Nine Year Sister is an independent pop duo comprised of Australian singer/songwriters, Jennie Wardle and Emma Wardle.
Calling themselves ‘Nine Year Sister‘ (being sisters nine years apart in age), Jennie and Emma have spent the last two years writing and recording their original songs and releasing digital music on websites including Bandcamp, YouTube and Spotify.
At the end of 2018, they released their first CD album, self-titled ‘Nine Year Sister‘. The sisters love to infuse their music and heartfelt lyrics with strong harmonies and acoustic guitar. Jennie and Emma have won songwriting competitions in Australia. Their music has already been played and appreciated on radio stations around the world.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with the dynamic duo about their latest music, challenges, technology and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
We’re from a small town in Queensland, Australia called Stanthorpe.
We are a sister duo, and we call ourselves ‘Nine Year Sister’ (being sisters nine years apart in age). We like to write in all different styles, but our music generally falls somewhere between pop, electronic and folk. We
record and produce all of our music ourselves, and we love to incorporate the addition of acoustic guitar to add a warmth to our sound. Being sisters, we often collaborate on ideas, and we like to put a lot of heart and emotion into our music and lyrics.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
We casually began songwriting as a hobby, and from there we began recording and releasing music online. We would love for one of our songs to be featured in a movie, as we believe our initial motivation to write music came from our love of songs in films. Our music is positive, hopeful and we love to create melodies filled with our sisterly harmonies. Our lyrics are heartfelt and we hope that people will find encouragement in listening to our music.
We have also just started performing live this year, so we look forward to more performance opportunities in the future.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
We wrote ‘Seaside Dreaming’ for a song competition in Australia, and were awarded 1st place after performing the song at the live finals in August 2019. It’s a song about a photograph and all of the wonderful childhood memories we have of family holidays at the beach. We collaborated during the writing process, sharing ideas and inspirations. ‘Seaside Dreaming’ was written with a ¾ time signature, giving the track a dreamy soundtrack feel.
Listen to ‘Seaside Dreaming’ here: ‘Seaside Dreaming’ – https://nineyearsister.bandcamp.com/album/seaside-dreaming-single
‘Seaside Dreaming’ – Live Version: https://youtu.be/oYmK32hrops?t=12
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
Being an independent artist, it can be very difficult to get your music heard in the digital music age. So many new artists are trying to get their music to the right ears and it can be hard to know where to start.
At the same time, it’s nice to have the freedom of being completely independent and releasing your own music the way you want to. There are a lot of opportunities to gain exposure when sharing your music online. You never know who might hear your song, and it’s a great opportunity to be discovered.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Whilst we generally listen to digital music (MP3s), and occasionally CDs, we believe that all formats of music are still relevant today. Vinyl and cassettes are still sought after by a lot of music fans.
After releasing digital music for a couple of years, we decided to produce an album on a CD, and it’s great to have the physical product as well as the digital version. CDs are also great to sell at live shows.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
We love Bandcamp! We have our music on Spotify, Apple Music and the other big stores, but Bandcamp was the first digital music platform we used when we began releasing music. It’s more of a direct connection between the fans and artists, and it’s also a great website to sell physical products such as CDs and merchandise. Having said that, different fans have different music store preferences, so we think all of the stores are important and it’s great be able to distribute music through all of them.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
Facebook and Instagram are great places to connect. We use these sites to post where we’ll be performing and also when we release new music.
YouTube is a great place to find our videos, Spotify is great for streaming, and Bandcamp is a great place to listen to, or purchase our music collection.
Facebook: @NineYearSisterMusic
Instagram: @NineYearSister
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCeFFwUfNlA3UwVhA9cWXOA
Bandcamp: https://nineyearsister.bandcamp.com/music
Anything else before we sign off?
We just want to say a big thank you for the interview, and hopefully we’ll have some more music out soon, so keep an ear out!
