Ok, so marriage isn’t usually the fist thing that comes to mind when most people think of being in a band, but Chapel Hill's Birds and Arrows, comprised of husband-wife duo Pete and Andrea Connolly, prove that marital bliss and music go hand in hand. This week, Dive sat down to pick Andrea’s brain about inspiration, the local music scene, and bucking those pesky part-time jobs.
Click above to check out the interview.
Dive: What do you see as the challenges or benefits of being a married couple in music?
Andrea Connolly: I think it’s awesome. For us, it works out well. My favorite thing is touring— just the two of us going on a trip together just as a married couple is pretty cool. The music is just an added bonus. And sometimes we have some people sit in with us, which creates a good atmosphere. As far as challenges go, Pete and I get along really well and we have a good mutual respect for each other, so we’re able to tell each other when something doesn’t sound good or when it does and we don’t take it personally.
Dive: What do you think is different about the Triangle’s music scene as opposed to other areas? How does it affect your music?
Andrea Connolly: It doesn’t help me write in that it’s not a subject of our songs, but it does help us want to continue because it’s so supportive. We’ve lived in a couple of towns, and I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere. I love the music scene here and I don’t think we would’ve felt supported enough to do this full time and really go for it if we weren’t a part of such a supportive music scene.
Dive: You recently played the Carrboro music festival; what kind of opportunities do festivals like that present?
Andrea Connolly: The Carrboro Music Festival is great. We’d never played it with Birds and Arrows, but I’d played it with Sweet By and By and other bands that I’ve been in. Our experience this year was really great, we had a huge crowd that we really didn’t expect. It gets people that normally wouldn’t hear you out to hear you. And Troika is coming in Durham, which gives us the opportunity to play with all of these bands we look up to in the music scene like Bowerbirds and Megafaun. It really is helpful.
Dive: Where do you draw inspiration for your music?
Andrea Connolly: When I’m trying to write a song, it’s different all the time. I get inspiration from small life experiences that I write down in a book or journal. If something happens that inspires me, and also each other, we’ll write silly love songs and things like that to each other. And when I’m writing, a lot of the time I love looking out the window. I’m big on using nature to help write, using metaphors and stuff like that—I try and use as many different things as I can but that’s something I always come back to.
Dive: Where is Birds and Arrows going from here?
Andrea: I would say goal-wise, we just want to make a living off of it. Right now, Pete works part-time brewing beer with his brother at Carolina Brewery, and I bartend once a week. It would be really nice to be able to let all of that go and just put everything into it. We’re getting closer, but that’s our most current goal, is in the next couple of years to do this full-on and pay our bills at the same time.
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