Catching up with pop band Sweet Spirit,
Earlier this year we pegged Sabrina Ellis’ pop powerhouse Sweet Spirit as Austin’s next big thing. Playing live, the band brings an ecstatic barrage of sound, an irresistible mix of upbeat pop and doo wop with just the right amount of soul.
The deliriously entertaining vibe of these shows is perfectly captured on the band’s debut full length “Cokomo,” now available to purchase or stream on Bandcamp.
The band’s been on tour and was in New York for the CMJ Music Marathon when the album dropped on Oct. 16, but it returned to town for a Saturday show at ABGB followed by shows at Hotel Vegas on Monday and another scheduled for Thursday.
We hit up Ellis on the road to ask about the tour, the album and the best way to rock a Sweet-Spirit-appropriate pre-Halloween costume.
So many of the songs on the new album are instantly catchy. How have folks been responding as you take this music across the country?
I think they like it more than they expect to. We don’t look like much when we roll out of the van and into the club. Maybe people find themselves wanting to dance when they hear the songs. Maybe they find themselves wanting to leave so they can be alone and make love. We’ve had a smooth tour. People have liked the show enough to let us crash on their floor.
What’s the most interesting interaction with a fan you’ve had?
In Chicago, a youth on rollerblades and MDMA skated around us insisting that our music “has all the excitement of an anime theme song without the weird backstory.”
Someone in Houston said we made him miss his girlfriend. He was a fellow touring musician, from the band Cave. He knew the exact line that made his heart hurt, and he recited it to me as he clutched his chest: “Tomorrow afternoon is like a painting, just stay in bed with me till it quits raining” from “All Mine.” He only could’ve heard it once.
How was the CMJ Music Marathon? Is the experience similar to South by Southwest?
We were lucky to have two great shows at Cakeshop. CMJ reminds me of SXSW in that there are tons of current bands playing every corner of club space and music fans and industry people come from all over the world to see it. I just kind of missed all the great corporate sponsors we get in Austin during SXSW, like McDonald’s and Dorito’s and Pepsi!
The song “Take Me To A Party” is one of my favorites. That feeling of “got a broken heart so take me to a party” just seems so universally relatable. What’s the story behind that song?
The story behind that song is that sometimes I have to catch up to the band with lyrics. Sometimes they get so excited about a song that everything is hashed out and it’s wordless. The words came to me at a party. There’s always an acoustic guitar at a party, and I made Andrew sit down and play his riff, and we wrote, with input from our drunken friends.
The more familiar I become with this song the more it reminds me of “You Gotta Be” by Des’ree, from the ’90s. Which must have been in the back of my psyche the night we wrote this.
In the verses I am giving advice, like Des’ree, “take your chances and break some hearts, you can’t protect them even if you’re smart.” But then something goes terribly wrong and we start shouting “I got a broken heart so take me to a party!” in layers, like “Barbara Ann”!
I always thought Barbara Ann was the most awkward name to fit into a song. But it’s a pattern we all recognize now.
I’m learning that stacking something in harmonies and yelling it late at night is the key to relating.
Congrats on your other band A Giant Dog signing to Merge. How will this affect Sweet Spirit? Will you take a break next year to push AGD?
I am confident there will be no break for either band. We’ll have to harvest the clones Andrew and I commissioned for ourselves at birth. We expect this to be a controversial move, but now that we have Merge on board, we won’t be stopped.
You recently had a very moving Facebook response to a Pitchfork article about Amy Winehouse’s eating disorders in which you talked about embracing your average build. What compelled you to write that, and were you surprised at how it resonated with so many people?
The article about Amy Winehouse was upsetting. It was easy for media to explain Winehouse’s death as her own doing, and Pitchfork outed the source of her misery, an eating disorder. It’s a sad, cold reminder to look out for the vulnerable, because the world is harsh and often judgmental.
I was met with so much encouragement from my peers online. If people are listening to what I have to say, that’s a lesson to me, that I can be influential even if I am not playing Letterman. So I know this, for next time I go ranting on Facebook.
Any cool costumes in the works for your upcoming Austin shows? And if your fans are caught up in the pre-Halloween spirit what’s a good costume theme for a Sweet Spirit show?
I hate to disappoint, but we won’t have time to assemble costumes. Maybe people can bring costumes to our shows, and we can wear them.
I predict the popular costumes this October at our shows will be “dirty nuns,” and “feral Peanuts.”