Three women and a banjo? Any band fitting those specifications must be a carbon copy of the Dixie Chicks, right? That's just one of the eye-roll-inducing comparisons the Wild Reeds has had to contend with since releasing its folk-inspired full-length, "Blind and Brave," in 2014. Filled with Americana essentials like harmonium and fervent, shimmering harmonies from the trio of lead singers and songwriters — Kinsey Lee, Sharon Silva and Mackenzie Howe — the album bears only minor resemblance to country music's once-scorned Grammy winners. But, that doesn't stop others from inventing parallels between the two.
"People listen with their eyes," Silva, 26, reasons by telephone a half hour outside of Los Angeles. In the band's early days, around 2010, when live shows consisted of open mic nights, and before drummer Nick Jones, 26, and bassist Nick Phakpiseth, 28, solidified the lineup, Silva would get aligned with husky-voiced actress Zooey Deschanel, who also moonlights as a singer in the pop duo She & Him. "Is it 'cause I have bangs?" she asks, referring to the "New Girl" star's distinctive hairstyle.
Silva hopes the tendency to lump girl groups together as interchangeable entities cools now that a feminist movement, re-energized by the current political climate, emerges from coast to coast. "Even though it's been such a gnarly year for our country, it's been great because people are looking for female-fronted bands and they are looking to support bands with minorities," she says.
The Wild Reeds' vivid major-label debut, "The World We Built" (Dualtone), will also help set the band apart. Recorded in Connecticut with producer Peter Katis (The National, Local Natives), the album lasers in on the women's precise harmonies while expanding the sound palette to include spaced-out guitars, beefy drums and whimsical strings. Silva doesn't know what held her back from embracing the electric guitar, but "now it's kind of hard to prevent myself from buying another fuzz pedal."
She also eliminates any speculation that her vocal connection to Lee, 26, and Howe, 27, is intuitive or the result of some shared sixth sense. Credit the stunning melding of their voices to an intensive rehearsal schedule, fueled by Silva's nitpicking. "We really put in the time," she says. Although the album's 11 tracks were written before the election, many have taken on new meaning with Donald Trump in the White House. "We've got this song 'Capable,' and every night I have to resist saying, 'I'm so much more capable than the president gives me credit for,'" she says. "We were never a political band and I don't think that we aim to be, but as a woman, I feel very convicted to tell mostly other women — and other people — 'Hey, we've got each other's backs, we can do this.'" From: https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-wild-reeds-ott-0505-20170502-story.html
