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In total harmony The Staves are brilliantly, achingly cool. One of the trio, Emily Staveley-Taylor, talks to Ella Walker about standing up for girls in music, sibling spats and what it’s like having your second album produced by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.
e definitely feel outnumbered,” says Emily Staveley-Taylor, one third of sweetly harmonising folksters The Staves. “Women have always been outnumbered in music and, even if there was an equal split of male and female artists, the music industry is run by men, predominantly.
“Even the fact we’re having this conversation shows things aren’t equal.” I know, I say, I feel bad for even having to ask. “But you do have to ask, and it’s important and it’s good to shed light on the fact ‘female’ is still a genre,” she says fiercely. “You’d never describe a band of four guys as an ‘all male band’, but we’re always described as an ‘all female band’.” Alongside her sisters Jessica and Camilla, the role and visibility of women in music is one topic this Watford-born trio increasingly find themselves fielding. “We’ve worked with one female tour manager and one female sound engineer. Everyone else – crew, A&R guys – are all men, and predominantly the musicians too. I mean, name all the female bass players and drummers that you know. There just aren’t any,” says Emily. “There’s a way to go but I think the landscape is much fairer than it was 15 years ago.” Thankfully that’s down to The Staves and their contemporaries First Aid Kit, Honeyblood and Haim – who are, Emily says, “making it very cool and not about being super sexy; just being about being really, really talented.” This inspiring bunch of so-called ‘girl bands’ (ugh) have easily produced some of the best records of the last two years: First Aid Kit’s Stay Gold and Haim’s Days Are Gone are actual masterpieces – no argument. The Stave’s upcoming offering, If I Was, due out on March 23, is set to join the ranks. They’re returning to Cambridge (“I have a very hazy, beer-swilled recollection of having a damn good time in Cambridge”) for a gig at the Junction prior to its release. Blessed with dark eyes, hanks of loose chestnut hair and ethereal voices that make your skin shiver, the trio pen luminous harmonies, roughed up by folky rockiness and keening lyrics, and went from performing down their local pub to working with Mumford & Sons and Tom Jones, appearing on his 2010 record Praise & Blame. Emily, the eldest of the three, is super chatty, friendly and thoughtful – as well as incredibly cool, having spent the morning with Jessica “drinking tea and listening to records and trying to finish off our artwork for the album.”
•The Staves, Cambridge Junction, Tuesday, February 17 at 7pm. Tickets £13.50 from (01223) 511511/junction.co.uk.
The album – their second – she explains, was written almost accidentally after visiting one of their greatest champions, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. “It really happened very, very naturally with no plan at all,” she says happily. “We weren’t even thinking about an album, CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE
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we were just having fun with our friends and kind of committing to tape a record of that time, and that spirit of things continued on. It wasn’t until the third visit out there that he said, ‘I think we’re making a record together now’. So we were like, ‘Oh, yeah, huh! OK, we should think about how many songs we want on it and stuff’.” She explains If I Was “is and it isn’t” sonically different to their debut record, 2012’s Dead & Born & Grown. “We’re using a lot of sounds and instruments that we didn’t use on the first record. The first one we did all live, it was very organic, there was some electric guitar but the rest of it was mainly acoustic instruments. Even when it came to keys, we used harmoniums and organs and very, I guess, folky sounding instruments, whereas on this record we’ve embraced more synthetic instruments, which has been really exciting. “The sonic palette is very different. But at the core of this album, and the last one, is still our voices and good songs. So, if you were expecting to hear three part harmonies, you won’t be let down.” You won’t, at all. It’s stunning, from the beautifully layered opening track Blood I Bled (off the 2014 EP of the same name), the hard brightness of Make It Holy, softly catching on your heartstrings (“I could make you want me/Make you need me, make you mine”), to the lullaby lilting of Sadness Don’t Own Me and first single, Steady, which has a thawing bassiness and warmth that swaddles you in high, clear notes. YouTube it immediately. Having had it produced by Justin, who famously wrote his debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, in a wooden cabin in the pine tree strewn wilds of Wisconsin, just adds to the crackle of magic that darts through it. “I love him!” I blurt out, coming over all embarrassingly fan-girl (don’t judge, he’s amazing). “Ha, so do we, and so should everyone!” Emily laughs. “He’s wonderful, he really is. We’ve been fans of Bon Iver of course for a long time but [Justin] is a very wonderful man and he’s become a very loving friend of ours. “His boundless enthusiasm and energy and faith in us and our music has been incredibly important in the making of this record. I think to be able to voice any sort of idea and have someone pick it up and never laugh at it; never belittle it; never pull a face; never say ‘Erm, I’m not sure’, but to always say ‘Yeah! Let’s do it now, that’s great’, inspires you to be bolder with your ideas and braver and have more confidence in yourself. “To work with him and go on this creative journey together has been just one of the best things in our lives.” Although they didn’t get to make their record
interview
The Staves, Emily pictured left
We weren’t even thinking about an album, we were just having fun with our friends and kind of committing to tape a record of that time, and that spirit of things continued on.
in Justin’s fabled cabin, they did get to stay at his house (“It is kinda in the woods”) and work with him in his basement studio. “It’s nice and big and cosy with those warm wooden colours and there’s cats slinking in and out of guitar cases. It’s great, it’s a really, really fun place to have big sleepovers because there’s loads of bedrooms so you get to have parties every night.” The jealousy at this point was already almost too much to bear, and then Emily added: “We did have a really nice time around Christmas last year. We cooked up a load of mulled wine and we all made Christmas cookies and someone went and cut down a tree and brought it into the house and we decorated it and everyone just sat around singing carols – The Muppet Christmas Carol! It was great; we sang some good old carols and had a Christmas party.” So now, after all that work (and play, and cat cuddling presumably), are they nervous at all about releasing If I Was? “No, I feel really excited; it’s a really nice thing to be able to share something that you’re really proud of with, you know – the world! Strangers! People who aren’t your parents!” she laughs. “And I think as long as you’re totally happy with it, there’s nothing to be nervous about because if people don’t like CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE
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it, they don’t like it, but you know that it’s exactly how you want it, so that’s the most important thing.” And did your parents like it when they first heard it? “Yeah they did! I was slightly nervous about that I have to say, haha, but yeah they did. Either that or they’re lying very convincingly.” With such a strong family element to their set up – three sisters working and touring together, on top of the fact Camilla and Jessica still live at home in Watford, with Emily in a flat round the corner – you have to wonder whether they tumble back into silly sibling rivalries, or whether they’re as harmonious as their vocals. “Most people have the good sense to move away from their families and their homes when they grow up and carve out their own lives, but we’ve somehow decided to stay in those roles,” says Emily wryly. “You end up having exactly the same kind of arguments as when you were little. “Give it to me! It was mine! I had it first! [in the voice of a spoilt 9-year-old] Shotgun over who gets to sit in the front of the car or whatever, but generally we’re pretty good mates and have quite a good laugh together.” That’s a relief.