Baskery, three sisters from Stockholm who have been described as ‘the queens of banjopunk’, are known for their energetic live shows and unique sound created on a six-string banjo, upright bass, acoustic and electric guitars and drums.
The trio – Greta, Stella and Sunniva Bondesson – have made a name for themselves on the Americana and folk scene, having previously lived and worked in Nashville, and their Cambridge fans will get the chance to see them up close when they perform at Storey’s Field Centre later this week.
Greta, the eldest of the three, spoke to the Cambridge Independent from her home in Tavistock, Devon (she revealed that one of her sisters lives in Germany, while the other resides in Sweden).
“We’ve been touring a lot, and obviously because of the location of us three we struggle to get together much and write new material,” she explains, “so since we released the last album, we’ve been basically just on the road, most of the time.”
I suggest that as siblings tend to fight whenever they spend long periods of time together, maybe there are some benefits to Greta and her sisters living in different countries?
“In a way, I suppose,” says the friendly and talkative musician, who sings and plays banjo, guitar and harmonica, while also keeping the beat with her feet playing a kick drum, snare and tambourine (it seems she’s very good at multi-tasking).
“We have fought, don’t get me wrong – there’s been years of not literally pulling hair... but that probably happened too when we were younger…
“But we’ve grown to like each other’s company, we enjoy being together, and of course there’s wear and tear when you’re on the road – but we lived together in Nashville and Los Angeles for almost two years, under the same roof again as grown-ups, and it worked out quite well actually. We’re not too bad together, to be honest!
“And also you have to put your egos aside I think, as a band, and I know a lot of bands they can’t do that and that’s why they break up, but we’ve managed to.
“I think we’re similar in many ways; of course we’re also individuals but we’re pretty good at keeping it on a nice level and we enjoy each other’s company. It’s definitely something we cherish.”
Baskery, who have previously supported the likes of Robbie Williams, Brandi Carlile, Gary Clark Jr, Lukas Nelson and Seth Lakeman, released their fifth studio LP, V: End of the Bloodline – their first full-length album in five years – last October.
The record was produced by Sean Lakeman (The Levellers, Imelda May, Billy Bragg), whom the band first got to know back in 2008 when they supported his brother Seth Lakeman, a name which should be very familiar to Cambridge’s folk-loving community, on tour across the UK. Greta also met her husband Tim at that time when he was working for Lakeman selling merchandise.
Seth Lakeman also appears on the new album, playing the viola on two tracks, Little Lonesome Hate and Wolf Hook.
As a huge country music fan, I must admit I was a little wary of the term ‘banjopunk’ to describe Baskery’s sound but, upon listening to the new album, I was pleasantly surprised.
There are some gorgeous melodies on there, topped off with some lovely three-part harmonies.
The fact that the band is made up of three women, and the fact that they harmonise so well together and play American-influenced music, has inevitably led to them being compared to long-standing American trio The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks).
Greta says that Baskery have added traditional country influences into their music but notes “we’re definitely not purists, in any way, with any genre – we’re all over the place when it comes to our influences and our styles”.
Does she ever get fed up with the Dixie Chicks comparisons?
“Oh no, we don’t mind, we love hearing that – that’s a compliment for sure,” she replies.
“If you say that, then thank you. I think, to be fair with you, we haven’t listened to Dixie Chicks a lot, but obviously you couldn’t escape them at one point because they were everywhere, but I think that they also have that strong, forceful female presence, and their harmonies…
“And their musicianship shines through their stuff so we take that as a compliment, for sure. A lot of people mention Fleetwood Mac as well for this album, and I think we can definitely say we listen a lot to Fleetwood Mac.”
In their late teens, the sisters joined forces with their dad, who for decades was a one-man-band playing old blues and country tunes for a living, naming their band Slaptones and releasing two albums on EMI Sweden.
It seems that musical siblings are often able to effortlessly harmonise together, almost as if it were second nature. Does it come naturally for Greta, Stella and Sunniva?
“Yes, for sure,” replies Greta. “I say that because I don’t know any other thing, but people often compliment us on our three-part harmonies because they are kind of honed together; I think they have this like gel because we are sisters.
“We’ve been singing together since we were little and we cannot not harmonise, it’s hard – we have to kind of focus on not harmonising sometimes, it’s almost a curse! So that part comes easy for us, definitely.”
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Baskery will be performing at Storey’s Field Centre in Eddington on Saturday, 23 March. Tickets, priced £18.20, are available from storeysfieldcentre.org.uk. For more on the band, go to baskeryband.com.
