Indie rock band Detective Blind on growing up, and writing songs with your sisters

Detective Blind is one of three youth bands playing WFDD’s Spring Fling event this weekend. They’re an Asheville-based indie rock group with catchy riffs, distinctive harmonies and a bond that goes beyond being bandmates — they’re sisters.

WFDD’s Amy Diaz spoke with Montgomery, 18, Andersen, 15, and Kittredge, 13, about their musical inspiration, growing up and being more than a family band. 

"Sister-taught"

Monty, Andersen and Kitt Lamb started playing music together about five years ago, right at the beginning of the pandemic. Monty was teaching herself to play the guitar using online tutorials, and wanted to start a band. 

“Yeah, so I actually held public auditions, but only two people showed up, and it just happened to be that it was these two… I'm just messing," Monty says. "Yes, it just kind of fell in place that these two decided to be my bandmates, and we all kind of live in a nice little ecosystem together.”  

Kitt went for bass, though fans have pointed out there was a missed opportunity for a pun in that decision. 

“Because you could have called her 'The Drum Kit,' Monty says. "But she actually decided to go with bass ... Andersen liked to hit things, hopefully, other than us, and that made her go on drums.”

They’re all self-taught, or as they put it, “sister-taught.”

“Our parents, they're very supportive of us," Monty says. "But they couldn't help me play a C chord if I needed to depend on my life for it.”

At first, they played covers of songs by The Beatles, Nirvana and Tears for Fears. Over time, they began writing their own. 

“We have basically huge sticky notes on the walls of just random lines. Some of them we will never use, and some of them, like, recently, we were literally writing a song that we wrote five years ago — we wrote down a line that we just were able to write into a song," Monty says. "But all those experiences in the past have made us to where our music is today.”

“Oh Tell” was the first song the band released, back in 2022. Monty and Andersen remember the three of them writing it during a long family road trip over the summer. 

“We're professional passengers, which means we're very good at sitting for car rides, but that's where we gained so much inspiration for songs," Monty says. 

"That's why there's that tapping, because I was tapping at different parts of the car," Andersen adds. 

In the song, they rhyme “faucet” with “gossip”, “toxic” with “chocolate,” and “festering” with “sequestering.” In their own words, the lyrics are ... “Definitely funky," Monty says. 

The song also has some classic Detective Blind elements. 

"I feel like there's some parts in our songs where people are able to tell, like, ‘Oh, this is an original,’ especially in the bridges we write," Monty says. "I feel like we usually have some sort of breakdown, some type of, like, slower chorus or harmonies going. So it's kind of like a style that you can kind of sense through different songs.”

Into the unknown

Their latest release, “Deep Waters,” has those pieces too, but it’s a little darker. The lyrics on this one were mostly written by Kitt. 

“So, this song is actually about a skin diver on the outside. That's why it's called Deep Waters. But if you listen to the lyrics closely, it's actually about somebody leaving home for the first time," Kitt says. "And luckily, I haven't left yet. I'm still here, but leaving for the first time can be scary, and we made that like running out of oxygen, and being underwater without your parents.”

She says it can apply to any kind of big “first,” or change. But she may have gotten some of the inspiration for the song from Monty, who just started at Clemson University in South Carolina. 

"This year is my first year not in the house, but you know, there's kind of a point where you know you're still around everyone you love, but you know you're growing up," Monty says. "Anyone at any age can feel like they're stepping out into the unknown.”

She’s studying audio engineering and hopes to open her own recording studio one day where she can produce Detective Blind’s music. 

But with Monty out of the house, there have been some changes to what band practice looks like. Andersen says, in some ways, it’s made them a little more professional. 

“You do really have to do your part," Andersen says. "Like when you have that kind of pressure, that you're not playing together every single day, it's a bigger deal to learn your part, perfect it, so we can play together and it sounds awesome.”

More than a family band

They play lots of shows in and around Asheville and have even traveled across the country for gigs. For a long time, shows were booked by their manager, aka their dad. Now, Monty’s doing a lot of that. 

“It's a job, and it's not a job because we all love what we do," Monty says. "And it's a sister thing, and it's not a sister thing, meaning we truly hope that people will enjoy our music, and then [think], ‘Oh, hey, and they’re sisters!’ You know what I mean?”

Their goal for now is to write more originals and eventually start playing full sets with only Detective Blind songs. And while they each have their own separate aspirations, they want the band to stay a part of their lives. 

“We're not just a family band that ends at the end of high school," Andersen says. "We hope that we're a professional band in the future; we’d stay together, obviously.”

Detective Blind will be playing alongside Finn Phoenix and the Firebirds, and The Biscuit Eaters at WFDD’s Spring Fling on May 10. 

Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.