At the end of November, New York’s Thirdstory made their way over to London as part of their European tour. The insanely talented trio, known for their distinctive harmonic covers of pop songs and soulfully relatable originals. Following a pair of sold-out London shows, we caught up with Thirdstory before they headed off to Paris.
I find more soulful music tends to be something that artists have had in them for a long time – what was your upbringing like in regards to your music?
Elliot: I think it was different for all of us. I’m from Texas so I think there was a lot of, well… I don’t wanna be that guy, but I grew up in Church, so that was a huge aspect of my relationship to music. I feel a lot of church music is based on feeling.
Richard: We’re all pretty much musical in my family. I grew up singing American roots music, like bluegrass and classic country songs, harmonising with my mum and my brothers. So definitely a very musical upbringing.
Ben: Well when it comes to soul music that’s definitely where I start when it comes to singing. You know, Stevie Wonder, classic sixties and seventies, Aretha Franklin my parents were always playing that. An obviously also the R&B of the nineties and early 2000s. I loved Usher as a kid, Beyonce. Those are the sounds I was trying to imitate as a kid. So that’s definitely influenced me.
Indiependent: Everyone loves some Beyonce.
Ben: Yeah of course! Though actually when I first started singing it was Destiny’s Child. I was super into it, like trying to sing all of Beyonce’s riffs and stuff. In the shower.
Indiependent: Trying to sing all three harmonies at the same time?
Ben: Oh yeah. Like Destiny’s Child Emotion? (Richard singing Emotion) That was a two-part harmony. Back in the day. It’s a classic. Isn’t it? You know what I’m talking about?
How does it feel to have your success spiralled? In two years you went from posting covers on Youtube to touring UK with one of the most enthusiastic crowds I have ever seen?
Richard: It’s been crazy, even with our first video ever we were nervous about putting it online. I have a distinct memory of calling up my best friend and asking her to repost it. But yeah straight from the get go of, oh I don’t know, the clouds opening up for some reason and the first video, the first video we put online got a lot of attention. We’re thrilled about it.
Elliot: Also the transition has been great. The people that liked us for our covers really easily took in our EP and we’re incredibly thankful for that. It’s crazy, like being at shows and singing our songs and hearing people singing them back. It’s a feeling that just like I was saying yesterday to someone, there’s different highs and lows of making music and one of the biggest highs is doing shows and getting that energy from people right then yeah and its just, it’s unlike, unlike so many things.
Indiependent: How long had you been posting covers before that transition?
Richard: I think it’s [been] a year and a half?
Elliot: Yeah I think we realised stuff over the year and then we kind of stopped for about six months while we were working on the EP.
Ben: Although, we wrote our first song together around the same time we realised our first cover. So that’s kind of how the timeline started, they both developed at the same time.
Richard: Part of the process was trying to find a producing partner to work with, and eventually we found Malay who had done amazing stuff with Frank Ocean and Zayn. He’s such an amazing producer because we can bring him a song and he can build an entire track around it in one day. And yeah it’s been a great experience.
Independent: Do you have specific roles within the trio? Such as one person who maybe writes more of the originals whereas someone else focuses more on arrangements? Or is it just that you’re all involved in all of it.
Elliot: It’s kinda collaborative, I think it’s more a song by song basis from a writers point. One song might go to one of us, but for the most part whether it’s original or our own writing. We’re really open and passing back and forth different ideas. I mean Ben and Richard play the piano, and I play guitar so that helps in different situations. If a song is more guitar based than piano then maybe? But it’s all pretty collaborative, pretty equal. It’s a really interesting thing since we bounce off each other. If I’m stuck then they can help me and take off where I couldn’t go.
Richard: We do have some certain roles, Elliot is our resident stylist. And we have various other secret talents.
Elliot: Ben’s actually great at handstands!
Indiependent: I did actually read that one of you were good at handstands – I just can’t remember who.
Ben: It 100% is not me. Elliot can do handstands.
Elliott: Imagining Ben doing a handstand is one of the craziest things I’ve ever even… dreamt of.
Independent: Your trio has such a diverse audience – you know in age, sexuality, ethnicity and all that jazz. Is there any reason as to why you think such a wide range of people are pulled in by your music?
Ben: Well I think a big thing is that our age range isn’t that wide, but everything you can see literally in the group. Also I think musically we’re extremely eclectic. You know with our tastes and we don’t like to be too bound by one genre, and other than singing in harmony that’s really what connects our music. Really it’s our shared sense of melody, what melodies stick out to us and what we can agree on. But besides that we like to explore music as much as we can. We don’t necessarily fit into one box.
Richard: I think one part of it is that we’re not about frills or gimmicks, um and I think a lot of people respond well to that? We’re just on stage doing what we do.
Indiependent: So I struggled to find any song, cover or original that wasn’t about love. Is there any particular reason all your music is about love?
Ben: I think we automatically just gravitated to that. That just came naturally to us, we also tend to be pretty sad. You know with love it’s quite easy to write about when you’re feeling something and we can share experiences and of course although the songs are written from our personal experience, they’re experiences that many people relate too. I mean take Searching for a Feeling, like it was written so quickly because the idea of it was just the basic concept of I have trouble being in a relationship because I got fucked over before and that’s left me in a place difficult to commit to someone. That was something that we instantly were like yeah okay we’ve all been there and then beyond that all the lyrics were really simple. You know it’s something that all three of us and the audience can all relate too.
Indiependent: Beautiful. So lastly, out of all the covers you’ve done, what are your personal favourites and why?
Elliot: Oooh we haven’t spoken about this in a while, I’ll have to think about it.
Ben: I know mine, it’s the same as last time. Dark Horse. Arrangement wise, I think it’s the simplicity of it. One of those songs where we just decided we’re gunna sing and we’re gunna take a really fast song and strip it down to just acoustic guitar and that’s something where sound and feeling has influenced a lot of our writing that came after. We have a song called On and On, that in some ways was very much inspired by that cover in such that rhythmically it’s a slow guitar ballad.
Richard: For me I’d say it’s a tie between Hotline Bling and Style. I love just harmonising in ways that not many groups harmonise. I think in both of those arrangements we do things that a very specific to us as a group and it excites me.
Elliot: Yeah I’m also going to say Hotline Bling, it’s got a bit of a sonic vibe with all the reverb and I think that the thing we really tried to stay away from was the whole acapella group thing so we each play instruments and our live shows are super. Zack’s killing it on the drums like a rock show but you know that arrangement for me feels really natural in way that a lot of acapella arrangements don’t feel natural you know? It’s a lot of ‘do-wops’ and yeah. I like Hotline Bling. You know it’s just really great singing together and creating a sonic space that we can all work on and we rehearsed it for like a month?
Richard: oh my god we rehearsed it for like a month straight. We met every day running the same parts like my roommate got so mad at us. (laughs)
Elliot: And then also for our own songs I think it helped us with creating, vocally, this like sonic space where it isn’t just the lead vocals but we added a lot of reverbed out angelic sounds in the same way as an Ariana Grande guitar ballad feeling where to get to create our own spaces and feelings.
And there we have it. Stay tuned with Thirdstory because they on their way to great things.