Stonefield
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Stonefield

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Imagine Stevie Nicks fronting The Doors and you’ll get a pretty good feel for what retro sisters Stonefield are all about.

Imagine Stevie Nicks fronting The Doors and you’ll get a pretty good feel for what retro sisters Stonefield are all about. Possibly the biggest high school band in the country, after their St Kilda Festival appearance and current month-long residency at The Tote, vocalist/drummer Amy Findlay and her siblings will be waving goodbye to the Victorian country town of Gisborne and storming the stages of some of the UK’s most infamous festivals in 2011.

“I don’t know if the lineups have been officially announced yet, but we’re definitely going to be there,” states Findlay of their yet-to-be-announced shows across the United Kingdom – especially a rumoured Glastonbury slot. “It’d pretty amazing to get to play Glastonbury, just because of the tradition behind it. We’ve heard about so many legendary bands that have played that gig and there’s been some footage of it on television. The weird thing is we’d only played maybe two or three shows just outside of Victoria – and then the next thing we know we’re organising the UK,” she smiles. “I just can’t wait to see what bands are going to be playing this year,” she chuckles of the people they may run into on their extensive run around the other land of the long white cloud.

According to Findlay, it’s Triple J’s Unearthed High competition that has been responsible for Stonefield’s meteoric rise to fame as well as the band’s debut EP Through The Clover. “We wrote the album a while ago, probably a few years ago actually,” admits Findlay. “We did a lot of work on it to make it sound like an actual record; it’s really been a big deal to us to make it sounds as best as we could. We want people to take us seriously even though we’re a young band.

“We recorded all the songs except for the lead track Through The Clover in a south Melbourne studio called Atlantis. It was such an amazing studio with so much old quality equipment like a Hammond organ. That sort of stuff really suits the kind of music we make so we were in heaven! Through The Clover was recoded in Sydney, though, because that was part of the deal of winning the Triple J Unearthed comp. Triple J organised a producer and an engineer for us, which we were really thankful for.”

Having worked with none other than ARIA-award-winning producer Greg Wales, Findlay says it’s nice to see the planets aligning so well and so early in Stonefield’s musical career. Best of all, getting to ride the wave of success alongside your own flesh and blood is a major bonus.

“We live in a country area in Victoria which doesn’t make it that easy to get exposure,” explains Findlay. “Sometimes it’s even hard to get to your friends’ houses and to socialise with other people outside your family because everything is so far away.

“I guess that made us pretty close and we went from being sisters to being actual friends, which is something that blows a lot of people away!” she laughs. “We’ve always hung out together since we were very little, so being in a band together didn’t require any adjusting.

“Ever since we were kids, we always did the whole song and dance thing, it just always came naturally to us,” Findlay adds of their siblings’ relationship. “Then in 2006 a music teacher move next door to our house which was an amazing opportunity. We started playing instruments because we were getting more and more involved in music, but at the time there had been nothing else available to us in the country. So all four of us picked up different instruments and it just made sense to form an official band.”

And lovers of ‘70s rock and psychedelia are ever-grateful for it. Sounding musically mature well beyond their years, the Findlay sisters cite Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix as inspirations, as well as more contemporary Aussie acts like British India and The Cat Empire.

“Well, over the last lot of shows, we’ve been doing a Led Zeppelin cover with Whole Lotta Love,” announces Findlay. “We love to throw in a bit of a cover in there somewhere, but mostly we’ve been playing stuff off the EP. We’ve also been playing some new tracks as well because we’re definitely doing another release. I don’t know if it’s going to be another EP or an album – I guess if we had more time we’d go for an album but it’s just not looking that way. We’ve got some new sounds so we are definitely coming out with a new record later in the year.”

In the meantime, Findlay says there’ll be plenty of opportunity to practice for Stonefield’s UK appearances – starting with the St Kilda festival this weekend, on top of the March all ages Pushover Festival, as well as the Adelaide Fringe here at home in Australia.

“So much has happened since we won the Unearthed competition,” claims Findlay. “In some ways it feels like it was a lifetime ago but it’s all happened quite quickly. I think you can hear all the changes in our sound as well, we’re learning pretty quickly. You don’t really have a choice, you’ve got to think on your feet and you’ve got to deliver your best when you’re given a chance to play so many great festivals and with so many big names.

“You’re kind of put on the spot a lot of the time, there’s no time to get nervous or to let everything register. It’s a lot of pressure but it can only be for the best in the long run.”

STONEFIELD play ST KILDA FESTIVAL at the Nova New Music stage at 5:50pm on Sunday February 13, along with heaps of other nuts bands around St Kilda for the entire day. They’re also at The Tote every Thursday in February with Immigrant Union (Brent from Dandy Warhols’ other band). They also play PUSHOVER 2011 (all ages) at the Abbotsford Convent on Sunday March 13 – alongside Children Collide, Oh Mercy, Break Even and heaps more (tickets and info through thepush.com.au), as well as playing the free, all ages SOUNDS LOUD FESTIVAL at the Queens Park, Moonee Ponds along with Muscles, The John Steel Singers, Dialectrix and more. Their Through The Clover EP is out now through Shock.