Lily Seabird — 24 March 2021 on Rocket Shop Radio Hour

Lily Seabird joined guest hosts Olive Dimaggio and Abbey Berger-Knorr on ‘Rocket Shop,’ Big Heavy World’s weekly local Vermont music radio hour on 105.9 FM The Radiator. Look for a new album coming soon by following her on Instagram @lilyseabird.

Lily Seabird and Greg Freeman opened the Rocket Shop tonight with the song “No Light.” After the song, Lily described the band’s genre as folk mixed with a kind of grunge sound. The band rarely plays acoustic, but due to covid restrictions this type of performance was the only option.

“No Light,” appears on the new album, Beside Myself, which will hopefully be released within the next few months. It has been delayed because of difficulties resulting from Covid.

“I’ve been playing music and writing songs since I was fourteen or fifteen. I wrote this song when I was nineteen, I’m twenty-two now. I never really had the resources to record my music, so some of these songs are around four years old,” Lily said.

The title of the album comes from the idea of reflecting on her older music, thus the idea of sitting beside herself. “I used to be in a punk band in NYC where I played some versions of these songs. These versions [on the album] are the current renditions.”

Typically the band plays original songs, but when Lily was first finding her way as a musician, she would play cover songs for her solo act. “I used to play lots of covers, like Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead, in this coffee shop back home called The Zen Den.”

On comparing the Burlington music scene to the one in which she grew up around, Lily said, “I grew up surrounded by a lot of amazing music. A huge inspiration was Ween since they’re from really close to my roots. I love the music that comes out of Southeastern, PA. I played a punk band in high school and then also a punk band in NYC when I was going to college at The New School.”

“Playing the type of music I play you find people everywhere. I do feel like the community in Burlington is more tight-knit, but at the same time I feel like I have always had people to support me throughout my band experience.”

Before the last song of the show, Lily explained where the name Seabird came from. “My real last name is Seward. It comes from, when I was in high school hanging out with a group of people, that included my ex-boyfriend who said “Oh Lily Seward, they should call you Lily C-Word.” One of his friends said, “Nah bro, Lily’s a Seabird.” And then my friends just started calling me Seabird. Someone tried to diss me and it literally became the name that I use six/seven years later.”

They closed the show with the song “Alive.” After the album releases, the band hopes to get back to playing live shows. Like other musicians, during Covid they had the opportunity to live stream performances, but also, like other musicians, they prefer to play the real venues.

Text by Phil Franklin - Photo by James Lockridge