Soul sisters
Madeleine, Priya and Anji Sami are sisters doing it for themselves. Photo: Raymond McKay at Designstein.
“Hot? Shut up! Keep going...” says Madeleine.
In 2007 the sisters had their first gig together – before then Priya (the youngest) had been performing in a covers band, Anji with a backing band, and Madeleine, the eldest, who’s also an actress (she played all five characters in recent comedy Supercity), had been in a high school band called The Unripe Melons.
“We were called that because I thought we weren’t ready to play yet, but some people thought it was because our breasts hadn’t developed,” says Madeleine.
“GROSS,” yells Priya.
“It’s not gross, boobs are nice,” Madeleine smiles with pretend innocence.
“Just don’t say the T word, I hate it,” says Priya.
“Titties?” I ask
“Ewwwww Melodyyyy,” she says, wrapping her cardigan around her and collapsing into hysterics.
The Sami sisters were raised in Auckland, but came to Wellington every summer throughout their childhood to hang out with their large part-Maori, part-Indian, part-Irish family. The Sami sister’s look like beautiful Indian girls, talk like hard-case Kiwis and were raised as if they were Irish - Madeleine and Anji did traditional Irish dancing for five years.
Are there any other interesting results of their mixed lineage?
“Oh yeah. We do a LOT of drinking,” grins Madeleine.
“And fighting,” pipes up another sister.
“And potatoes. We love potatoes,” says another (by now they’re all speaking in Irish accents)
Over time, the sisters start to stand out on their own: Madeleine as ringleader (or “Old Spice” as her sisters put it), Priya as the cute, cheeky youngest (“She’s Show tune Spice,” her sisters say. “I’m like Rachel, from Glee,” she retorts), and Anji is the more reserved one (“She’s Indie Spice. She’s like Pat Benetar”).
While the other two could go on like this forever, I’ve a feeling Anji would like to talk about the music.
Happy Heartbreak is their just-released first album and as the title suggests, the music is often optimistic, where the lyrics all deal with heartbreak.
Produced by Ed Cake (Bressa Creeting Cake), the girls themselves, and Jeremy Toy (Opensouls) and mixed by Grammy award winning producer and engineer Tchad Blake (Sheryl Crow, The Black Keys), it ticks an assortment of boxes – 80s pop, singer songwriter, indie, and a little country.
“We’ve got a full band now and we’re louder than ever. No one’s gonna be able to talk over us ever again,” says Priya.
Something tells me that was never a problem for these sisters.
The Sami Sisters album release, Mighty Mighty, July 28.
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