A brief chat with Pearl and the Beard

Yellow Scene: Give us a brief history of the band…

Emily Hope Price: We started in 2008. Jeremy [Lloyd-Styles] and Jocelyn [Mackenzie] had met in the winter of 2007 at an open mic night. In about a week, they wrote about ten songs. In January 2008, they met me at a separate open mic, together, and they asked me to join them. They handed me a four song EP that they recorded on their laptop. From there, I was helping arrange the song that existed, and a couple of years later we started writing an entire album together, the three of us. It went from there.

YS: Describe the sound…

EHP: The sound has evolved since that first album. We initially started as a folk, foot-stomping, old timey gospel-tinted trio. Since then, our tastes and influences have changed. Now, the new stuff has lot more electronic elements. Jeremy changed from strictly acoustic to a hollow-body electric guitar. I’m incorporating a mini-Korg keyboard. Jocelyn has more drums than she ever has before. When we first started, she didn’t play any instruments. Now, she’s playing drums on stage. It’s a lot harder, and there are pop elements, even though the folk foundation might still be there. People have described it as a pop-folk-chamber trio. Its very cinematic as well, because of my background in film, cinema and classical. A lot of things run through it.

YS: And now you’re going on tour with Ani DiFranco…

EHP: We’re going out for about two weeks. We’ve been to Colorado Springs and Fort Collins. We loved it. I’m actually from Utah, so I’m kind of a neighbor. I have lots of friends from Colorado. I’ve been to Red Rocks a couple of times.

YS: What can we expect from the set?

EHP: We’re breaking out all the hits [laughs]. It’s about a half hour of power. We write songs that go from really intense, cinematic, big and loud to some really soft ballad stuff. Ani DiFramno recorded on our album that will be released this summer.

YS: What’s next after this tour?

EHP: We have another tour at the end of April taking on Oregon, Washington and California. We’ll be recording and playing festival shows though the summer.