A Conversation with Jessica Stavely-Taylor – HuffPost 6.18.12
Mike Ragogna: Jessica, can you tell us the story behind The Staves’ new EP The Motherlode?
Jessica Staveley-Taylor: Well, the story is that this is our second EP. It’s just been released here in the States, which we’re very excited about. “The Motherlode” is one of the tracks that’s going to be on our album when it comes out later this year. We wrote that song a while back, and it’s a little bit different from our other songs; it’s a bit less introverted and less about ourselves and our own experiences. That song actually tells the story of another character, which is something that we don’t normally do when we’re writing. There are also two other songs on the EP, “Pay Us No Mind” and “Wisely And Slow.”
MR: Can you tell us about the origins of The Staves, it being comprised of you and your sisters? Like, have you always sung together?
JST: As a matter of fact, we’d always sung together, ever since we were very tiny. Our parents would also sing to us. They both played a little bit of piano and guitar. There was always music in the house, that music seeped in from our time at home. We would sing together while we were washing up and we’d just compete for fun. Later, we started performing in some of the local pubs in Watford, our hometown. We got really great reception from the locals, and at the time, we didn’t even have a band name. One day, one of our friends wrote down “The Staves” on the chalkboard at the pub where we were performing and that just kind of stuck. From that point on, people referred to us as The Staves. We kind of thought that we would change the name at some point, but we never did. (laughs) It just kind of felt right. So our singing and performing together just happened in a kind of organic way.
MR: The Staves performed at South by Southwest, can you tell us a little bit about that experience? It was terrible wasn’t it.
JST: Right. Absolutely terrible, we’ll never go again. (laughs) I’m kidding of course, it was incredible. The whole thing was generally just mad, but in a very good way. There were tons of people everywhere, tons of music coming from every orifice of every bar. (laughs) That was something we’ve always wanted to do, and it was such a wonderful experience. We’d heard so many stories from our friends about how great it was to play there, so it was a lot of fun. We also got to play some really great shows to some incredible crowds. It was brilliant.
MR: It’s such a great venue because everyone’s there for the music — either performing or promoting it — and we get the chance to hear new artists like you and your sisters.
JST: Right! It is a very commercial festival because there is a lot of industry networking that happens there, but it’s great that we got to experience the shows where people were really just invested in hearing music, new and otherwise. Those were the really fun shows.
JST: Yes, that’s right.
MR: Do The Staves have a specific process while recording?
JST: Well, the way we recorded this album and subsequent EPs have been recorded in a very live way. We’ve found that works best for our sound, which is essentially just three harmonies. Most of the songs are driven by just the harmonies, the lyrics, and the acoustic guitar and ukulele. We’ve found that the best way for us is to just record live. Everything that you hear with us singing with a band is recorded live as well. We’ve found that it lets us capture a certain energy and a certain mood in a certain moment, that way you can revisit that moment every time you listen to the song. That’s also the way that Ethan Johns and Glyn Johns — who are producing the album — prefer to work, as well.
MR: You’ve also shot a music video for “The Motherlode,” which was directed by Miles O’Reilly.
JST: Yes, that’s correct. Miles is an amazing filmmaker from Dublin. For the video, we flew over to Dublin and spent the day walking around the city and the woods. From there, we went and walked around some amazing mountains, we even got caught in a hailstorm. It was all-in-all a very exciting and cold day in Ireland. (laughs) It was a great day. We’ve done a couple of short videos with Miles before, and we think he’s such a brilliant filmmaker. It felt like it was the right thing to do, this last video with him.
MR: Let’s talk about your tour.
JST: Well, the tour is well underway, we’ll be in the States very soon playing in Salt Lake City, and in Florida…so many places, my mind is currently drawing a blank. (laughs) That’s what happens when you tour too much. You get used to living on a sort of day by day basis, and you can’t really think about tomorrow until you get told by somebody what the schedule for tomorrow is. (laughs) We’ve been traveling quite a lot, and it’s really exciting because we get to go to a lot of places that we haven’t been before. We are so lucky that we’ll get to be touring with Bon Iver, which is just a wonderful band. They’re also really, really lovely people. It’s lots of fun.
MR: Recently, there was a mention in Vogue about The Staves said your Mexico EP possessed “…a world weariness, reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s Ladies Of The Canyon.” How do you feel about such things?
JST: It’s very overwhelming hearing people saying such nice things about you, actually. You can never really know how to react. It’s all very nice. To be compared to someone the likes of Joni Mitchell is just incredible. Or, “Ridiculous!” as we say. (laughs)
MR: (laughs) Since Joni Mitchell came up, who would you say were some of The Staves’ influences growing up?
JST: Well, Joni was definitely one of our huge influences. She’s such an incredible lyricist, and has such a fantastic way with melodies. We grew up listening to a lot of our parents’ music, which all fell into the ’60s generation. There were a lot of, I guess you could call them harmony bands, like The Byrds, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, and The Hollies. But The Beatles were the sort of staple in the Stavely-Taylor household. We also listened to a lot of Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, and Neil Young. There was some Motown in there as well. Basically, just really great music. We were very lucky to have parents with good taste in music. As I said earlier, I think that kind of seeps into you and sticks with you as you grow up. That can come out in very serious ways as you grow up.
MR: It’s really sweet that you and your sisters weren’t afraid of embracing your parents’ generation’s music.
JST: Yeah. I think that’s certainly changed from my parent’s day when they didn’t have anything in common with the music of their parents, so they would rebel by going into their rooms and listening to rock music, whereas with us, it’s much less common for someone in our generation to hear music from an earlier generation and say, “What’s that racket?” I think nowadays, they like some of our music, and we like what they listened to.
MR: Right. Do you have any advice that you’d like to give to new artists?
JST: Oh, that’s a good question. Before I start, I should say that I don’t feel qualified really to give the advice. (laughs) But you have to have a good amount of self-belief because you’ll always get knocked down. That’s why I think it’s also important to surround yourself with people you can trust and rely on. It’s very easy to be led astray by people, especially when you get into the world of record contracts and managers and things like that. We’ve been very fortunate to have been surrounded by good people from the start. I think you have to remember that every opportunity, even though it may seem like a good opportunity, is going to be the right opportunity for you if you’re not ready for it immediately. Sometimes you have the chance at an opportunity that wouldn’t do as much for you as it would for someone a bit further down the line in their career. I think the key is just to play as much as you can and really develop your sound. And, of course, believe in yourself.
MR: Very nicely put. You know, when I ask that question, I don’t think anyone has ever mentioned that very important factor in a musician’s career — timing. If you are presented with an opportunity in your career and you’re not ready for it musically, it kind of means nothing.
JST: I feel like it sounds like a very negative take on things, because it’s very hard to tell yourself that you’re not ready for something yet. However, I know there were opportunities that came along for us at certain points in time that we knew we weren’t ready for. The people around us really wanted us to do them, but we felt that we weren’t ready. We believed that if it was meant to be, those opportunities would come around another time. In the position that we’re in now, I think we’re very glad that we made those decisions.
MR: Right. I think that should also serve as motivation to young and aspiring artists to keep working so that they are ready when those opportunities present themselves.
JST: Yeah, and I think that’s the very tricky side to all of this. It certainly helps when you have a team of people around you to give you advice on those kinds of things. But when you’re starting on your own in this business, it can be very difficult to make those decisions.
MR: Can you tell us something about The Staves that we don’t know yet?
JST: Well, let’s see. We’re huge fans of tea, but you could probably guess that because we’re English. We’re quite big fans of Denny’s, the roadside diner in the States. We enjoy visiting there when we’re on the road. We’re also suckers for really bad reality TV. We watched quite a bit of The Real Housewives of Vancouver during our time in Canada. (laughs) We got a bit hooked on it. I think that’s a pretty uncool admission. (laughs)
MR: (laughs) Jessica, thank you so much for coming and spending time with us today. It’s been wonderful.
JST: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Transcribed by Evan Martin