THE CADBURY SISTERS

Playing this year's Two Thousand Trees Festival

I’ve always been a sucker for a good harmony and the Cadbury Sisters have the most wonderful harmonies I’ve heard in a long time. I first saw them when we were both appearing at the Wychwood Festival last year. They sounded sublime, enthusiastic and alive. There was such energy and verve in their performance. I decided there and then that these women were going places.

Jess, Mary and Lucy really are sisters. You can tell that they have sung together for a long time when you hear the ease with which their voices combine into those glorious harmonies. And the quality of the song writing! That alone would make them worth listening to.

I have followed their career through their ep releases. Barefoot, the latest is excellent. I have watched their progress up the bills of festivals and was lucky enough to be on at Lechlade festival with them.

 In the intervening year their performance skills had grown even stronger. There was an assured feel to their set at Lechlade and they were superb, just the thing for a sunny afternoon. They stole the show.

I have been trying to link to a lovely video but cannot due to some technical reason beyond my limited abilities-here's a link. It's worth a look/listen.

Jess

I am delighted that they agreed to an interview.

Lucy

Your harmonies are beautiful. Have you always sang together?

Thank you. Yes we have always sang together since we could talk! We were those children who had to be told to stop singing round the dinner table!

Mary

Last year when I saw you at Wychwood you mentioned  your Laura Marling moment-that relisation that you could write songs. Can you tell us about that?

I don't know if you've heard Marling's song New Romantic, but that song was the one that just made her so relatable to us as young women. She was fresh and her songs were so simple in a way but also very deep and intelligent. We started covering her songs for fun basically, and then that inspired us to start writing our own lyrics and songs.

Who influenced you when you were starting out?

Artist wise - obviously Laura Marling and some other artists such as Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes, Simon and Garfunkel are amazing too. But we were also really encouraged and supported by the Cheltenham music scene at the start. We played open mic nights and got to know the people who ran them and they were so lovely and really cared about us.

Barefoot: the latest ep

Tell us about your writing process? Where do the songs come from? How autobiographical are the songs?

Our writing process has evolved a lot over the last few years. Nowadays we tend to form ideas and lyrics on our own and then bring those ideas to the other two where we then finish the song with all it's harmonies and instrumentation. Sometimes we will just be having a jam and a song will come out of it, we love it when that happens!

It feels like there is a steadily building momentum around the group, I have noted that you have climbed higher up the listings over the year-have you got a grand strategy? Do you know where you want to be and by when?

At the moment we are just trying to write the best songs we can, and then we will record them for a release… possibly a full length album. We have had a great summer of festivals which has really made us fall more in love with performing than before - so really we just want to continue writing better songs, playing great shows and meeting more people along the way! 

If you were me what question would you ask you?

What’s a band you listen to that we wouldn’t expect?

Jess – Eels

Mary – Of Montreal

Lucy – Bo Ningen

What's in the pipeline?

A new release and playing more gigs all over the UK.

If you were a song what would it be and why?

We would be Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton. It’s such a great song with a really bold message. To listen to it you would think it was a happy-clappy love song but it’s actually an anti-love song. It’s great. We use it as a wake up song on long journeys to and from gigs!

Interesting choice-it’s a great song. Thank you.

You can catch the Cadbury Sisters at:

Nozstock: 26.7.13

Feildview: 1.8.13

Lakefest: 8.8.13

Mosley Folk Festival: 30.8.13

You can also follow them on Twitter.