Sky Larkin is a very busy trio from Leeds. They’re touring nonstop through the US through the end of October before heading up to Canada, and then they head back to Europe for dates planned through the middle of December. Sky Larkin is touring in support of their recently released album Kaleide, and though the group has many irons in the fire I got a chance to speak with frontwoman Katie Harkin Friday morning via Skype. In her delightful English accent, she described the new album, the inner workings of the band, and what it’s like to have scientists for parents. 

BnB: I saw a picture on your website of ‘Pie Larkin’, a pie chart showing what you guys will be doing in the next few months. Who made that chart?

Katie: Oh yeah (laughs). I did that- we were asked to write something about all of the stuff that was coming up for us, and it was just too overwhelming because we have so much stuff coming up, so I thought it’d be better to express it visually, and that was what came to mind, a pie chart. It kind of makes sense, I think. There’s all sorts of different ways to communicate information.

What is your favorite aspect of being a part of Sky Larkin? Is it the creative process of songwriting? Or is it recording your efforts? Your live performance? Traveling on tour?

They all serve different parts of your personality, really: the writing is theraputic, the recording appeals to the hobbyist in me. I like listening to sounds all day but you can’t do that all your life. Touring is such a social exercise that it appeals to that part of me, but again you can’t do that all day every day or you’ll go insane. So somehow they add up to being a workable personality (laughs).

 

 

Your debut album The Golden Spike was released in February 2009, and your sophomore album Kaleide just came out this month. What’s different about this album versus the last?

They were both made in Seattle, but the format of our first was kind of-I guess like any debut record- a compilation of songs that you feel makes sense as a band of people that you’ve decided to form a band with, to identify what pinned us all together. Then with Kaleide we’d made that record and we’d toured that record, and it meant that we could look at the space that we wanted to fill in between us and take a step back. We’d done a lot of touring and developed a lot of chemistry between us and we wanted to capitalize on that. We rented a space underneath a victorian church in Yorkshire where we’re from. It’d been converted by some friends of ours into a musical space, and the crypt’s like a negative of the top of the church. It’s got arches that come off the central aisle, and it’s really great for music because you can stick drums in one and guitars in another and bass in another, and record demos really easily. That’s why there was a CD of crypt demos that came with the album.

A biograpy written by Rebecca Nicholson described Kaleide as ‘a heart in a lab coat’, and there was mention of your parents being scientists. Can you elaborate on that?

It’s something that I’ve only just come to realize, and it’s something I kind of realized it when talking with Rebecca. I was raised by scientists but always gravitated towards arts when I was growing up, and I think it shows that no matter what you move toward as a teenager, there was still something… I don’t know, a scientific outlook I got from them? I totally admire them, but in terms of what we’re doing with our lives it’s very different.  Yet I feel like maybe I’ve absorbed some of them. I’ve got the same sense of humor as my dad, so it would make sense that I have the same sense of analysis as my dad. Wouldn’t it? To a certain extent? But it’s definitely something that I diagnosed after the record was made.

What was the writing and recording process like? Is it a total collaboration, or does one member write the lyrics and one writes the music, etc?

I write the lyrics. The way that we’ve characterized it in the past, and our vague motto is that I bring in the skeleton and then we flesh it out together. I’ll write the lyrics and the basic song structure, and they’ll we’ll kind of end up at the rest of it together.

You’ll be here in L.A. on Monday at The Bootleg, then playing several dates in the U.S. with Blood Red Shoes before heading back to Europe. Where are you most excited to play?

We’re from Leeds, in the north of England, and though it’s exciting to travel everywhere there’s this one festival happening in Leeds called Constellations Festival that we’re playing. The headliners are Broken Social Scene, Liars, and a really great British band Los Campesinos. There’s about ten completely amazing bands playing in the same date in my hometown, which is so exciting. It’s brand new this year, and it’s everything you could wish for in a one-day festival. It’s going to be great.

I noticed on your Myspace page there’s a description of The Sky Larkin cocktail. Was that inspired by you? Or is that something you guys came up with? Was it already in existence?

One of our best friends used to be master barman at a cocktail bar in Leeds, and he designed a cocktail in our honor. He’s no longer the master barman at that bar, so unless you order it specially it’s not available anymore. Give it a go and see what you think. You can review our cocktail along with our band and see which is better.

Author’s Note: As of this writing, I have yet to try the cocktail. If any of our 21+ readers are feeling adventurous, give it a try and tell us what you think!

The Sky Larkin Cocktail
1/2 a lime (quartered)
1 and a quarter oz bourbon
3 quarters of an oz framboise
1 oz raspberry puree
cranberry juice
shaken with ice
topped with ginger ale
stirred