Texas natives, Celbi, Cirby and Carli were introduced to music at a very young age. Growing up listening to everything from the likes of Britney Spears to Patsy Cline, Norah Jones, and Patty Griffin, female singers have always been front and center. Their father loved to sing and for a short while pursued a career in the industry, but put his dreams on hold to be able to support his wife and three daughters. The eldest is Cirby, who worked a solo career before the trio was formed. One night on a whim she invited her two sisters on stage with her to sing the Miranda Lambert song “House That Built Me” and they all couldn’t believe the chemistry they had together, thinking, “holy cow something real just happened,” thus Sister C was formed. The sisters at the time were 16, 17, and 20 years old.
With encouragement from family and friends to try out for the X Factor, the trio opted in when the auditions were being held in Austin. “We stood in line for 12 hours and we made it through all of these stages and we eventually made it to top 16,” they explain. Although not making it to the top of the singing competition was disappointing, the trio attributes a lot to that time in their lives. “Ever since that experience we had the fire in us and the passion has been growing and growing so we decided to make the move to Nashville and take these dreams and fully commit ourselves to the career.”
They say that having your sisters by your side is always better then going at it alone. “It takes the edge off, you aren’t as nervous and if you go down you all go down together and if you go up you all go up together,” Celbi says. “It is so fun to be able to do this with your family.”
Using the power of YouTube to their advantage, the sisters decided to start their own channel, allowing fans to hear music first as well as listen to stories behind each of their songs. The Blue Room Sessions is an opportunity that they created for themselves to share new music every other week and get feed back from fans. They see the interaction on each song that they upload to the channel and take it from there to pick songs for the EP. “We are not afraid to admit that we have put songs on our Blue Room Sessions and have gotten little response and interactions so we take that as an indication that maybe that isn’t a song that we should invest our time in,” they share.
Currently the trio is promoting their second EP, Demo Sessions Vol. 2, released earlier this month. The second installment features five songs, all of which the sisters had a hand in writing. The sisters tell us that they love each of the songs on the EP and especially love how they have the ability to play them acoustically on their Blue Room Session before hearing it produced. The girls told us that two of songs they really love on the EP are “Drinkin Bout You” and “Chainsmoker.”
The EP is filled with traditional country twang with a modern twist that these three sisters have created. Blending together their many influences over the years including the greats like Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline to the more modern Kacey Musgraves and Brandy Clark, Sister C have come up with a sound all their own. “We are trying to keep the traditional sound that we grew up with,” they say. “When we came to Nashville that’s what we wanted to do but we also understand that we have to have a freshness about us to be played on the radio so we are trying to find that balance and I think we really did with this album.” Celbi continues, “I think it still has a lot of traditional sound behind a lot of these songs but it has the freshness of 2016.”
With traces of a modern day Dixie Chicks sound, these ladies are determined to get their music to their fans and to be the next great female country group. While commenting on the “Tomato Gate” incident, Celbi states, “The whole tomato thing, how women are just the tomatoes in the salad that is just honestly dumb, but I also think it was great to see how all of the women banded together and fought for women to be played on the radio. Women can also be the onions, the lettuce and croutons,” she laughs.
Sister C sing about relatable topics, heartbreak, and young love, and have found a way to connect to males and females alike, with effervescent personalities that shine through in their first two EPs, and are ones to continue to watch.