By Alexis Burke

Photo by Dakota Maykrantz

Every Friday, we’re here to remind you of the Boston artists we love and think you oughta know.

Sweet Petunia is a queer Americana-folk duo—but don’t get it wrong, they are not your country darlings. Sweet Petunia first caught my attention at a Sofar Sounds show back in February. Mairead Guy and Madison Simpson enamoured the audience with their beautiful harmonies and rich stage presence in the tiny venue. Both expressive and powerful, their music seeks to be a safe space for people of all identities. They were gracious enough to sit down with Allston Pudding and share their story. Read what they have to say below!

AP: I really enjoyed seeing you live at the Sofar Sounds show. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you got started?

Mairead Guy: We met in the 21st Century string band ensemble Greg Liszt teaches at Berklee. We had a lot of fun singing together, and I really wanted to start a band. I was like, “Ah, Maddy’s voice is perfect for the band that I wanna start,” so I did the classic Berklee, “Oh, we should jam sometime” thing. Then we realized all the music we had in common together and then started writing and all of a sudden we were like, “Wow, it’s pretty great—it’s real stuff.”

Madison Simpson: Yeah, we started playing together in April doing covers and stuff. Then I was like [laughs] “Here’s this song that I wrote—and I wanted to sing with my all-girl folk band in the future,” and [Mairead] was like “Omg, this is the song I wanted to sing with my all-girl folk band.”

MG: I was like, “I have this name I’ve been thinking of for like so long and I don’t know if you’ll like it—and it’s Sweet Petunia, I don’t know,” and [Maddy] was like, “No, that’s awesome,” and I was like, “Oh, finally” [laughs]  

MS: It was sort of, I don’t know, like fate.

MG: It felt very fate-y. Like our voices are so similar and different. Because I’ve never met anyone who had a voice that sounded a lot like mine until I met Maddy and we wanted the same things out of the music we were making and so it just like was perfect.

AP: One of the things I thought when I saw you live was how beautiful the harmonies were. That was something I heard throughout the audience as well. Your voices really match and vibe well. How long have you been playing together?

MG: Yeah, it will be a year in April. So that’s what, 10 months?

MS: We did our first session in April but…

MG: We had our first show in July, but we’ve been writing since May.

AP: How did you get started playing live in Boston? Are you part of the DIY scene here?

MS: Yeah, I would say we are definitely part of the DIY scene. We got our first gig through a Berklee Facebook page. It was the American roots Facebook page—a band was looking for roots people to play a house show, actually at the ER. He was looking for roots musicians to play, and so I just reached out to him and said, “Hey, we don’t really have anything out yet and we are really new, but we’d love to play and we are really into roots music,” and so he had us on.

MG: He just gave us a shot for no reason, and it was so fun.

MS: We got together for a week in July, brought all the music we had rehearsed, and then arranged it and learned it and memorized it, and then played a show in like four days.

MG: We’d written 12 songs through voice memos and stuff just sending each other stuff back and forth and then met for these five days leading up to the show, and we actually did them. [laughs] We felt like for a first show we did pretty well. We’ve only gone up from there.

AP: You have such a great stage presence! That was something I noticed when you performed. There was this one part where you counted down like you were going to go into this super hardcore part, and you know—you didn’t.

Both: [Laughs]

MG: Yeah, thank you. I think that joke is very funny.

AP: If you heard a really loud laugh, it was me—I thought it was great. [Your stage presence] carried on throughout the whole set. Has it taken time to get there, or does it come naturally?

MG: Oh my god, yes. Personally for me I’ve been performing for a really long time, and I’m pretty comfortable on stage. In the beginning, I was a little bit more timid, but what’s been really awesome is that Maddy developing her stage presence has helped me develop mine more. So the more we both grow, we can build off of each other. The more that we know each other, also, we’re better up on stage. Because when we first started playing…

MS: We weren’t friends—yet.

MG: Yeah, we didn’t know each other.

MS: We were just bandmates.

MG: [Laughs] The more we’ve gotten to know each other, the more it’s just like we’re joking around with each other as opposed to trying to think of things to do on stage – feeling like you’re on stage as opposed to just having a good time with one of your friends.

MS: Before Sweet Petunia, I didn’t perform in traditional venues. I busked a lot. I played a lot in places where my stage presence wasn’t the focal point. It was me singing as loudly and as much as possible so that people would actually listen to me. So I was never talking to people being like, “And here’s my song”—I was just singing and hoping people would listen. So it’s finally cool to add that aspect—the personable aspect—in with the singing.

MG: It’s just realizing that people aren’t expecting that much. So if you’re even just a little bit funny or a little bit personable or anything, it goes a really long way. I’ve gone to see shows where the musicianship is incredible and just so technically amazing but so boring to watch or listen to. I feel like you need to reach out to the audience a little bit. Audience connection is really important.

AP: So you have an EP out. Can you tell me more about how that process got started?

MS: We wrote a lot this summer and we just wanted to have music out so bad.

MS: So I guess what happened was we played this show in September and Mairead’s friend, Jon, came and he came up to us afterwards and said, “I wanna record you guys.” So we were like if he’s going to do it for free and produce something for us then we should put out an EP. So we immediately started getting into the studio, and we sort of already had and planned what we wanted on it and what we wanted out of the next year or so. So we knew exactly what we wanted to do already.

MG: It was mostly just doing stuff at the Berklee studios and doing some overdubs at my friend’s apartment. A pretty good mix of professional and DIY recording. And honestly, we wanted to have music out really badly because people kept asking us about it. If we could do it over again, we would’ve taken a little bit more time.

MS: Yeah we definitely rushed the process a bit, but we’ve got some other things in the works.

AP: Anything you want to share?

Both: We’ve written an album. We’re working on getting started recording that and hopefully be out within the year.

AP: Would you say it still has that roots feel?

MS: Yeah. We want to bring the production up a little bit. We want to add percussion  and drums on some stuff and bass and a little electric…

MG: Yeah we are going to get some friends to play on the album too so the recordings are a little fuller.

MS: Yeah, a little more robust—because this last EP was bare bones, just us.

MG: Which was good. It’s what we do, it’s what we like, but it would be fun to make it a little weirder, a little different.

MS: Yeah, but a lot of the same influences are still there just a year later—a year later in our lives.

AP: I did want to touch on one song that stood out to me during your set—Tiny Boxes. I really loved the lyrics. My interpretation [of the song] was how society can put women in these boxes of what we can or can’t do. Can you tell me more about the songwriting process or what you were thinking when you wrote that song?

MS: It’s a great story actually. This past summer I was back home, and I had been working as a toll attendant for 2 or 3 years. It was a horrible job—it was so boring. A car came through my toll, it was normal, but in the backseat there were these three little girls that were probably like 7 or 8 years old. I took the dollar [laughs] and I noticed these three little girls in the backseat. As they were driving away, I was watching them. They were laughing and playing in the backseat and just having a wonderful time. Then I was thinking about being that little girl and being in the backseat of the car and hanging out with my friends and what it felt like to be so young and to have no concept of the world and society around you. Just to exist as that little girl so happy and so creative and so adventurous and ready to take on the whole world, like before you know all of the obstacles you are going to face. So I started writing the song at work, and I was texting Mairead.

MG: She sent it to me, and I was also at work and I was like, “Oh my god, this is so good,” and I sent her back some stuff that then became the bridge and then we started playing it together. I was like, “I think we should get louder at the end.”

MS: We should yell.

MG: We should just belt at the end. And then we play it, and I was like, “What if we’re just a little bit loud?” And we played it for our first show we were pretty loud. We yelled a little bit. Then every time we’ve played it since then, it’s gotten louder and louder and angrier and angrier. All I want is for every woman to just scream this song and just feel the cathartic release, because every time we play this song sometimes I’ll still just tear up and get goosebumps or something because it just feels so good to be yelling about all this stupid shit. [Laughs]

AP: During this song, when you both began screaming, it was like woah—this dynamic shift. I feel that society doesn’t always allow room for women to be angry or express in that way, and I thought it was really great.

MS: Thank you. It’s really fun to do a whole set and be all cutesy and folksy and then at the last moment we scream and then we’re like “OK, bye” [laughs] It’s always fun.

MG: There was one time when we were practicing this song… [Laughs] I was just really in a mood, and I’m just gonna let it loose and I screamed so hard that as soon as we were done I had to run to the bathroom and throw up. Yeah…that’s how much I care about this song. [laughs] I was like, “Wow, I’m just letting everything out today.”

AP: Anything else you wanted to share?

MS: We try to be a safe space people of all identities and genders. Even though our music is sort of—it feels like it’s pro-women, we like to describe it as pro-femme.

MG: Or pro-people that have been discriminated against. We are very lucky as white women to have the privilege that we do, even though we’re women and we’re queer and we have that working against us, we’re still white we’re still economically stable. We want to use any privilege we have to help people that don’t. We want to be a band that makes people feel comfortable with who they are and not only that but then if there is something that is going on at the show we’re playing or a venue we might’ve agreed to play with or a band that we’ve agreed to play with…if there’s anything wrong with those people, people will feel comfortable talking to us about it. We just want everyone to be happy and safe and comfortable and love themselves and feel loved by us as much as possible.