Kitty, Daisy and Lewis team up with The Clash guitarist on album number three

When it comes to album number three and you want to bring someone in to produce your band for the first time, you could probably do worse than call on The Clash legend Mick Jones.
Kitty, Daisy and LewisKitty, Daisy and Lewis
Kitty, Daisy and Lewis

The genre-hopping Durham siblings Kitty, Daisy and Lewis self-produced their first two albums, but as Kitty told WOW247: ‘We thought about getting a producer in for this album, but we didn’t know who to get and who would get the music.

‘And we wanted someone we could work with in our environment as we’re a family and we like to do things our own way. But then he came to mind and we were like, yeah, he’s a friend of the family and we know we get on.

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‘We bumped into him at Notting Hill Carnival and asked him to come round and listen to some music and maybe produce one or two tracks.

‘We showed him what we’d got and he loved it immediately, then he kind of came round for about five months with his guitar and his notepad and he learned the songs inside out.’

Recording what ultimately became Kitty Daisy & Lewis The Third saw the band shake things up a bit. Besides working with Mick they also had their own studio for the first time – a converted curry house in Camden Town. The first two albums were recorded in a tiny room at the back of their parents’ home.

While the finished result is more polished, it is still recognisable as the work of the multi-instrumentalist trio, as they jump from ska to jazz-fusion, rockabilly and pop.

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Live, the siblings are even joined by their mum on bass and dad on rhythm guitar.

But before hooking up with the veteran guitarist, there had been a false start in their hunt for a producer.

‘When we thought about getting a producer in, we heard about some American bloke,’ says Kitty, who politely claims not to remember his name. ‘He came round and he acted like this bigshot who knew everything about music, doing lots of name-dropping.

‘We played him the songs in the early stages, and to be fair we played quite badly, but he was very rude about it.

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‘It didn’t set me back as such, but it put me off the idea of getting a producer for a bit. They’re someone you’re going to be working with for months, so you want someone you’re going to be comfortable with.

‘You don’t want some bigshot coming in and telling you what’s what.’

By contrast, she says of Jones: ‘The songs were pretty much written and developed by the time he came on board. But he learned them, which I thought was a really nice approach to it. He let us go on and do our thing.

‘He was really positive and he makes a good cup of tea as well.’

The Wedgewood Rooms

Thursday, February 10

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