With its late hours, loud clubs, and typical diet of drugs and alcohol, electronic music is generally ranked among the least family-friendly genres. But for minimal techno legend Robert Hood and his daughter Lyric, the scene is a more wholesome family affair.
The father/daughter duo have been performing together as Floorplan since 2016 — when Lyric was still a teenager — touring nightclubs in the US and Europe and playing festivals from Coachella to CRSSD to Tomorrowland. This summer they will be performing at clubs such as Ibiza's Hï and Ushuaïa and Berlin's Panorama Bar, and will release their new album, an 18-track collection of sleek, rich, energizing house music called The Master's Plan, on June 21 via Classic Music Company. Ahead of that, they'll be celebrating Father's Day this Sunday, June 16, which also happens to be Lyric's 27th birthday.
“We're mind-synced,” Lyric, an only child, says of herself and her dad. She says it's not unusual for her to think of the piece she wants to play next while on stage, seeing that her father has already queued it up.
While the elder Hood made her Floorplan debut in the early 2000s, Lyric joined the project years later when her parents realized that the scion of Detroit techno royalty just had DJing in her blood. Lyric and her parents – who have been married for almost 30 years – were figuring out what kind of fun to have at her 16th birthday party. The trio eventually decided that Lyric would be DJing the celebration. She began practicing, debuting her skills for the friends and family gathered at the party, her first concert.
“She was a natural,” Robert says by phone from the family's home in Alabama, where the family moved from Detroit a year ago. “My wife and I had previously talked about 'what if's – like if Lyric became a DJ too. We said, 'Wow, we don't know if we want her in the music business – but if she has a calling, if she has a knack for it, let's let's push her in that direction and support her.”
The opportunity to provide this support came naturally. At Hood's 2015 set at Movement Festival in Detroit, he let Lyric take over the decks for part of the show. Her picks – Katy Perry songs mixed with Martin Garrix tracks, Beyoncé's “Formation” and more. – wasn't expecting the crowd, some of whom wore T-shirts that read “I'm Here for Hood,” when they gathered to hear the minimal techno that established the aging Hood as a respected pioneer of the genre. He was cool with it.
“It was just an experiment to see how he felt [like playing] without trying to fit her into my minimal techno box,” says Robert. “I decided to let her be her.”
Things progressed quickly from there, with the pair producing music together and releasing their first collaborative album as Floorplan, Victoriousin 2016. They began touring extensively in the US and Europe — and while Lyric wasn't necessarily shocked by anything she saw, having grown up in green rooms and backstage (her first time on stage was when she introduced her dad on stage at the France's I Love Techno festival when she was 12), her new position in the DJ booth gave her a particularly good view of classic clubland irreverence.
“There are a few clubs in particular, where I'm like, 'OK, I know I have to shield her eyes, because I know something sketchy is going on to the left,'” says Robert. “So let's go from here to get to the DJ booth.”
“Our first Coachella experience,” Lyric continues. “We had to walk with our eyes closed, with blinders on, because there were many different people dressed in a certain way. It was like, “Let's get where we're going and not look around.”
For Robert, it's a much more comfortable and joyful experience to guide his daughter through the industry rather than sending her out to navigate it on her own. “It's a little less than a healthy environment for a young adult,” he says, “and so it's about parental guidance. A party or club festival atmosphere can be a bit dangerous. I'm a hands-on dad and always have been. She's seen some not-so-healthy things, but I'm there to guide her and cover for her.”
“Some people would say I'm an overprotective dad,” he adds, “but I'm proudly overprotective.”
The urge to avoid stage hedonism is heightened, given the religious beliefs that also heavily influence Floorplan's music. The project was originally started in 2002, with Robert bringing it back years later, around the same time he became an ordained minister. The music is full of messages about “magnifying His name” and “giving you honor,” and the title “Teacher” in The Master's Plan it is God. Lyric says the life instruction she's gotten from the church doubles as career advice.
“Staying close to God is probably the main piece of advice they give me regularly,” Lyric says of her parents. “Even today, I am always told how important it is to stay close to God and say in prayer, know that God protects you. Even if I'm traveling alone, or if I'm with my dad, or even in life in general, God is always there to protect me.”
And the way they see it, given the sense of spiritual connection that a really good track can inherently foster, their spiritual mission fits their work perfectly.
“It's like taking the message to the streets,” says Robert “I've seen people ministering in places like New Orleans during Mardi Gras, but our approach is probably a lot less evangelical and more of a Trojan horse. The message isn't buried in the music, it's there at the forefront — but it's kind of married to that beat and that beat.”
And clubs and festivals, he says, “are already created for this. You have the pulpit, the sanctuary, the church, the minister… It's like having a revival in the middle of a festival.”
Many such revivals are on the horizon for the Hood family, with Lyric and her parents soon moving to Amsterdam for the summer. The city will be a home base while Floorplan jets to stages in Ibiza, Berlin, Defected Festival Croatia and festivals in France, Ireland and beyond.
Both warm, relaxed and funny on the phone, the pair have an obvious affection and respect for each other, saying that while they sometimes disagree about the direction any given set should take, they've never suspected that they're working together or at odds for the direction of the project. And over time, the younger Hood became the de facto leader of the project.
“Lyric is brutally honest when it comes to, 'Okay, this is not good. I do not like this “. She's a young upstart — so she has her ear to the road more than I do, because I'm old,” Robert says with a laugh. “You have to let the kids drive the bus.”
