Interview: All Our Exes Live In Texas

Story & Photos / Kristy Benjamin

All Our Exes Live in Texas is a magical four-piece from Sydney. Upon hearing the first few bars of the song sent to me, I was instantly humming “The Devil’s Part” in my head for the rest of the day. Now, if you really want that song to stick with you, take a few minutes to watch the music video. Eerie and unsettling, the video follows the story of four sisters (played by the band members themselves) bending to the will of the devil. The song nods to the American Southern ballad while the visuals creep down your spine when a close-up frame shows a knife slitting one of the girls’ palms to seal a handshake with blood while crows cry out overhead. It’s hard to tell whether you’ve gotten shivers from the classic horror callouts or the dark, sweet melodies.
Hanna, Georgia, Elana, and Katie are the total package and then some. They harmonize in ways that would make the Andrews Sisters proud, and flaunt an unconventional setup of instruments: ukelele, mandolin, guitar, and accordion, respectively. Together they conjure a mix of classic and modern, haunting and beautifully uplifting. The cherry on top of this by far is seeing them live. Adding to their pure musical talent, they carry an onstage banter that could rival the Beatles: witty, unapologetic, and completely genuine. With their debut album having been out for only a week and already winning over a growing fan base, we cannot wait to see what the future holds for them. Below is our interview with Elana Stone.

Is there a preference to writing & recording vs. performing live & touring?

Ooo! good question. We love both. You really need both to make it work. We are pretty good at touring and the performance/meeting people side of things is always fun but we also love playing in the studio. Especially when we get to work with amazing producers like Wayne Connolly – the guy who produced our record.

 

How did the stars align and bring the four of you together? 

 

Hans and George went to uni together in Western Australia. I used to play regularly at this jazz club in Melbourne, Victoria where Hannah grew up and she used to come and watch me sing and we became friends. Katie is from Brisbane and somehow we all ended up in Sydney at around the same time. We were hanging out A LOT and we decided we should all do something together. We wanted to learn new instruments so we could jam and sing together – all being piano players this was not possible with piano so we picked up the mandolin, accordion, guitar and ukulele and started mucking around. We had ourfirst gig within one month. It was a night called ‘Country Roads’ so we googled ‘worst country song titles of all time’ and All My Exes Live in Texas came up. The rest is history!

 

We are dying to know all of your musical inspirations. Please tell us who your favorites are! 

 

The obvious ones; singer/songwriters: Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Roy Orbison, The McGarrigle Sisters, Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel.

More contemporary, same genre: Gillian Welch, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Margaret Glaspy.

and the less obvious ones: Sarah Vaughan, Solange, Beyonce, St Vincent, Ben Folds, Spice Girls 🙂

Backstreet Boys :))

 

 Additionally, we love how you all dress and your combination of current & vintage pieces. When you all shop together, specifically at a vintage store, do you have rules in play as to not fight over an item? Or since all your individual styles vary do you just know what pieces would be best for each of you! 

 

Actually, Hannah has very specific rules in vintage stores. Rule one: stop the car and let Hannah out. Don’t touch anything that she is already touching (der), don’t talk to her (weird) and don’t get in her way because she is on a MISSION (scary). She says she enjoys op shopping (we call them opportunity shops is Australia) but she looks stressed to me. Haha.

 

I imagine so many people bring up the fact that you sound like an “American” band but are from Australia. Is that a dumb question we are asking? Obviously, you have access to every type of music! Should we be surprised an indie-folk country vibed band is coming from Sydney? What are your feelings on this coming up so often?  

 

The Country/ Alt Folk /Americana exploded worldwide for us when the Cohen brothers movie ‘Oh Brother, Where Art Thou’ came out. Before that, I thought country music was bad but I didn’t really understand what it was. Australia has a folk/country tradition but we were more in tune with what was happening overseas. America has such a rich musical history – from jazz to folk to country to hip hop and RnB – it’s hard not to pay attention. This is the first time we have been asked this question so thanks 🙂

 

Now that the album is out, and touring is underway, are there any future plans coming that we should be keeping an eye out for? Will you be touring exclusively in Australia once you are back from SXSW or do you plan to share your magic with the rest of the world soon? 

 

Oh, we’ll be back in the US soon after SXSW… Things are in the pipes but the pipes are currently private pipes. Ya know? 🙂 We love the US and we’ll be back as often as possible – this year and forever.

 

Lastly, we love that you throw in cover songs at shows. Which is your favorite to play, and are there any on your wish list you hope to play in the future?

 

We love playing our Tame Impala and The White Stripes covers. We are gonna add some new covers to the repertoire very soon. We neeeeeeed to do a Dolly cover at some point. Otherwise, we should probably go to musical jail for wasting everyone’s time. She is heaven.