The Staves Interview

The Staves are three sisters known for their stunning harmonies and folk infused melodies. Although relatively new on the music scene, they have toured with Willy Mason, Joshua Radin and have just been announced as the US support for Bon Iver. To find out about the disadvantages of working with your sisters and why pop music is dead we spoke to oldest sister Emily Staveley-Taylor.

When did the three of you start singing?

We got started just singing around the house, singing to whatever mum and dad were listening to, which was a lot of Beatles, a lot of Simon and Garfunkel, just loads of sixties pop and Motown. Our parents would have parties and the guitars would come out and we would all have a sing song, it was a sociable thing to do, just to sing together. We did a gig of covers and just thought it was great, bit-by-bit we replaced the covers with songs we had written ourselves. A couple of years ago we decided to really give it a go and work hard on this.

Do you have a main songwriter?

We all chip in, it’s a fairly collaborative process really. It was strange when we started writing songs as I was at university at Manchester and Millie and Jess were both still at school in Watford. I would come home and either Jess or Millie had written something then we would kind of arrange it for the three of us and in doing that the song would change anyway. Then Jess went off to university and I moved back to Watford. It’s always been quite disjointed, it’s only been in the last year or so that we have been physically in the same place together to even get a feel of what our writing process together really is. It’s always been really different, either we will sit in a room and in 3 hours we will bash out a song completely together or it will be almost entirely one persons work, which will be brought to the table and given The Staves treatment.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being sisters?

I guess one of the main advantages is swapping clothes and all that stuff. It’s just nice to spend time with people who know you inside out, who you don’t have to explain anything to, you just look at them and they know, you never really need to talk about it, what’s going on in your head or what you think about a song. It makes things work quicker because you don’t have to go into it. Also if you are really annoyed, which happens, you can tell them pretty forcefully and know that it’s going to be alright, I wouldn’t talk to my friends the way I speak to them. The disadvantages are that you fight, you squabble all the time, over what music to listen to in the van or what songs we should play, everything that kids squabble about.

You worked with Ethan & Glyn Johns on your album, how was that?

It was amazing, I don’t even know where to start, they are both legends. The music that they have produced has played a huge part in inspiring us. Glyn obviously more back in the day, like our parents music that we grew up with and Ethan more recently. I think to work with both of them was fantastic and a huge confidence boost as well to know that they thought we were doing something that they really rated meant a lot. To work with such masters at what they do was really fascinating because we have been singing together for so long but we are fairly new to recording. We have just done stuff with mates in garages and upstairs in pubs before. We learnt a lot about our sound and about making a record. I guess kind of work ethic and that kind of stuff. It was pretty inspiring to be around them.

You have been described as old fashioned, are you?

I don’t know. Maybe, I was talking to someone the other day about this. I think one of the great pleasures in life is to be sung to or read to, it’s a very basic enjoyable thing, sharing stories and all that kind of stuff. The simpler the way that you can do that, then the more old fashioned it is, I guess just human voices doing that, I mean we have the guitar and stuff but its not a huge sound, Its quite natural, it does feel quiet old timey. Many of our influences are 50’s, 60’s, 70’s so yeah I would go along with that.

Do you think the resurgence in folk music that’s happening at the moment is a reaction to all the manufactured pop around?

I am absolutely sure and thank God. The music that dominates the mainstream charts at the moment is so highly polished that it’s dead. How you can have an emotional reaction to that stuff, that’s been auto tuned, all of that kind of stuff is beyond me. The general public aren’t stupid and when you find something that is real you grab it, not just us loads of stuff. Folk music is real, it’s people’s music. I am sure there is a need out there for something to connect with and too right.

Published in the Metro