INTERVIEW: Little Quirks on performing live, creating music and their new EP

Image: Al Parkinson
Folk-pop band Little Quirks are a family affair. Formed in 2015 by sisters Abbey and Mia Toole with their cousin Jaymi Toole, they gained major success last year with the single ‘Crumbled’ which gained 2 million streams on Spotify alone. Their latest single ‘Life Wouldn’t Be’ was released in August and they recently performed an acclaimed set at BIGSOUND festival. Currently touring the east coast of Australia, their new EP Cover My Eyes will be released soon on their own record label Runaway Records. We recently caught up with Jaymi to find out more about the band.

Hi Jaymi, great to chat with you. First up, how is life in the world of Little Quirks?
Great! We just finished filming the music video for our next single which was lots of fun – we’re looking forward to sharing it with everyone!

You recently blew away the audiences with your set at BIGSOUND, what was performing at the festival like?
A little daunting as we were playing for a lot of industry people but overall the venues we played at had a really great vibe and we were lucky enough to have really supportive audiences during our sets – it was a very encouraging experience.

Can you tell me a little bit about how the band formed?
Our parents were in a family band when they were younger so we were always surrounded by music growing up. We’ve been playing together for approximately 6 years all up but it started when Abbey began busking solo and later on Mia and I joined. For a few years we solely played covers of bands we liked at our local markets and venues. After a while, we started getting booked for festivals here and there, and have been playing more festivals and writing our own original music for 3 years now. My brother Alex also recently joined the band as our bass player.

What was the inspiration behind your band name?
Abbey and Mia's mum - my auntie - came up with the name because we were apparently very quirky kids growing up. Also, at the time when the band name was chosen, we were all between the ages of 10 – 16 years old, so the names we came up with ourselves weren’t exactly normal or winning ideas.

 You have so many different vibes to your music which is fantastic – there is folk, pop, country and rock. What musicians have been important to you, both from a musical style point of view and also personally?
Growing up our parents introduced us all to Queen, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles and The Cranberries. Then around the time we began busking we were all very into The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men, Florence and The Machine, Glen Hansard and Mumford and Sons which made up a lot of the songs we covered in our sets. We also only discovered First Aid Kit a couple of years ago due to people drawing similarities between our musical styles and sound which further inspired our song writing. However, one of the biggest inspirations for our folk influence is still Mumford and Sons - they are the reason I learnt to play mandolin.

We really love your latest single ‘Life Wouldn’t Be’, what is the inspiration behind this song?
I wrote this song based off of a few words I liked that I had written down in my phone - ‘wicked’, ‘ broken hearts’, ‘hollow’ and ‘sister’. I used these words to create my concept, like a jigsaw puzzle fitting words together, and came up with a fictional narrative that I felt connected to. In a broad sense, the feeling behind the song is dealing with a big change in your life which may be a struggle for yourself or others to come to terms with. However, the narrative in the song specifically deals with regretting something you’ve done that has damaged a relationship and feeling like you’ve lost a part of yourself because of it.

Your new EP Cover My Eyes is coming soon, can you tell us a little bit about what we can expect to hear when it arrives?
Our new EP will include 5 songs all up which were all produced and recorded by the nicest man ever - Wayne Connolly - at Hercules Studios. The EP features a few new instruments for us with a focus on electric guitar which we didn't really explore in our last EP. Overall, we have tried to include lots of up-beat festival friendly songs that we can jump around to on stage as well as a few moodier tracks. Oh and lots of harmonies!

What is the creative process for a Little Quirks track? How does it get from conception to finished product?
Abbey and I are the main song writers, although Mia has written and sung some awesome songs in the past! We usually write our songs separately but come together to collaborate for working out harmonies, bridges or certain parts of our song we might be stuck on. Then there’s always further collaboration and experimentation for ‘parts’ when we record our demos.

You have some shows coming up across the east coast in October and November. Is performing live your favourite part of being a musician?
Yes definitely! A few years ago we used to barely move at all but after seeing Mumford and Sons & The Lumineers’ high energy performances in concert  we began to feel more confident and realised how fun jumping around on stage can be. Interacting with an audience can also be really exciting, especially when they get up and dance.

All three of you are currently studying, how do you balance being a musician and also a student? Is it ever difficult?
Mia is still in high school, Abbey did Year 12 over two years and will be finishing up this year, I’m in my 4th year at university and Alex is a high school music teacher! Luckily throughout our study our schools have been very supportive, so we haven’t dealt with too many hassles besides missing out on exam dates and having some days off school to do gigs.

New EP, more live shows – what else is coming up from Little Quirks?
Yes, after the new EP release hopefully we will go straight into recording our next batch of new originals! So stay tuned!

Little Quirks are touring in November. Tickets are on sale now at www.littlequirksband.com

Saturday 2 November - The Espy, Melbourne
Sunday 3 November - The Lost Lands Festival, Werribee

‘Life Wouldn’t Be’ is out now. You can stream and download by clicking here

To keep up with all things Little Quirks, you can follow them on Instagram and Facebook.