Sister Sadie chats with KGNU’s Robin Claire behind the scenes at RockyGrass. The band discusses their excitement about returning to RockyGrass with a refreshed lineup. Founding members Deanie Richardson and Gena Britt are now joined by Maddie Dalton, Dani Flowers, Rainy Miatke, and Jaelee Roberts. They talk about the band’s evolving energy and sound, with their upcoming album featuring original songs and new elements like drums, piano, and electric guitar (Interview date: 7/30/24)
Robin Claire: I’m Robin here with KGNU backstage at RockyGrass and we’ve got Sister Sadie. Thank you for making time.
Sister Sadie (Deanie): Any time. We’re excited to be here.
Robin Claire: You all are veteran RockyGrassers, right?
Sister Sadie (Deanie): We’ve been here one time. This is our second time and it’s been what, four years I think? So we’re excited to be back.
Robin Claire: Yeah, and now you are reborn, rumor has it. You’ve got some new members and you all are amazing.
Sister Sadie (Deanie): Yeah, we were completely different except for Gena and myself. We have Maddie Dalton on bass, Dani Flowers on guitar and singing, Rainy Miatke on mandolin, and Jaelee Roberts singing and playing guitar. So those are a bunch of new folks that we’re going to throw out here to the RockyGrassers today.
Robin Claire: We’re really excited. You all are trading off doing the singing. As well, you’re all crushing musicians, obviously, and three time IBMA Vocal Group of the Year. To me, your performance is really a tour de force. There’s such high energy and quality musicianship and songs, etc. What went into planning your set for today? Originals, classics?
Sister Sadie (Deanie): Everything, actually. This is a high energy crowd, so when I made the set list, I felt like it needed to be pretty high energy, not a lot of slow songs in there. We’re just gonna get out there and punch them one after another and have a great time. We have some original tunes that we just recorded. We have one, two, three, four amazing singers in the band. We’re gonna showcase all those singers and some incredible instrumentals that Gena’s written. It’s going to be wide open.
Robin Claire: Sounds great. You mentioned you just recorded. So my next question was going to be, there must be a new recording coming out with this new version of the band and tell us how it’s unique from your last recording.
Sister Sadie (Deanie): This one’s way unique. We stepped way outside the box on this one. With this configuration, every time you change members, bring in a new member, the energy changes, the vocals change, everything changes, the arrangements have to change. Each of these ladies are bringing something different, so you have to work around what everybody’s energy is bringing.
With this record it was so fun, we wrote a bunch of new tunes, and there’s a bunch of original tunes on there, and we brought in some drums, we brought in some pianos, some electric guitar, some steel guitar, and some organs.
Robin Claire: Cool. Why don’t we go and let some of the other band members speak and maybe if you wrote one of the songs, lyrics or composed, give us a little bit of a version of what you’ve done and what you’re looking forward to today.
Sister Sadie (Dani): Hi, I’m Dani.
Robin Claire: Hi, Dani.
Sister Sadie (Dani): There’s a pretty good collection of tunes on this new record. There’s one song on there that four of us wrote together. There are three that Deanie and I wrote with a friend of ours, a Nashville songwriter named Erin Enderlin. There are a couple of tunes on there that are songs that I wrote millions of years ago that I had almost forgotten about and brought out. They just have a new life. There’s songs that I’ve had around forever and Jaelee sang lead on them, and to hear her do it and just bring it to a completely different place. Same with Maddie. She sang one that I wrote when I was her age and I’m 35 now. And she’s 20. And then there’s also some songs on there that are by some of our favorite Nashville songwriters that some of us have loved for years. We’ve got a Nancy Griffith tune on there.
Robin Claire: Oh, I love her. Oh my gosh. What’s your favorite song on the record you sang?
Sister Sadie (Jaelee): Oh, that’s a really hard question. But on the new record, it’s probably a tie, but there’s a song called “This Is Me”. And it’s one that Dani and Deanie and Ashley McBride wrote. It’s really special to me. The first time I heard it, we weren’t even planning on recording it yet, and I heard it and I just cried. I asked Dani if she could send it to me so I could ride around and drive and cry to it. To get to sing it was really special.
Robin Claire: I was just going to say, when Nancy Griffith passed away, I listened for three days straight. I cried for three days straight, just listened until I could listen and not be so emotive about it. Still enjoy it just as much, of course. And Gena, what about you?
Sister Sadie (Gena): Yeah, the songwriting on this is impeccable. Everybody just brought their A game.
Robin Claire: The name of your band should be A game.
Sister Sadie (Gena): Thank you. I wrote one that’s on the record that’s a little bit outside of our box musically, I think. It’s a true story about my grandmother. She was adopted and rode a train to an orphanage when she was a little girl. Lots of things that are very personal to all of us on this record.
Robin Claire: Are you gonna play that today?
Sister Sadie (Gena): Not today.
Robin Claire: Oh, okay. We’ll wait for the CD then.
Sister Sadie (Deanie): It’s gonna be a while. We just finished recording it. But the new one, “No Fear” is out. Doing really well and we’re excited. Song of the Year, Album of the Year nominations and we’re pumped about that.
Robin Claire: You should be. Such talent. And your mandolin player?
Sister Sadie (Deanie): Rainy. She just joined the band.
Robin Claire: Wow. Welcome to RockyGrass.
Sister Sadie (Rainy): Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. I’ve always wanted to play here.
Robin Claire: Oh, good. Where did you come from?
Sister Sadie (Rainy): I grew up in Oregon originally, and then I am out in Asheville, North Carolina now in college.
Robin Claire: But musically, how did they find you?
Sister Sadie (Rainy): Just connections in Nashville and mutual friends who put my name out there. I had loved their music for a while, so it was fun to get to come and just jump right in and start playing.
Robin Claire: Yeah, we’ve been talking about a cosmic serendipity that’s been going on all weekend.
Sister Sadie (Rainy): It certainly feels that way.
Robin Claire: Hi, Maddie. Tell us a little something about yourself or the recording.
Sister Sadie (Maddie): Yeah, so I’m 20 years old. I joined the band about a year and a half ago. They found me the same way that they found Rainy, through mutual friends and mainly through social media. They found me through a video that I’d posted online. But yeah, I’m super excited for the new music that’s coming out for the new record that we just did.
I had to really step outside of my comfort zone. The music that we were recording, I wasn’t really used to playing that kind of music. But I stepped outside of my comfort zone and I’m really excited. I’m happy about how it all turned out.
Robin Claire: Oh my gosh. I’m so excited to hear the new version of y’all. It’s just going to be amazing. So I know you’ve got to get ready and tuned and everything. But before you go, maybe each of you could say your name and the instrument you’ll be playing, so the people that are just listening out in the audio world, they’ll be able to put a name to the singer or whatever we’re hearing with the instrument. And then also just name one of your bluegrass faves, one of your artists. It doesn’t have to be your only one, but just whichever one comes to mind at this moment.
Sister Sadie (Maddie): Hi, I’m Maddie. I play bass and I sing in the band. For artists though, I don’t know if I could pick. I can’t decide.
Sister Sadie (Dani): I’m Dani Flowers. I play guitar and sing harmony vocals and some lead vocals. Gosh, that is a really difficult one. When I think about bluegrass, one of the first artists I think about that I love to listen to so much is Tony Rice.
Robin Claire: Okay, maybe the first bluegrass you heard instead of your favorite. Maybe that’s easier.
Sister Sadie (Deanie): My first bluegrass that I heard was Patti Lovelace’s bluegrass record that she made. That’s what got me into the grass. Then I think I started listening to Flatt and Scruggs and newer stuff like Rhonda Vincent.
Sister Sadie (Rainy): My name is Rainy. I’ll be playing mandolin today. I’m so excited. I think the first bluegrass I heard when I was little was Laurie Lewis & Right Hands. My parents loved them, and used to put on their records, and I got to know her. She’s just one of my heroes.
Sister Sadie (Gena): I’m Gena Britt, and I play the banjo. A couple of artists that have been very influential are Lynn Morse-
Robin Claire: Love her. We were back at the Folklore Center together doing lots of things. I wasn’t doing musical things with her, but we were all living there and working at the Folklore Center.
Sister Sadie (Gena): Yeah. So big influence for me, and Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. I grew up on that.
Sister Sadie (Jaelee): Hi, I’m Jaelee Roberts. I’ll be singing and playing guitar. I probably can’t even tell you the first bluegrass that I heard. But I can tell you the first time that I was really tiny and little and was moved was the Osborne Brothers. Was never the same after I heard “Beneath Still Waters”, I’ll never forget it.
Sister Sadie (Deanie): Jaelee’s parents were both in bluegrass. So her dad is Danny Roberts from the Grascals and her mom is Andrea Roberts who started Petticoat Junction. So she has heard bluegrass since the womb.
I am Deanie. I’m the fiddler. My first bluegrass was my grandfather. He played mandolin. He played Monroe style mandolin. And so I listened. I heard a lot of Bill Monroe growing up, but then later, my thing was Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Mark O’Connor, Stuart Duncan, Sam Bush. I was a little more progressive that way.
Robin Claire: You were born in the generation for that, weren’t you?
Sister Sadie (Deanie): Yeah, and I’m from Nashville. So it was everywhere in Nashville during my teenage years.
Robin Claire: Deanie’s an original Nashville cat, everybody.
Sister Sadie (Deanie): Unicorn, they call us.
Robin Claire: Thank you so much for showing up. We so appreciate it. We’re so glad we could highlight you all before your set. Usually we speak to people after they’ve played, which is also great, but we’re still looking forward to it and me in particular.
Sister Sadie (Deanie): Thank you for having us. We’re so excited.
