We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeff Lawson, Bethany Lawson of Plastic Angels a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jeff Lawson, Bethany Lawson of Plastic Angels thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve, and write about personal experiences and perspectives. It’s no secret that I’m an opinionated person, ha! But Jeff has always encouraged me not to shy away from that part of my personality when it comes to writing. So when I wrote the lyrics to our song ‘Dear God’, he was adamant that we should record and release it.

I am a survivor of child sexual abuse and ‘Dear God’ is a song to God asking why, if he is so good and so powerful, did he let me be abused. It was very emotional for me to write, and I went through a period of time of being scared to sing it. I was raised a preacher’s daughter, and the way I was raised, you don’t dare question God like that. But Jeff encouraged me to sing it, and to feel empowered sharing my story.

To this day, we get a lot of mixed reactions to the song. People have sent us messages and emails telling me I need to “come back to God” or that I’m being disrespectful. I don’t know why they would take it that way; it’s really just an honest expression of grief. I’ve gotten used to it now, but it used to hurt.

But then we’ve also gotten a lot of amazing feedback. I’ve had many people come up to me after shows and say, “I was abused too” and thank me for singing about it. I’ve had a few people tell me they’ve never told anyone until now. It’s the most incredible honor to have people share such personal stories and connect with me. I wouldn’t be able to experience that on such an intimate level had we not released ‘Dear God’. It’s hard to explain just how thankful I am to have a bandmate like Jeff who encourages me, and people who appreciate my honesty and vulnerability. All of that makes any mischaracterizations or criticism worthwhile.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Our pop/rock duo is called Plastic Angels and consists of my wife Bethany and me, Jeff. We met in a bar on Cape Cod, MA. We each were playing in different bands, and really had no intention to playing music together. We really just loved hanging out, and it was nice to date someone who also had the hectic schedule of a musician. We would support each other when we could by going to each other’s shows, and then I had the idea to start another rock band with a Bethany as the singer. I thought it would be cool to have a female singer with a big vocal range belting out rock tunes…it was different than anything else going on in our tiny music scene. We ended up writing our first song together during a big snow storm, and we’ve been collaborating ever since. Now we’re married and living over 1,000 miles away in Nashville…it’s been a wild ride!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

For me (Bethany), I think the biggest lesson that I’ve had to learn and then unlearn is that as an artist, you have to have thick skin. “Thick skin, thick skin” everyone says about the music industry. But what they don’t tell you is that you have to have thin enough skin to still be open and vulnerable to create, and to accept feedback from others.

I think it’s easy as an artist to get caught up in what others want or expect of you. So you tell yourself that what other’s say about you doesn’t bother you. But when you do that, it still influences you and your process unconsciously. You might start to question yourself and your creative decisions and pretty soon you hate everything you write, Ha! That’s what happened to me, anyway.

So now I don’t try to keep that guard up. If a criticism hurts, I let it hurt. I don’t have thick skin. I feel it, and by feeling it, I’m then able to process it and move on. It’s a bit counterintuitive but I think it’s the best way to maintain your identity in this world.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When the covid 19 pandemic hit in March of 2020, we were visiting Nashville for the first time. We lived in Massachusetts, and playing music was a large part of how we made a living. We got the calls that everything was shutting down, and we lost thousands of dollars worth of gigs. We flew back to Massachusetts not knowing how we were going to pay our bills, and then I got covid a few days later.

Bethany got the idea to host a livestream, and so the day after we got home, we put on a show for our friends and fans online. Their generosity was amazing. I played the best I could while sick, we had silly dance parties, and we ended up putting on quite a few livestreams during the shutdown. We pinched our pennies and sold almost everything we owned, and in October 2020, we moved to Nashville with our dog and only what we could fit in our cars. It was scary and a lot of work, but we wouldn’t change a thing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.plasticangels.net
• Instagram: _plasticangels_
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/plasticangelsmusic