(Left to right)Harper Love, Evie Rockwell and Neve O’Brien will perform this Sunday in the Canyon.
By LAUREL BUSBY
Courtesy of Canyon News (the-canyon.org/news)
Three Yale students, including two who grew up in the Canyon, will be sharing their indie folk harmonies with residents at a Sunday concert.
Their band, Clementine, will play a four-show tour this month, including the March 8 Canyon Square event from 4:30-6:30 p.m. The warm, harmonious trio, whose members are Canyonites Evie Rockwell and Neve O’Brien along with their friend Harper Love, will perform mostly original songs along with a few beloved covers, such as “All My Trials” and “Clay Pigeons.”
“Our music takes a lot of inspiration from current bands, such as Big Thief, and older artists like Joni Mitchell and Peter, Paul and Mary,” said Rockwell, who attended Canyon Elementary and graduated from Crossroads in 2023. “Our sound is driven by the three-part harmony structure and the joy of singing with friends.”
The group members, who all play guitar, began their journey as part of a Yale University folk music ensemble called Tangled Up in Blue, which is named after the Bob Dylan song. The three eventually started composing songs together on school chalkboards, in order to learn to collaborate as a unit, Rockwell said. Their phones have since joined the process through shared notes with the women sitting in a circle and offering both melodies and lyric ideas until they all can agree on a new segment.
“We write a lot about love as many people do, but we also write about our friends,” Rockwell said. “We are people who really value friendship and are driven by our communities and the people around us…. Our music is motivated by shared struggles that we all have, since we’re writing them together from different perspectives.”
Their experiences with Yale’s “jam culture,” which they first discovered through the folk ensemble, has also provided both inspiration and friendships with other musicians who play on their upcoming EP, Fear the Bird, which will be released April 24.
For humanities major Rockwell, the release will be a next step in her performing evolution that began when she was growing up in the Canyon and singing in shows like You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown and Fiddler on the Roof in the after-school program of the Adderley School.
“It was cute and communal and wonderful,” recalls Rockwell, noting that a highlight was playing the lead in Annie when she was 4 years old. She joked, “I’ve been chasing that star moment ever since.”
While Rockwell uses the last name of her mother, Alex Rockwell, professionally, she was first exposed to folk music through her father, David Kissinger, who is a fan of both Bob Dylan and John Prime. Her bandmate and longtime family friend O’Brien, the daughter of Liza and Conan O’Brien, is a history major and 2022 Marlborough graduate, while Love an English major will be entering the Canyon for the first time for the tour.
Rockwell, who has three siblings, is particularly anticipating the Canyon Square portion of their tour, which will also include performances at the Mar Vista Farmers Market, the Ojai Underground, and the Lyric Hyperion.
“The Canyon has been an important community for my family for my whole life,” she said. “I’m really excited to play by the Airstream.”
