Theo Lawrence: French Bred, Country Raised
Photo by: Kate Liddy
Growing up in Paris, France, Austin-based country singer/songwriter Theo Lawrence was surrounded by pop and hip-hop music. His affinity for old country music distinguished him from his peers, and drove him to spend hours pouring over albums and concert recordings checked out from the local media lending library. While his peers listened to modern pop, Lawrence devoured Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Elvis, Carl Smith, Jim Reeves, and Kitty Wells.
“What really rocked my world at that time was seeing footage of bands and artists play that music. My father rented the Woodstock festival for me on DVD and we'd watch The Who and Jimi Hendrix and people really being electrified on stage,” Lawrence says. “That was my gateway to being really passionate about it is, is seeing the people on stage doing their thing, and then it makes a total portrait in your mind.”
Just as it has for so many other Americana artists, that early infatuation transformed into a deep reverence for the stories and people in country music and years spent seeking out that music and learning to make it himself. These days Lawrence is becoming a fixture of Austin’s country music scene, known for his sharp style and spot-on country sound and songs that sound directly out of the Marty Robbins and George Jones canon.
Photo by: Brian Harrington | Western AF
Lawrence’s 2023 debut country album, Chérie, opens with “California Poppy,” a twangy guitar-driven road trip story about a fling gone wrong, establishing his hard-won credentials from the start. Like any good country album, Chérie, which is full of syrupy guitar twang, and whiny fiddle, wallows in heartbreak — “Now That You’re Gone,” “How Do I Learn to Lose,” and “A Dime for a Nickel” — cuts loose for dance numbers — “The Universe Is Winding Down” and “Every Wish” — and conjures a few good, funky characters — “Liquor and Love,” “Kitty Cat Clock,” and “Keechie & Bowie,” a bandit story and “Pancho and Lefty” homage.
As an American country music-obsessed kid growing up in Paris, Lawrence was fascinated by everything from how the musicians he saw in the concert recordings dressed, to how they played, and who did what in the background. Soon he got a guitar and learned to sing along. And the minute he mastered a couple chords, he began writing music. Lawrence’s artist parents both followed non-traditional career paths, and when they saw him losing interest in typical school subjects, they encouraged him into music.
“I didn't really have any passion or anything like that, so it was a very instant calling — ‘this is going to be my thing, I'm going to play guitar, sing songs, write my songs, and play in a band.’ It was [a] point of no return,” Lawrence says.
Still, Lawrence’s early bands weren’t really country, because none of his musical friends knew country music. And old country music remained more of a private hobby until Lawrence met Thibault Ripault who shared his affinity. Their band together played classic country music, and Lawrence set about learning to write songs for them to play.
“I was getting a little frustrated to see that there was such a gap between the music that I was listening to and music that I was making,” Lawrence says. “He was the first person that I met that was part of my age group that made me feel like it was okay to really lean in the country sound and do it unapologetically.”
Writing like the old country music Lawrence loved felt like a code he needed to crack. Diligently he listened over and over, dissecting the albums sonically so he could sort out songs’ rhythm, the arrangements, what guitar was used and who played it, and the harmonies, in order to ape each component himself when he wrote and recorded songs.
“My goal was that nobody could tell that it was me who wrote them,” Lawrence says. “My goal was to write songs that any of these artists could have sung. And write classic country songs that could have been just part of the repertoire at that time.”
With Ripault, Lawrence traveled to Austin for the first time in 2019. They rented gear and a house for a month, intent on learning the scene and its players with an outside goal of playing maybe one gig while they were there. Three days after landing, they had their first gig, and soon booked another and another, filling nearly the whole month with shows.
At their first American gig – at Sam’s Point – Lawrence felt at ease in a way he never had before in his years as a musician. And repeatedly during that first month-long trip to Austin, Lawrence was blown away as he watched the audience two stepping and listening intently, their joy readily apparent.
“It doesn’t make any sense to play old country music in France. Well, maybe it’s romantic in a way, but it’s pretty painful; it was getting pretty frustrating just to be completely at the wrong spot.”
“It was this epiphany moment where we're like ‘okay, finally, we found our spot. We found our people,’” Lawrence says. “It doesn't make any sense to play old country music in France. Well, maybe it's romantic in a way, but it's pretty painful; it was getting pretty frustrating just to be completely at the wrong spot.”
Though the COVID-19 pandemic and border closures slowed them down, Lawrence and Ripault visited Austin again a few more times, before relocating there in late 2023. Now, with two country albums under his belt (Chérie and the acoustic Pickin’ & Singin’), a touring schedule, and a freshly recorded new album, Lawrence is settling into his Austin country music career well.
Instead of making something new and innovative, Lawrence wants to make country music that sounds traditional and timeless, a novelty in itself in France, or coming from a Frenchman playing out in Austin, TX. His songs are a mixture of the personal — heartfelt heartbreak and loneliness ballads — and the character-driven outlandish and outlaw tales, each rooted in the long history of country and Americana music Lawrence studied so thoroughly.
“Sometimes I like to write songs to escape reality, especially if you're living in France and you're completely remote from everything that you want to be, you're going to put yourself in California on a beautiful PCH with California poppies blooming on the roadside, because it sounds better than a rainy street in Paris,” Lawrence says. “And then other times you just have no choice but writing about your personal experience.”
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