INTRODUCING: BABY SAID | INTERVIEW

Last week we caught up with one of the UK’s fastest rising bands, Italian Punjabi sister rock duo Baby Said. At only 17 and 19, the two earned their stripes playing in a cover band, before releasing their own music in 2023 with debut single Fight. June 2024 saw the band release their first Ep ‘Who Gives a Rock’, a punchy collection of tracks that commands the listeners attention from the very first note. These girls mean business, and they’re not afraid to shout about it.
We found out how the girls went from playing covers in pubs to recording with guitar legends.

NE: So how are you both? What have you been up to you been up to? You’ve had quite a busy year, haven’t you?

Veronica: Yeah! We’ve been working away recording our album recently, and we’ve just had a launch party for our new Ep, and we’ve got loads of festivals coming up too!

NE: So, for anyone that doesn’t know, you’re both sisters aren’t you? How did you start playing music together?

Veronica: Yeah! I started busking by myself when I finished my GCSEs. Then when Jess finished for the summer – because she was in year 10 at the time, she joined me.
We were playing in Emsworth Square, busking there, and one of the owners of a pub in Emsworth saw us, and she wanted us to play in her pub. So then we started playing gigs together.

Jess: Yeah, so that was our cover band. We still play as our cover band so that we can fund Baby Said.

NE: Oh, no way, that’s interesting, so do you still play the pubs and clubs?

Jess: Yeah, every weekend! Then we put all of that towards Baby Said.

NE: I guess that’s a good way to learn what kind of music you want to make by playing other people’s songs. You also played over 200 gigs, didn’t you?

Jess: Yeah, it’s a lot more now (Laughing).

NE: How did you transition them from playing other people’s songs to writing your own?

Veronica: I think it was after we saw Måneskin.

Jess: Yeah it was then that we realized that we wanted people to see us on stage and listen to songs that we’d created, we wanted to know that feeling. It was around April when we created Baby Said and started working with our manager Jeff.
He helped us by sending us to work with some writers in Wales, London and Glasgow, just to see what we would create.
That’s when we wrote Fight, You Killed it, Mouth Shut, and Panic Attack, which is the latest single from our new EP.

NE: Was that the first time that you ever wrote your own music?

Jess: No. So we did write stuff as our cover band, thinking that that would be our original band. But it was very experimental, they all sounded different, and we didn’t really have a lane.
So we decided to make a completely new thing and keep them separate so that we could find our sound.

NE: You mentioned your song Fight, that’s a song about not being taken seriously in the music industry. How do you find that as young female artists?

Jess: Well, when we would play in pubs as our cover band, we had when men would make fun of us as soon as they saw that we were playing because we were girls. Or we’d have to stop the whole show just to prove to them that we were playing our instruments because no one believed that we actually were.

NE: The new single off your ‘Who Gives A Rock’ EP is called Panic Attack, can you tell me a bit about it?

Jess: Well I’m quite prone to panic attacks, I have them all the time. So I wanted to write a song that could make you feel that sort of edge, and hoped that people could relate to that.

NE: How did you come up with the title of your new Ep, ‘Who Gives A Rock’?

Jess: So basically, we were on the phone with our manager Jeff and he was talking to us about how we needed to find like a name for the Ep. He started just shooting out some random ideas, and he just like randomly said, “Who Gives a Rock” and then just brushed past it. We just looked at each other on the other end of the phone like that was really good!

NE: Are there any particular artists that inspired the songs?

Veronica: Yeah, so definitely, Måneskin, Arctic Monkeys, Nirvana, that’s all in there a little bit. Instrumentally its very indie or classic rock, but a lot of the vocal lines sound more pop-y,

NE: You’re already working on your debut album too, can you tell us anything about it?

Jess: We’re in the middle of recording it with a guy called Patch Boshell, and Steven Patel – he’s like a guitar legend. So he’s just there listening to all the sounds making sure everything is exactly how we wanna capture it.
But I’m not sure when we’re releasing that, I think it will probably be closer to next year but we can’t say for certain.

NE: Where can we catch you at a festival this summer?

Veronica: We’ve got a few, we’re playing Reading and Leeds, Victorious Festival, and Beyond the Music later in the year.

Jess: When we do our live gigs, we’re joined by our guitarist, Holly and drummer, Maddie.

NE: Oh, cool! And will these be your 1st festival gigs?

Jess: No! We did the Great Escape earlier in the year.

Veronica: We’re also doing The Hundred cricket in July.

NE: Oh, that’s amazing! You’re very busy for such a new band!

Veronica: Yeah, it’s quite surreal at the moment, like, even though we’ve basically just started we’ve got loads and loads of stuff going on.

Jess: I remember once I was in one of my lessons while I was in the middle of booking a meeting, trying to hide my phone and just quickly book this meeting, it’s crazy! (laughing).

NE: Can you give us 3 reasons why people should come and watch you at one of your festival sets this year?

Jess: We will be full of energy.

Veronica: And loud.

Jess: (Laughing) Yeah we’ll just be screaming out at you.

Veronica: (Laughing) Don’t worry we wont be screaming, just angelically singing.

Jess: Just good fun vibes, and we practice a lot so hopefully it’s good!

Keep up to date with Baby Said here.