Sunflower Thieves

Leeds-based dreampop duo Sunflower Thieves have been friends since they met as young children. The girls - Amy Illingworth and Lily Sturt-Bolshaw - tell us about the band's origins and emerging from the pandemic with a new record.

How long have you known each other, and when did you decide to start a band?

Amy: We've known each other since primary school, we've been friends since we met! We realised we liked the same kinds of music and were listening to the same stuff, and eventually started writing and performing our own music.

Lily: We're originally from Derbyshire, and played a few gigs around there, but it wasn't until we both went to uni in Leeds to study music that we started performing as Sunflower Thieves.

Amy: We both write, we both play the guitar - we don't really have like set roles in the band or anything.

Where does the name come from?

Lily: There actually isn't a very interesting interesting story behind that! We just posted on our Facebook page, asking people for name suggestions, and we didn't get any that really hit us. But then someone suggested Sunflower Thieves - we really liked how different those two things are, so we decided to go with that.

Being based in a city that doesn't have a huge music scene, how have you been able to get your stuff out there?

Amy: I think we have a really good support network, we've met people while playing gigs in other cities, we have people who'll come out to see us. I think we've been lucky in who we've met and how we've been able to get around!

How has your personal experience of the pandemic been, as musicians?

Amy: It was actually a very creative time for us! I think because we had nothing else to, it really gave us the chance to get down and work on our music.

Lily: More recently we've been writing with some very interesting people, we've got some exciting stuff coming out of that!

Do you have any gigs coming up?

Amy: We played in London at the weekend, which went great, we were really well looked after and had a good audience. Coming up we're playing a few festivals - Long Division in Wakefield in September, and Live At Leeds in October. We've also got a tour in the works for next year as well. We're glad to be able now to get back out there and perform for people!

What are you working on at the moment?

Amy: We have an EP coming up, hopefully coming out at the beginning of next year. All the songs on it were written over the course of the pandemic, actually!

Lily: There's five songs, and we're releasing three of them as singles, starting in October.

Words: Scott Bates