Eliza, Lucy and Roxy Abernathy are just 12, 14 and 17 years old, respectively, but the sister trio performed their pop rock at three different shows at Rhythm N’ Blooms this weekend. With an album release show coming up on May 12 at the Relix Variety Theatre, The Daily Beacon caught up with these Knoxville teenagers to talk playing three shows in one day, Bonnaroo and learning their limits.
Daily Beacon: Talk to me about how you guys started playing together.
Eliza Abernathy: About a billion years ago.
Lucy Abernathy: Well actually, we started with another band member who is no longer playing with us.
DB: Same band name?
LA: Same band name, yes.
EA: Actually, we started out at the Tigresses when we were like five.
LA: But it soon became the Pinklets. Her parents are musicians and our dad is a musician, and it just came about in the family.
EA: We were like, “I want to do that.”
LA: I’m pretty sure, if I’m remembering correctly and this was when we were like five and six and Roxy was probably seven, one of us literally said “Do you want to start a band?” I think those words were actually spoken.
EA: We would just record little like singles.
LA: Hilarious.
EA: We’d make really silly songs.
LA: We weren’t serious, obviously, and we didn’t know we were going to get serious.
DB: How do you go from playing together just as a family to making a band that plays at the music festival on a main stage?
EA: It kind of just escalated. We started out playing on a radio show that the former member’s dad had.
LA: Kidstuff on WDVX.
EA: We played on that a lot, and people listened to that, I guess. We had just a few small shows, and then we got older.
LA: I think the thing that really kicked us off was Beaumont Rocks. We went to Beaumont Elementary School, and my mom and a few other parents and organizers organized this benefit for our school and let us play there. We weren’t playing huge gigs. We were playing birthday parties. We played at a petting zoo. It was fun. Just fun stuff. So, we played that.
EA: And we played it again the next year. Then we didn’t play it a year. Then we played it the year after we didn’t play it.
LA: After that, parents would want us to play at their kids’ birthday parties, and parents there would be like, “I’m organizing a benefit for this” so it sort of developed. Once we played Waynestock, we got offered — it was just last year — we got offered Bonnaroo, and that sort of kicked everything into gear.
DB: How was Bonnaroo?
LA: I think the best part about it was being able to experience the music festival. We played a small stage there. It wasn’t a big deal. It was like every other show that we’ve played.
EA: But we kind of drew people in, and it just felt really good.
LA: There was a lot of energy. Like, they didn’t care what we played. They were just there to listen to music and experience the festival and learn about new music like us because no one knew us. I smiled at Josh Hutcherson. Put that in.
DB: How has the festival been, and how did you manage three shows in one day?
EA: It was less stressful than I thought it would be. It still had that little bit of stress.
LA: I’ve had a lot of problems with my voice in the past. You can tell right now it’s really hoarse and low. This isn’t my actual voice. You’re listening to the more masculine version of Lucy. This was really testing my limits.
EA: My fingers hurt. That’s my complaint.
LA: I can’t believe I agreed to do that and actually did it. I’m very proud of myself for doing that. And now I know my limits, and it’s two shows, not three.
EA: We had a lot of fun.
LA: We had so much fun today. I felt very professional.
DB: What was your favorite part of performing today?
LA: Everyone was just so excited to be there that it made me feel so good, and my friends had just gotten there.
EA: I also liked the secret show. It was a small place, so after the show, you can actually talk to people … It was kind of cute. And it was really fun. I had a good time. Good crowd, energetic.
LA: I tend to find that we really like playing shows like that. Like, I had fun at Jackson Terminal and I had fun at the first stage, but if I just had to play just those types of shows for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be having fun.
DB: How did you come up with your style of music?
LA: I think after seven or eight or however many years we’ve been doing this, I think you grow into it. People ask us, they’re like, “What style of music do you play?” I’m like …
EA: I say pop rock.
LA: I think we literally just grew into it.
EA: There are so many bands that we’ve heard. Music, this is going to sound really cliche, but music has been such a huge part of our lives. We’re always hearing music everywhere in our house. There’s always music playing. Lucy singing … all the time.
DB: Some of your lyrics seem older than you guys are. How do you write music like that?
LA: So, at one show we played, there was this person who came up to us after the show and said, “That first song really resonated with me.” That got me really. I was like, “Dude, that’s a really sad song. Are you okay?” It made me realize that I think it’s easier for me to write about things I’ve never experienced before. Girl, I don’t know what love feels like. I’m like five. But not knowing what it feels like gives me more places to go with it because I don’t have this “Oh my god, that guy. I fell in love with him when he opened the door for (me). How do I feel?” and write that down. If you’ve never felt it…
EA: You can be more creative with it.
LA: It leaves more to the imagination, and I’ve never written a song about something in my life. It just doesn’t happen for me.
DB: So, your CD release show is May 12 at 7 p.m. at Relix Variety Theatre.
LA: Doors are at 7 p.m. Music starts at 8 p.m.
EA: Everyone’s invited.
LA: I’m just so excited, and I want to invite all of my friends because they’ve been there for me and been patient. All the time, I’m like, “Sorry, I can’t sleepover tonight. I have band practice,” then it got to this point of “We know. You’ve got band practice.” I’m just really excited to be surrounded by the people that made it happen and give this to them in return.
