Material World

About ten hours before this interview was set to take place, a helicopter spectacularly crashed into a crane in the business district of Vauxhall, London. The chopper, apparently hampered by a particularly thick morning fog, flew straight into the high rising building site and spiralled to the ground, collecting in its path several buildings and an unbelievably unlucky commuter who just happened to be walking to work at the time. Two lives were lost, 12 people were injured by falling debris and the Big Smoke was brought to a screeching halt in the middle of one of the busiest daily peak hours on the planet. This is relevant for a few reasons. Firstly, it's of note because our subject, Kitty Durham – drummer, singer and spare parts girl for family rock'n'soul troupe Kitty, Daisy & Lewis – is a lifelong Londoner. Secondly, it's a bit odd because, despite living not 15 minutes from the crash site in Kentish Town, Durham seems to have absolutely no idea that anything has actually happened. “Helicopter what?” she asks in a heavy accent that goes Notting Hill by way of Eastenders. “I'm not sure about that sorry.” It shouldn't really come as any surprise though, that Durham and her family aren't sitting around glued to BBC News or fiddling around on their MacBook Pros, especially when you consider the fact that they've forged their musical reputation by paying homage to the sounds and styles of the '40s, '50s and '60s.

Backing up slightly, the story goes like this: Graeme Durham, founding member and mastering engineer at famous London recording studio The Exchange marries Ingris Weiss, herself the former drummer of seminal British post-punk band The Raincoats. The couple's love of R&B, swing, blues, country and basically anything and everything retro rubs off big time on their three kids; Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, who form their own band and invite mum and dad into the fray as touring musicians. They release several albums, pick up all sorts of celebrity (see: David Lynch, Chris Martin, Dustin Hoffman and the late Amy Winehouse, among many more) and non-celebrity (see: sell-out shows all over Europe, Australia and America) fans and eventually land here with us today, totally oblivious to the digital news cycle but with a brand new song appearing on the soundtrack for the latest Ryan Gosling vehicle Gangster Squad. It's this contradiction, this push and pull with the present and the past, that makes Kitty, Daisy & Lewis feel immune to any shifting trends.

“We don't really see what we do as a genre thing or as a retro thing or anything like that,” Durham explains. “We just see it as a reproduction of the kind of music we like with our own twist in there as well. It's just the kind of music we grew up listening to. Mum and dad always had records on and were always giving us things to listen to so I suppose over time it just kind of started to influence us and we started recreating it.”

As effortless a process as that sounds, it's worth remembering that Kitty, Daisy & Lewis released their first record – A-Z Of Kitty, Daisy & Lewis: The Roots Of Rock 'N' Roll – in 2007 when Kitty (the youngest of the siblings) was 14 years old. Most adolescents have a hard enough time growing up and forming adult relationships with their folks as it is, let alone having to go through the process while simultaneously touring the world in a successful band, Partridge style. “It has been a bit of a challenge,” Durham admits, when quizzed on her relationship with her parents. “We're like any family really, we fight sometimes and we might get in a strop or whatever, but mostly it works itself out in the end. Daisy and Lewis had the same thing, the same problems or whatever, not really problems, just things that we've had to deal with. It's not that hard to put up with my parents, really. They're good parents.”

One thing that does seem to faze the Durhams, however, is the prevalence of digital technology in the music world today. As a band very attached and in debt to lo-fi, analogue sounds, it's not surprising to hear that they try to eschew anything too associated with the audio sheen so prevalent in modern music. “It is frustrating sometimes yeah, how that kind of stuff is everywhere, because it's not really us,” Durham says. “Lewis especially, is into the analogue stuff. He and Dad spend hours down in his studio – which we're actually moving at the moment, down the road – putting together his tape machines and mics and all that stuff. It's just about trying to get the most faithful sound as possible. We've tried recording in real studios before and it's just come out sounding really… Really bad. On stage it's a little bit easier because we have our own sound guy to fiddle around with the banjo sound and stuff.”

As a family band modelled on retro sounds that started in their early teens, there has never been any shortage of 'gimmick act' accusations levelled at Kitty, Daisy & Lewis. This is especially the case at home in the UK, where very few reviews remark on their unique musicianship and choose to focus more on their sartorial choices and age. In fact, it's in the more open-minded climes of Germany, Scandinavia and here in Australia (where they'll be returning in March for their fifth visit) that the siblings have really taken off and found a devoted audience. Durham isn't sure why. “It's funny; things have been a bit slower to get going here at home,” she says, with a slight sigh. “We do pretty well in America, really well in Europe and we love coming back to Australia because everyone is so nice and the weather is so great but yeah, it's just taken a bit longer over here in England. That's probably why we don't play here as often.”

The reluctance to fully embrace Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, while being England's loss and Australia's gain, is a little strange but not completely unexpected from a notoriously fast moving and sometimes fickle scene. Many bands have had similar experiences and crumbled as a result, but with family ties this strong and a genuinely clear perception of themselves as they become adults, Kitty and her siblings aren't too fussed about what the future might hold. “We don't really worry too much about that kind of thing,” Durham explains. “Early on it was hard to get people to actually pay attention to the songs themselves; they'd often get a bit lost in the story of the whole thing, you know, our ages and stuff. Now though, since we've been around for a while, played lots of festivals and now that we're a bit older, people are taking us more seriously, which is good. I was never too bothered about it all, though – we just keep doing what we do and don't think too much about anything else.”

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis will be playing the following dates:

Wednesday 27 March - Billboard, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 30 March - The Metro, Sydney NSW
Sunday 31 March - The Metro, Sydney NSW
Monday 1 April - Bluesfest, Byron Bay NSW