After taking their talent from campus basements to Broadway and stages nationwide, the soul-pop group Lawrence, which boasts multiple Brunonians among its members, received a nomination for the 2026 Grammy awards.
The nomination adds to their long list of accolades: appearances at notable festivals like the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, opening for The Rolling Stones at MetLife Stadium and nearly 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Siblings Gracie Lawrence and Clyde Lawrence ’15 were touring their fourth studio album, “Family Business,” when they first learned that their song “Something in the Water (acoustic-ish)” had been nominated for “Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals” at the 2026 Grammy Awards.
Gracie Lawrence secretly believed she had a “pretty good chance” of being nominated for her work on the Broadway show “Just in Time” — which ultimately received a nomination for “Best Musical Theater Album.” The family band’s nomination, on the other hand, was “a crazy surprise that we were genuinely not expecting,” Clyde Lawrence said.
“Something In The Water (acoustic-ish)” is an alternate version of the band’s song “Something In The Water.” The band started their career with live performances and living-room jam sessions before recording their music, so “having these fun, different arrangements of songs was second nature to us,” Clyde Lawrence said. Their experience reimagining their music led them to create new versions of several songs that developed into their live album, “acoustic-ish: an album…ish.”
“We kind of jokingly realized that acoustic was not really a proper name for it,” said Clyde Lawrence, laughing while explaining the series’s title. As the Lawrence siblings’ ideas for the project “started getting more and more complex,” with additional instruments and vocalists, they relabeled it “acoustic-ish.”
Their brother Linus Lawrence ’25 — a former sports editor at The Herald — also helped produce the “acoustic-ish” series, aiding in the vocal arrangement of “Something In The Water (acoustic-ish).” At Brown, he served a variety of roles in the campus music scene — including as a member of the a cappella group “The Bear Necessities” and founder of Beach Boys cover band The Stowaways.
Linus Lawrence had already expressed his interest in the project due to his love for the original “Something In The Water” song, so the two brothers ultimately chose to arrange the live recording’s vocals together.
Since Linus Lawrence is not an official member of Lawrence and has only participated in this specific project, he noted that his inclusion in the nomination was “statistically shocking” and “absolutely bonkers.”
“This is literally the one thing in the entire 11-year history of Lawrence that I have ever had a creative credit on,” he said.
Beyond the group’s recent Grammy nomination, Clyde Lawrence and the rest of the band also made their Broadway debut this December, creating original music for Tony award-winning director Alex Timbers’s show “All Out: Comedy About Ambition.”
This is far from Gracie Lawrence’s first time on a Broadway stage. She portrayed singer and actress Connie Francis for six months in the Broadway musical “Just In Time.” The show’s original cast recording also received a 2026 Grammy nomination for “Best Musical Theater Album” — Gracie Lawrence’s second nomination of the season.
Reflecting on their musical journey, both Gracie and Clyde Lawrence emphasized Brown’s unique contribution to their careers.
Clyde Lawrence fondly recalled playing in campus basements and at parties — and how then 14-year-old Gracie Lawrence would visit on weekends to perform alongside him and his bandmates.
“The band that is playing tonight on a Broadway stage is the exact same group of people that played basement parties on John Street during my junior year of college,” he said. “Brown is such a meaningful part of our story.”
While she dropped out before graduating to further pursue her music career, Gracie Lawrence holds her time at Brown in high regard.
“I have so much love for (the Brown) community and appreciation for what it gave me,” she said. “Our whole band would not exist without Brown.”
