While the pandemic-affected years have set forth challenges for Larkin Poe akin to any other major U.S. touring band, Nashville-based sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell have in that time been enviably prolific.
The year 2020 saw the release of their fourth album, Self Made Man, plus a covers LP titled Kindred Spirits. This was followed in September 2021 by Paint the Roses – Live In Concert, a collaboration with Miami ecclecticists, Nu Deco Ensemble.
The U.S. touring circuit opened up again for them late in that year, but by the time they were off the road last December, their new album, Blood Harmony, was already in the works.
“I do feel that the last couple of years have allowed us a bit more time to reflect and specifically so with the recording process of this album,” says singer/guitarist, Rebecca.
“We historically are touring so much that the making of our albums gets squashed into a very quick succession. ‘Oh, we have a long weekend to make an album. Let’s go Hurry, hurry, hurry’. I do think that after the pandemic, really valuing the time that we have and valuing the creative process, we prioritised setting aside a bit more time than we ever have to make this album, which I think really served us well.
“Not just from a quality standpoint; I think that both my sister and I are deeply proud of the leaps forward that we’ve made with this album. From a songwriting perspective and a performance perspective. But just being able to walk into the studio with a bit more confidence.”
The sisters spent four weeks writing and re-writing then the same amount of time in pre-production. “By the time we were in the studio tracking this album,” says Rebecca, “we really had a strong handle on these songs and a strong handle on the over-arcing creative vision for the album.”
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In 2020-21 it seemed that artists could fall into two modes of thinking – numbed and scared by the pandemic silence or motivated to create in spite of it. The Lovell sisters fell distinctly into the latter category.
“I think naturally both of us are very goal-oriented and we’re constantly trying to move forward towards something… just to have something on the horizon that that you’re working towards,” says lap steel-dobro player, Megan.
“So I think when all of our shows went away, there was a moment of like fumbling like, ‘Oh my, what are we gonna do?’
“And then we did kind of pivot and thought, ‘okay, we’re so lucky to have a great online fanbase to kind of turn to’, and that gave us a big purpose during an uncertain time.
“We kind of viewed that as an opportunity to get to know people online. We did some like Sunday porch pickin’ where Rebecca and I got on YouTube and livestreamed, played songs and just had fun. It was a great moment for us to learn and also to let people in to what was happening with us – us very authentically and us very raw.
“I think that definitely led us down some paths that we wouldn’t necessarily have gone down if we hadn’t had that experience. It definitely impacted Blood Harmony because it showed us the importance of our connection as sisters to really pull together. In writing, editing and producing this album we really pulled together. The two of us.”
Blood Harmony was recorded Rebecca’s home studio with husband/producer, Tyler Bryant and completed in March at Bell Tone Recording Studios in Nashville with close friend and producer/engineer, Roger Alan Nichols.
“We have several different vibes on this album genre-wise,” says Megan. “We have the country-leaning songs, then the bluesy rock songs. We knew that we wanted to also include a couple of tracks that we’ve played out on the road for many, many years. ‘Summertime Sunset’ and ‘Might As Well Be Me’, which are fan favourites and people have been asking for them.
“We knew we wanted this this album to feel more alive and therefore it was a great opportunity to be able to include those live songs.”
Rebecca cites Larkin Poe starting their own label, Tricki-Woo Records in 2017 as being an ideological shift in terms of taking back their creative freedom.
“That was done in order in order to do exactly what it is that we want to do as a band,” she explains, “and one of the things that we do want to do as a band is listen to the feedback from the people that are supporting us on every step of the journey. Not to say that we would compromise any of our creative ideas based on feedback one way or the other, but I do think that in having a close relationship with the people that are invested in your music, it can be eye-opening and informative for you as an artist seeing what connects.
“Particularly based on the fact that we are a heavily touring band. We’ve been touring non-stop basically for the last 10-15 years, and that’s an immediate feedback loop with your audience, when you’re onstage and you’re sharing that moment with the crowd and seeing what is connecting and what isn’t.
“By nature of the fact that we want to have combustible moments, we want to have stuff that really is electrically charged and ready to go off, that absolutely influences how we write and what songs we will record for our albums.”
The album certainly has plenty of spark. From the swamp roots opener, ‘Deep Stays Down’ to the late-night-kitchen-table love song, ‘Georgia Off My Mind’ and the White Stripes-reminiscent stomp of ‘Bad Spell’, itself a female response to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ ‘I Put A Spell On You’. The album sits well within the Larkin Poe canon, but not self-consciously so.
“I do feel that we’re pretty disciplined about living in the moment, creatively,” Megan ponders. “We don’t ever rest on laurels, nor are we scared about going into new territory. I do think that with this album there are there are themes and there are elements that feel hallmark Larkin Poe, but also, I do think that we have done things in a new way that we haven’t before.
“And we’ve done so fairly fearlessly in the pursuit of making something that is more authentically us than we ever have. We’ll throw whatever we need to on the altar in order to get somewhere more real.”
Blood Harmony’s title track seems to celebrate the harmonies that Rebecca and Megan create as siblings, be it vocally or on their instruments. It’s something that is both intuitive and powerful.
“Some of my some of my favourite moments musically are when we catch a wave together and that happens actually quite often,” Rebecca says. “We’ve shared so many experiences and we haven’t been apart from each other for more than a couple of weeks in our entire lives and that has a huge impact on how we communicate. That has a huge impact on how we make music together.
“It’s a really special thing to have someone that you really know so thoroughly and can read so well. Which is of course, a double-edged sword. I think that that that can cut both ways if you let it but for us, we’re so much on the same page with what we want to do with our music and how we’d like to connect with people and what we want our sound to be.
“I think that it really only enhances our music and that’s why the album is called Blood Harmony because there’s just nothing like the harmony you can make with a sibling. There’s nothing like it.”
Blood Harmony is released on Friday, November 11th. Larkin Poe perform at Byron Bay Bluesfest 2023 on April 6th-8th; Metro Theatre Sydney on April 9th and The Croxton Bandroom Melbourne on April 10th.
