So you’ve just released ‘Lichtenberg Figures’, I just had a google about the name and it’s something surrounding burns on the skin from an electric charge, I think! Where did the name come from, is there any personal significance to it?
We wrote Lichtenberg Figures in our first writing session with the wonderful Sam Griffiths [The Howl & The Hum]. He just had ‘Lichtenberg Figures’ in his iPhone notes, and told us what they were. We spent a while looking at spooky photos of them, and then just started writing. I think we reached the end of verse two before we actually stopped and discussed what the narrative was. Sam is so clever with lyric-writing and this song feels like a perfect blend of all three of us. So, it didn’t start out as a personal story, but it’s obviously something we have definitely all felt.
You’ve said this single “depicts finding strength and life-changing experiences from moments of adversity and vulnerability.” Which a lot of people can relate to. Is this writing from a personal perspective, and is this the overarching theme for the new EP?
The EP is called Someone To Be There For, which is a lyric from the first single from it, ‘Sirens’. These songs all touch on growth, either through relationships or in self-discovery. Although writing Lichtenberg Figures didn’t start out as a personal account, we each have faced some huge emotional challenges over the last couple of years, and I think we’d both agree that we’re not weaker or less beautiful for it. Hopefully, it makes people listening to it feel powerful and uplifted. I think the songs on the EP sit in different stages of the journey to feeling powerful and strong, in relation to different challenges. ‘I Don’t Know Why’ is the frustration of trying to and not being able to understand someone close to you; ‘Sirens’ is a love song for the most necessary kind of friend – the one that needs you. The final two songs reflect the loss of both yourself and another person in a break up, and the realisation of growing apart from old friends. There’s no linear start and end to any of these experiences and feelings, and this is reflected in the tracklist order.
This is your second release for the year, as you build to the release of your debut EP Someone to be There For. Has this been a long time coming? because you guys have been releasing music since 2018 and have some great singles!
The debut EP has definitely been a long time coming, but these songs were written in the time and space the 2020 lockdown gave us and it would have been a completely different project without that time. Obviously, a lot of people suffered during this time, and we had personal challenges ourselves, but the opportunity for creativity was definitely a silver lining. All of these songs have been a collaborative process, and we only started exploring collaboration in songwriting in early 2020. It’s been fun working on a whole project for the first time, with visuals, artwork and production.
You’re yet to release the EP, but it would be great to know what your favourite tracks off the EP are and why?
Honestly, we love them all and are super super proud of this collection of songs…but I think ‘Sirens’ holds a special place. Writing Sirens was a special moment for all of us involved, hence the ‘someone to be there for’ lyric becoming the EP title. It really captures how we all felt at the time and how strong we feel when we’re together. I [Amy] had written a verse and wanted Lily, Tom and Sam to help me finish what I wanted to say. Because we’re all such good friends, finding the right way to say how we feel, feels like a natural process when in a session. The song depicts the beauty and necessity of good friendship and how valuable being needed can be when you feel lost and sort of directionless. Sirens would not be the song it is without Sam and Tom’s contributions and so it was very important that their vocals and guitar parts were woven into the textures of this track. For us, having the four vocals, and them being such special people to us, create that sonic warm hug, reassuring feeling, uplifting ‘I’ll be there for you’ that the song talks about. We feel we managed to recreate in this final version, the vulnerable, honest feeling we had in the room when writing Sirens.
As this was a marker for how the rest of the EP would sound, and which songs would join Sirens on the EP, it felt right to make it the first single.
Your songs have always been fairly slow, very melodic and had the base of fantastic vocals from the two of you. Do you always see Sunflower Thieves creating music of this ilk, or would you like to try and test other musical journeys?
We [and by we, I mean Lil] have already started playing with new production for songs we’re working on, which is super exciting and a new direction in some ways. We definitely don’t plan on confining ourselves to any one sound. But yes, the lyrics and vocals are the centre of it all and the songs are built around them.
Side note, you both have wonderous vocals! Did either of you have vocal lessons or training, or is it something you’ve both done from a young age and developed over time?
What a glorious thing to be told. We’ve never had vocal training – we probably should at some point as it can only help us get to know our voices better! We’ve just grown up singing together and there’s definitely a connection between our voices which has developed organically over this time. We’re often mistaken for sisters and I think that’s largely why haha.
Speaking about growing up, what were your musical tastes growing up, and do they reflect and influence the music you create now?
We were super fortunate in that we grew up in a really encouraging, artsy creative community back home in Derbyshire, and our parents brought live music into our lives from a really young age. Lots of folk gigs and storytelling music in the car on long journeys, which definitely have played a part in our writing. In developing our own music tastes, artists like Lucy Rose, Taylor Swift, Carole King, Billie Marten, etc have been a part of that for as long as we can remember. In more recent years, and with paerticular reference to our song structure, lyrical content and production, Phoebe Bridgers, Maggie Rogers and Fenne Lily are some of our main influences, both as artists and just general wonderful human beings.
I hate to bring it up because there’s not an interview which goes by where it isn’t mentioned. But obviously you guys had to continue through lockdown, and I know some acts which didn’t make it. Were you guys ever close to slowing down and stopping, or did you find it brought you closer together?
Despite all the heavy stuff that came with the last two years, it’s been really good for us as creatives. We wrote so much more than we’ve ever written, and wrote with so many wonderful writers that we may never have been able to otherwise. It gave us real time and headspace to write what we needed to say, to work on our visual ideas for the songs, to explore new writing and production approaches, all of which is feeding into where we’re at now. We also met [granted, often online] so many supportive and wonderful people during lockdown who have given us many exciting opportunities, including our manager, Nick. And yeah, it definitely brought us closer together.
Really looking forward to the EP to be released, and hopefully see you guys live. Is there a particular town/venue you’re looking forward to share the new EP with?
We’re heading out on tour with Lewis Watson in April, and we can’t WAIT. We’ll be playing some cities then that we’ve never played before – Glasgow, Oxford, Birmingham, Bristol. We’ve wanted to play Rescue Rooms in Notts for a while so that will be a nice feeling for us. And Thekla in Bristol – first gig on a boat!
It’ll be great to be back in London too. We’re playing at The Roundhouse in the Studio Theatre on May 5th alongside two great artists, IORA and Gabrielle Sey on May 5th. Aaaaand we have a couple of really exciting dates in London that we can’t announce yet, but are super looking forward to playing for the first time alongside some particularly wonderful musicians we’ve admired for some time.
Finally you guys are Leeds based, I’m a huge fan of The Cribs who are proudly from the merry city (Wakefield). So I just wanted to know, what is the best thing about Leeds and why?
The community! We both went to Leeds Conservatoire and the creative community that spills out of is a large part of why Leeds feels like home to us now. There’s so much going on here, and we’re lucky to be in the middle of such a supportive network of musicians, organisations, venues and other creatives. Oh and also Hyde Park Book Club and its bagels.