Music: The Staves

Jeff Hemmings talks to harmony three-piece The Staves

Three sisters with three voices, The Staves epitomise the current vogue for harmonies a la Crosby, Stills and Nash along with a number of West Coast groups they love. “I think being sung to is the nicest thing in the world”, says Emily Staveley-Taylor, eldest of the sisters.

In a relatively short space of time The Staves have found themselves touring with the likes of The Civil Wars, Bon Iver and Michael Kiwanuka, as well as singing for Tom Jones on his recent Praise And Blame album, and Fionn Regan’s 100 Acres Of Sycamore. It is on the first date of the European tour with Bon Iver that I caught up with Jessica who, along with Emily and younger sister Camilla, make up the band. “I had just finished uni, and they said if I go then it’ll be another three years before we do anything,” says Jessica on deciding to go full-time with the band.

Combining the English folkiness of Laura Marling with early ‘70s Laurel Canyon vibes, The Staves have bewitched those who have seen them live, their superficial ‘English Rose’ looks bely a steelier edge to the lyrics. Dead & Born & Grown, the name of the debut album, has “an ‘all things must pass’ sentiment behind it; it was one of the first songs we had written, but it felt right…things had come full circle. It felt fitting to have the first song we wrote as the album title.”

The album was produced by legendary producer Glyn Johns and his son Ethan. “We met them both separately, meeting Ethan first while he was producing the Tom Jones album we sang on. Ethan had always been our dream producer to work with so we slipped him a copy of the first EP we did which we had recorded it on tape, and he still uses tape. So, we used that as a way to get in there – ‘could you listen to it and see how the tape sounds?’ sort of thing,” she laughs. He liked it and asked us if we had anymore and it went from there.

Komedia, Tuesday 20 November, 8pm, £9
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