Lion Babe Gets Wild

“Fate” is a word that gets tossed around so often it becomes watered down, but there’s really no other term to describe the origins of New York band Lion Babe. Lucas Goodman first met his future bandmate Jillian Hervey when she was a visiting student at Northwestern University (he was DJ-ing a dorm party, when she caught his eye). But even though Hervey didn’t end up attending Northwestern, she did eventually reconnect with Goodman four years later.

Hervey was searching for someone to help write music for a dance project she was working on as a student at New York University, and Goodman turned out to be her guy. He shared some beats, she laid down a vocal track on a whim, and before they even realized what was happening, they’d made an insta-hit. This became their 2012 debut single “Treat Me Like Fire,” which first inspired them to take the whole band thing seriously.

“We were like, ‘All right, let’s make a Facebook, let’s make a Twitter,’” Hervey told POPULAR’s Ellen Carpenter. Goodman added, “Yeah, then it officially existed. We were always telling our friends, ‘Oh, we’re making music.’ But until you can be Googled, you don’t really exist.”

They’re about to be even more of a thing when the band’s debut album drops on Interscope Records this summer.  But before all that goes down, they’ve just revealed a sneak peek — and it’s truly epic. The pair has recruited none other than Pharrell Williams on their latest single “Wonder Woman.” And, as expected, the experience was one neither member will ever forget. “We were like sponges just trying to take everything in,” said Hervey of their sessions with the super-producer. She looked at Goodman and laughed. “He was freaking out, but, like, in a good way.”

Listen to “Wonder Woman” here, then find out more about Lion Babe in the inaugural issue of POPULAR, on newsstand soon.