Start Listening To: Sisters

Sisters’ Gigi discusses Liverpool, poetry, finding the band’s musical language and creating a space for collective release.

There are few cities with a musical history as rich as Liverpool’s. Whilst some would call it heritage and others baggage, it does undeniably give the city a stronger pull with young creatives than most. There are few cities, it’d be fair to say, that could facilitate a band like Sisters. The band has roots in Brooklyn, upstate New York, Baltimore, Switzerland and the south of England but formed when its five members moved to Merseyside to study music. Their self-produced EP ‘Bite’ was one of the most underrated and compelling debuts of 2025 and yet they seem to have taken several leaps forwards since then. On the opening night of their first-ever headline tour, we caught up with bandleader Gigi to discuss the influence of her band’s unique geography, her love of poetry and the intimacy of performing live. 

Should we start by talking about the song you put out earlier today?

Absolutely. It’s called ‘Guerrilla’ and we wrote it on our last tour, so I guess it’s kind of a full circle thing that we’re releasing it on the first day of this tour. I wrote it about how tragic it can be to go home after you’ve been away for a long time. Like, how emotions can feel like like warfare and how the wash of memories can really fuck with your head. It’s a song that contains a lot of shallower parts and heavier parts to represent the flip side of those emotions: being really angry and confused but also with a lot of sadness. I hope that comes across for anyone that listens to it. People tend to fuck with it live. It starts slow and builds into the chorus that really kicks people into gear. That’s what it’s meant to do, it’s meant to snap you into that space that I’m in. 

It’s interesting to hear you talk through the live intention of the song like that. Do you spend a lot of time thinking about the different ways things will come across live compared to on record?

When we first started, we were playing such little pubs and we just had to lean into the aesthetic and be like “this sounds shit, but that’s all part of it!” It was more of a grungy vibe, I guess. I remember going into the studio and hearing everything clearly and being like “oh, there’s way more space in this than I thought there was. ”I realised there was an opportunity to fill things out more when we play live. Over the last year, we’ve completely changed in terms of how we play and how we hear each other. This is the first tour we’re doing with in-ears so we can actually hear what’s going on… let’s see how that works out! But yeah, at a show it’s more a case of putting everything out there regardless of the sound and just letting the performance aspect really get to people. 

We’re speaking on the first night of your headline tour. How would you sell people on the idea of coming to a Sisters show?

It’s all the fun of going to a party without the social pressure of having to interact with anyone. It’s like that feeling when you’re dancing around your room half naked - god this is so corny - it’s like that vibe but everyone is doing it so you’re not alone. You don’t have to carry that weight alone. That’s the idea. You feel all these fucked feelings of being sad or angry but you want to feel those alone so you don’t bother people? Fuck no. Everyone going to these shows is going to be super nice to each other and understand that these songs bring out emotion and the vibe is good. You should dance too. If you like dancing, you should definitely come. 

You’re an incredibly geographically disparate band, do you find that there are parts of each members’ backgrounds that seep into your music?

One thousand percent. Especially now that the writing has gotten super collaborative, it’s awesome. My drummer is from upstate New York and has got a country twang grittiness to what he writes. He writes a lot, including a few of the guitar parts with me. The guitarist Lewis tends to lean more into a jazzy sort of post-punk thing. I’m mostly a rock and post-punk vibe. Mira is on synth and she kind of does a lot of atmosphere building whilst Odelia brings a real melodic value to the bass because of the stuff that she’s into - like bubblegrunge stuff that relies heavily on that instrument. I think it all comes together really nicely, I think there’s a really nice dynamic and that’s because of where everybody is from. 

Do you take much influence from the bands who are around you at the moment as well as the music from back home?

Absolutely. Going to smaller shows is everything to me. I love the band Insider Trading. They started in Manchester but they’ve moved to Glasgow. They were a big influence for me. There’s this band called Domestic Partners that my friend Ethan plays in, they’re fucking unreal. They’re one of my favourites right now. In Liverpool, there’s this band who just started called Grool. There’s also colourwash, that’s an insane band. Not as local, but I love Mary in the Junkyard a lot. I remember seeing them when they had like one song out and that changed everything for me.

You’re planning on going back into the studio after this tour if finished, right? How different will that be from when you went in to record ‘Bite?’ How different are the songs you’re taking in this time?

I think we know where we’re going now. Before, there were a lot of things we wanted to say and we were trying to figure out how to say them. We’ve developed a language now, we know how to write. How the story ends up will just depend on how it’s recorded, I think. We have a lot of production ideas. My buddies are going to produce it with me. Shoutout to them - our monitor engineer Isaac and front of house Max. And our friend Mikey too, he helps produce a lot. Those guys are the team behind everything. In terms of the songs, they’ve changed infinitely. I used to write pop songs but the structures have gotten more complex. I’m more complex as a person now too, so that makes sense. 

We spoke a lot about the bands you like, but what are some of your biggest non-music influences?

I’m so glad you asked. Poetry is my ultimate thing. I swear, the amount I take from Arthur Rimbaud is unbelievable. Hades, the Persian poet from way back in the day, so many lyrics are lowkey ripped off from those two. I’m really into Beat Poets. I really like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Alan Ginsberg. I love Sylvia Plath. Shoutout to my friend Matty too. He texts me poems sometimes and they’re always brilliant. We actually met because I snuck one of his lines into my lyrics and now we’re friends. So yeah, poetry is the big one. I love dance too, I’m a big fan of Bill T. Jones.

What else do you love right now?

My friends. That’s it. Having good friends changes your whole life, I really think that. 

What do you hate right now?

Politics. I am incredibly frustrated with how people are treating each other.

What are your plans for the rest of the year?

Work our asses off. Just play as many shows as possible.