Three best friends become indie folk sensation

When Folk Bitch Trio pick up the phone from a night off in Brooklyn as they gear up for an upcoming show in Los Angeles, there’s an ease between the three of them that’s instantly noticeable, the kind that only longtime friends, and now collaborators, can pull off. The Melbourne-based group of Gracie Sinclair (she/her), Jeanie Pilkington (she/her), and Heide Peverelle (they/them) has been singing together for five years, long before their debut album “Now Would Be a Good Time” began earning praise for its blunt storytelling, harmonies, and fearlessness.

But the story of Folk Bitch Trio starts even simpler, with one gig they “just kind of ran with.”

“We took our first gig and just kind of ran with it,” Sinclair reflects over the phone with a laugh. “We took it seriously, seriously enough that it felt like a job, but still fun. That balance has always worked for us. We’ve just taken everything as it’s come, and it’s been rolling ever since.” That relaxed, almost unexpected beginning became the seed of something much deeper. Music wasn’t a forced decision, it was a natural extension of their friendship. When asked what it’s like to move through the world as a band of three, their answer is as straightforward as it is heartfelt.

“Being in a band is such a unique experience, and we’re lucky there are three of us doing it together,” they say almost in unison. “We get to travel the world with our best friends. We know each other so well, and we’re so creatively intertwined that it just works. It works really well.”

The group first came together at the end of 2019, right before Melbourne’s famously strict pandemic lockdowns placed an unexpected pause on that early momentum. They didn’t write much during those months, but once restrictions reduced, they found themselves slipping back into the rhythm of singing, touring, and shaping the sound that now defines their debut album. And that name — Folk Bitch Trio — which, along with their distinct sound, has landed them on an NME cover story, the radar of NPR, and sold-out shows across New York and Los Angeles.

“The humor in it comes from the fact that it really was a joke,” Pilkington laughed. “There was never some big, intentional decision to create a bold band name. We were just calling it what it was.”

Yet the name fits. Playful, irreverent, grounded in honesty. Much like the songs themselves. Recorded in Auckland to tape with producer Tom Healy, “Now Would Be a Good Time” is an album built on closeness: creaking chairs, breath, harmony, the raw edges of being young and trying to figure out what it means to love, lose, and laugh at yourself along the way.

“We wanted to make an album that sounded like us sitting around the kitchen table, something intimate, like you’re in the room with us,” Pilkington shared. “We really wanted to emulate the live show, and recording to tape was the quickest way to get to the heart of that. So we ran with it.” Their voices, distinct but extremely connected, come together through stories of delusion, heartbreak, sexual fantasy, and the strange, hyper-modern anxieties of early adulthood. They sing about breakups in crowded apartments like on “God’s A Different Sword”, dishonesty with “Hotel TV,” and the feeling of unrequited love on “Moth Song.”

But even when the songs come from individual moments, they rarely feel singular. One person’s heartbreak becomes shared among the three. That shared lens carries onstage, too. The trio says their live arrangements shift with each performance, sometimes faster, sometimes more restrained, depending on the mood of the room. Whether they’re playing in regional Australia or across capital cities like New York and Los Angeles, there’s a spark they say they never take for granted. Despite the rising buzz around them, new fans, international touring, and the glow around their debut, the trio sounds grounded. They’re still writing on the road, still collecting pieces of new songs, still listening for the next thing that feels right enough to bring to life.

Tribune News Service