Friends may come and go but the good ones last forever. That’s right, I’m laying on the Hallmark corniness nice and thick, but seriously how much fun and sometimes even trouble do you get into with your friends? Think about all the things you can do with a great friend: ride bikes, steal curly straws from house parties, mud wrestle...it’s endless. However, if you happen to be Hypatia Kingsley and Louise Bendall, then your anything would consist of creating a band and calling it Watermelon Sugar, a name derived from In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan.
Let’s back track here a little shall we? This dynamic duo came to be because both ladies simply love music and when it’s right, it’s just right. “We’ve been friends since the 10th grade,” says Watermelon Sugar. “But it wasn’t until a friend needed cheap musical accompaniment for her wedding that we first played together. Although we weren’t that great at the classical stuff, the moment we started in on ‘When I’m 64’ by The Beatles, we knew we had something to explore.”
Kingsley is a classically trained violinist who also plays the guitar and mandolin. Bendall started out in the choir and was forced—like most of us—to play the piano, giving it the ole heave-ho to play the guitar, banjo and bass in Watermelon Sugar. Both are responsible for the vocals and each adds their two cents in for the lyrics. Kingsley’s seems to be more political and relationship-driven, while Bendall’s are more about farm life and her escapades as a nomad, adding an oddly nice balance to their music.
Now if you’re into timelines aiding the learning process then this is what Watermelon Sugar’s evolutionary breakdown would look like: 2001—Kingsley and Bendall begin to collaborate musically with each other; 2003—They officially become a band; 2004—Sample, their first CD is released in October; 2005—Their second CD, Something to Savor, is released in November; 2006—Working on a third album and rocking the U.S. with gigs all the while doing quite a bit of impressing.
That’s right your eyes are not deceiving you, while most bands rarely make it past a one-hit wonder, these two women have made it all the way to their second album and are tinkering on the brink of a third. Add in the fact that both are married with children and live hundreds of miles apart and you my friends have got yourself a band with determination to boot.
So how do they do it? “Normalcy is not part of our lifestyle,” they share. “So, we just make do with the time we have together and try to minimize our speeding tickets. Our kids like each other enough so they play while their mommies practice. Being such close friends, we seem to be very in tune [so to speak] with each other and can maximize our recording sessions and performances.”
Watch them maximize their performance and put on one helluva show at the Soapbox, on May 6th.
Sugartime Folk -- Watermelon Sugar bring light-hearted vibe to Soapbox