewart of pop-punk outfit Slowly Slowly to create What’s Not To Love?, which brims with starry-eyed tenderness. “It was very collaborative. We were cobbling it together as we went,” Lily notes.

The album is dreamy, romantic, and deeply human, lullaby-soft but not without the darker edges of heartbreak.

What’s Not To Love? has been positioned as an album full of love songs, a gesture of hope amidst mass uncertainty.

In the year since the project was first written and recorded “it feels like everything around us has been amplified a little bit more,” Lily says. “I spend a lot of time online. And sometimes that feels like an amplification of all the global issues. But I think the world will always need music and storytelling.”

The drive to create is persistent, but she struggles with the expectation to constantly produce content alongside a music release. “A million reels for just one little song, just adding to the endless algorithm.” Lily shakes her head.

“And it's like, ‘Are we taking up precious real estate in people’s attention spans?’ I get a little bit in my head about that stuff. But I think you do have to be selfish, in a way, as an artist.”

When it comes to songwriting, the two sisters “lean on each other’s strengths. So I gravitate towards the lyrics and the storytelling.” Grace has the more technical ear. “Even the way I listen to music, I always listen to the words, and I know in Grace’s head she’s listening to what the production is doing, or the melody.”

Being related can surely pose some challenges when it comes to a working relationship. So how does the fact that Lily and Grace are sisters affect the music that they make?

“When we started out, I think that we didn’t have as good a working relationship as we do now,” Lily admits. “And it’s really hard to say whether CLEWS has helped or hindered our personal sister relationship.

“Because there have been times where it’s been the only thing we’re talking about, and when we’re hanging out we’re not having quality time together, we’re just doing whatever is on our CLEWS to-do list. But at the same time, we’ve had to communicate through so many different eras and ideas. I think now we are way better at letting each other do the things that we’re good at.”

She concludes, “At the end of the day, it hasn’t always been 100% smooth-sailing. We still have a sibling relationship where we clash or bicker. But I do feel like CLEWS has given us a solid project to work on to have a better relationship.”

As a duo, they have learned to advocate for each other and advocate for themselves. “Everything in CLEWS now is focused on the question of, ‘What do Grace and I want to do?’” Lily says. “We’ve always had a lot of creative control with all the different people we’ve worked with, which has been so amazing.

“And I think now, we have the same amount of control. We just need to back ourselves with an equal amount of confidence in our decision-making. At the end of the day, it’s just me and Grace.”

If being part of a beloved indie project wasn’t enough, Lily is also a PhD candidate researching barriers to gender-based harm reform in the music industry.

“I guess like everyone who’s in a band or making music, we all have such double lives. Everyone I know who works in music does a million different things.”

Lily explains that her whole academic background has been in criminology. “It’s so cute, I’m now teaching Introduction to Criminology at uni with my little first-year students, who I love,” she gushes. 

During her Honours degree, Lily worked on a research project that specifically focused on experiences of sexual violence from women and gender-diverse people who front bands. “That was the gateway into my PhD. So was a more specific lens that focused on lived experience. And now my post-grad is focused more on structural and systemic barriers to change.”

Lily’s passion for her work in academia is palpable through the screen. “It’s been so interesting, because I’m basically studying an industry that I’m part of,” she says. “I’m researching a community that I’m part of.

“It’s actually been such an interesting process because I obviously bring knowledge of the sector to the research, but I have to constantly be open to people who have had different experiences to me, and how that contrasts my view of the industry. And so I’m trying to have a really holistic look at where change can really take hold. It’s been really amazing.”

Recently, after Australian pop singer Dean Lewis faced a slew of allegations of inappropriate behaviour across social media, a statement that Lily posted to the CLEWS official Instagram account, inspired by her PhD research, gained traction. “This saga presents another moment to pause and consider what we all want our industry to look like,” she wrote.

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Over Zoom, she says, “I feel like there was a big #MeToo conversation in Australian music five years ago, or something like that. And – this always happens – the momentum dipped. It dips and swells, dips and swells. So I think anything that’s a deeper look at the post ‘awareness-raising’ moment is so important.

“The general tone that my participants have, or their perspective on the industry, is not an overly positive one at the moment,” she continues. “I think a lot of people are feeling the squeeze of cost of living, or not being paid properly by streaming, or touring being really expensive, or the festival ecosystem collapsing, AI in general…”

She pauses for a moment, overwhelmed by the modern age. “There’s a lot of different pressure points. But it gives me kind of a cold comfort feeling: we’re all in this together. Everyone is navigating new metrics of success, or the role of being a content creator.” 

Lily used to think that being in a band would be a fun memory from her 20s, and that once she turned 30, she would grow up and focus on more serious things. “But the more I do this research project, the more it makes me want to keep releasing and making music, the more I think that having music as a creative outlet and as a place of community is so important,” she says.

“And I think that people if they haven’t reached certain metrics of commercial success do face barriers to continuing to be involved. Especially women.”

Like the album that has now been unleashed into the world, Lily is not without hope.

“I get to have so many conversations with people who are really passionate about particular issues or are really invested in connection or community-building,” she recalls. “Genuinely, people who are fighting any kind of good fight in their life, that really makes me feel so good about the state of the music scene in Australia. So many awesome, creative people who care about local songwriting and local content, or who really care about literally making policy changes.

“Maybe I’m also at an age – I’m 30 – where I feel like I can see my friends and the people around me entering this stage of life where they’re giving their dreams or their ideas a really good crack.

“Everyone’s investing time and energy into creating a beautiful life,” she adds. “Any time anyone is doing something bigger than them, it’s so inspiring to me.” 

Lily, too, plans to continue to fight the good fight, and to continue to create beauty out of experience.

One would assume that being such a Renaissance woman would exhaust her.

But he flashes a warm smile. “Like everyone in music, I like spinning a lot of plates.”

CLEWS’ What's Not To Love? is out now. Tickets to their forthcoming launch tour are on sale now.

CLEWS – What’s Not To Love? Album Launch Tour

Friday, December 19th – Paddington Uniting Church, Gadigal/Sydney, NSW

Friday, February 13thth – Milton Theatre, Yuin Country/Milton, NSW

Friday, February 27th – The Evelyn Hotel, Naarm/Melbourne, VIC