Our names are Anita, Jess and Sam. Anita plays drums, Jess sings and plays bass and Sam plays guitar. Apparently, there aren’t many three-piece alternative pop bands, and even fewer with a two female, one male gender ratio, but here we are.
The three of us have been friends for a very long time. In fact, we have played music together as Arbes for a quarter of our lives, which is pretty substantial, and really beautiful. We can thank Year 11 Music class for our formation.
We’re always being told that our music is the perfect soundtrack for summer in the United States. Since releasing our debut EP Swimmer through Bandcamp in 2015, our most devoted fan base, and the majority of our listeners have been from the US. To give you an idea, in the last 28 days, we’ve had 5500 listeners on Spotify from the United States, and 402 from Australia.
Confusion and intrigue surrounding our name has been a constant source of entertainment. We regularly get people with the surname Arbes liking our page or messaging us, as well as people constantly inquiring into the pronunciation of our name; “Is it Ar-bees or Ar-bess?”
While many people have the misconception that Psalms was an LP, it was indeed only our second EP and we’re still yet to release a debut album. The notion of a full-length album is a daunting, but a very exciting step forward for us; it’s in the works, but will be a labour of love.
