Photograph by Kat Simone
Steph Plant and Sarah Vie of The Leonas.
Next week, musicians Steph Plant and violinist Sarah Vie are fulfilling a long-awaited St. Louis dream: playing onstage at The Sheldon. "It’s always been a dream of ours," says Plant. "We’ve seen some of our favorite acts there and it’s so warm and so beautiful." The two women make up the folk duo The Leonas, and on January 31, they will present a double-bill show with fellow strummers The Fog Lights. Since forming The Leonas back in 2015, Vie and Plant have been on the grind, playing all over town and, this past summer, releasing their concept album Forbidden Fruit, which was named to The Riverfront Times' list of 10 Best New Albums of 2016. In this interview, Plant fills us in about how they met, the background behind Forbidden Fruit, and what the group's resolutions are for 2017.
How did you and Steph meet, and what made you decide to play together professionally?
We both went to the same college. She was a music major, I was an art major, and we knew each other casually and would play very informally together now and then. But we really developed a deep friendship after we graduated. I had my own solo act that I was doing, and I would have her come up onstage and accompany me, but it sounded so good. And we started to bounce ideas off of each other and decided we had to make it more of a duo. We started writing songs together and developing ideas. We’ve got a really nice ying/yang thing going on where we make each other stronger. It is a bit of running a business when you have a band, but it’s also an art, so it’s kind of nice to have two minds that think slightly differently and help each other with all of the things that go along with that.
You and Sarah have spoken before about growing up in a home where religion was very important, and then the college you both went to, Greenville College, is a Christian school in Illinois. When you decided to make music, was there ever an idea that you'd make gospel or be a Christian band?
I think that was a strong temptation back when we were in high school! We were both very musically talented in high school, very involved in our churches...one of the major inspirations behind the album was a woman’s journey of stepping into her own identity when it comes to understanding what she believes as opposed to what people expect her to believe. Writing the songs was very healing for me. Yes, we went to a pretty conservative Christian college, and it was extremely helpful to for because we met so many artists and writers and psychology majors and philosophy majors there. We read so many great books, and we had so many great conversations where we felt safe to really explore and to really branch out in our minds. It was a place of no judgment because we had a safe community there that allowed for us to question.
Actually leaving college and stepping out into the world, for me, it felt very liberating and very new, and I could make my own faith path, whatever that was going to be. It was really exciting sharing that with somebody like Sarah who had a similar upbringing, where we could then dialogue about it, and have open-ended questions and not necessarily come to all of the right conclusions that we’re expected to have. It’s a lovely mystery, and we continue to be open to truth and be open to beauty. And music is a beautiful way to express that openness and that willingness to embrace beauty and to express beauty.
You two both have day jobs as teachers, and you in particular teach at a Montessori school. Does that Montessori training come in to play in your music life?
I would definitely say Montessori education has influenced my songwriting. It’s influence my perception of what love it, what it means to have respect for someone, what growth means, what patience means. It’s definitely shaped me as a person and made my musical practice deeper for sure.
What are The Leonas' goals for 2017?
We’re pretty excited for this year. We have gotten some really incredibly lovely publicity and really huge support from our local fans in St. Louis, and we want to ride on that wave. We’re going to be doing another new music video hopefully in spring, and we’re planning another tour. We’re going to take our album around and we’re going to share our concept album with the rest of the United States. We went through the midwest on our last tour, so we want to edge out west a little more. We’d love to get out to see Colorado and maybe California.
The Leonas perform at The Sheldon Concert Hall (3648 Washington) on Tuesday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10. For more information, go to thesheldon.org.
