Picking Favourites

The self-titled debut EP from Little May has been a long time coming. The group started recording a couple of years ago, but were “too picky”, replacing older songs with newer ones, and reworking what they already had. “They’re still Little May at the heart of it, obviously, but the EP was just more of a progression for us,” says Hannah Field.

“They’re still Little May at the heart of it"

At the time the songs were first written, Field says that herself and rhythm guitarist Liz Drummond were going through changes in their personal relationships. “I think you just always pull from some grief and from change and maybe from not wanting to change and having to let go. I always have to pull from that because it’s something that deeply affected me when I was a little bit younger and I think it’s something that everyone can relate to: you get that shock to the system when you lose someone – maybe emotionally or physically – that you kind of thought was going to be there for a pretty long time.”

As their sound has developed, and their music has covered love, loss, heartbreak and everything in-between, they’ve been plagued by the descriptor “all-girl band”. “I don’t really have that much of an issue with [being called an all-girl band]. I just think that we want to be respected for the music that we write. If people like the music that’s the main thing. It doesn’t matter if we’re guys or girls. I think it should just come from the music and it shouldn’t be impressive that we’re a female band, I guess. In saying that if other young females who are wanting to start a career in the music industry find that inspirational or get some inspiration from that or the music that we’re writing, that’s fantastic.”

Little May first met during high school, at Sydney’s Barker College and Pymble Ladies College. It was there that the core unit of the band became friends; Drummond and lead guitarist Annie Hamilton at PLC, and then when Drummond moved for senior school to Barker, Drummond and Field. After they graduated, they started writing together and playing open mic nights. “We were like, ‘We might as well just give it a go, who knows what will happen?’ Then it took off from there really quite quickly and surprisingly to be honest.”

Field is super excited to be heading on their first headline tour. After support slots including Mikhael Paskalev and the one-and-only Rodriguez, you can expect a polished live show. “I think audiences can expect a bit of a darker side to Little May and we’ve definitely been working on our live show since before we played Splendour just to really get it up to standard. There’s a couple of dance moves thrown in there. I think the energy’s kind of, we’ve just stepped up the energy a fair bit, so that’s pretty cool.”