Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds get soulful at The Narrows

Certain bands have a knack for grabbing hold of a timeless style of music, putting a unique flair on it and creating something that’s purely exciting.

With a combination of soul and funk, Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds from Brooklyn are a force of nature whenever they perform live.

Arleigh Kincheloe has a voice that can shake the walls of any venue while her brother, Jackson, leads a band that’s chock full of amazing talents.

Ever since their latest album, Gold, came out in October, they’ve been consistently playing shows all over the northeast and beyond. As part of their New Year’s Eve run of shows, Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds will be bringing a party to the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River with fellow Brooklynites the National Reserve opening things up.

Kincheloe and I had a conversation ahead of the show about the initial formation of the band, the Motown vibe within Gold, becoming a mother and how that responsibility makes her and her band adapt while being on tour.

Rob Duguay: The roots of Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds come from you and your brother Jackson writing and singing songs while traveling between New York City and upstate New York. How long did it take for the whole band to initially form?

Arleigh Kincheloe: It’s been a work in progress but once Jackson and I moved out of the Catskills and down to New York City, it took about a year of us getting our bearings and working at different restaurants to get the wherewithal to start finding musicians and rehearsing and stuff.

A couple of guys back then were really helpful in getting some of the guys together. Our cousin Bram [Kincheloe] who is our original drummer and Ryan Snow who was our trombone player helped find other musicians and then we started playing once a week and rehearsing once a week as well.

We kind of took form from that on, none of the guys from that time are members now other than Jackson so we’ve gone through a lot of changes and a lot of growth, some loss and this and that. We got a really good group of guys now so it’s been awesome these days.

RD: Despite all the changes within the band, it seems like you guys have grown more instead of regressing, which is a great thing.

AK: Definitely.

RD: You have a very soulful and powerful voice on stage, it’s pretty remarkable. Were you ever trained by a vocal coach or is your ability to sing the way you do completely natural?

AK: I’ve never really had lessons. I think I had one lesson from a friend of the family when I was a kid and I took a couple lessons a few years after the band started because I was losing my voice a lot. It was with a guy in New York and he kind of helped me and mainly what I learned was how to do my warm-up.

I already sound like me so I think what you hear is a natural thing. Also, because I’ve been doing it my whole life, basically, I’ve grown and matured because of how often I use my voice, so it’s a lot of all those things.

I think I was born with a different kind of voice and when I started singing with my parents’ band, I was only nine years old. People have told me that I sound like a 40 year old woman with a past ever since I was a kid, so I was born with it. I’m very grateful for it and I have my parents to thank for that.

RD: This past October, the band put out their fourth album, Gold. The production on it is stellar with the whole record having a Motown vibe to it. Were you guys trying to capture that aesthetic while making the album or did it just come about that way?

AK: I was definitely guided in that direction, or I was guiding myself, rather. I’ve always been inspired by that kind of sound and I always wanted to make a record that sounded more like that than our previous records.

It’s always been in my ears, that Motown or Stax Records, ‘70s soul and funk. That stuff really calls to me and I love it. I feel that it suits my voice and I can be comfortable in that genre, but this is the closest we’ve come to actualizing that dream since we started the band.

I’m pretty excited with how it came out. I’m glad that you like it also and you picked up on those influences 100 percent. I’m glad that it comes through and that you can tell.

RD: It’s definitely evident. The band has been known for their relentless touring schedule that consists of over 150 shows a year. What do you like the most about being on the road and what do you like the least about it?

AK: Being able to play is so wonderful and we took some time off before we made Gold because I had a baby, so I didn’t realize until after taking that time off how fun and wonderful it is to be able to make music.

The time on stage is obviously the highlight, what is not so great is that the travel and the schedule can get crazy while being in a van during 17-hour drive days. That is probably the worst part. I have a bad back so it’s definitely exacerbated by being cooped up in a van all that time.

We get to see the country, we’ve also gotten to go to China once and I’ve realized how special of a lifestyle it is and you have to be grateful and take the bad things in stride.

RD: After the show at The Narrows on the 30th, what can fans expect from you and the band next year?

AK: We’re trying to put together a couple of different tours, we’re definitely trying to hit the festival circuit again. It’s different now because I have a son and he’s almost one and a half now, so we’re going to try to bring him along with us and have our little road baby.

It’s a challenge to figure out how to do that to be a mom and a touring musician but this year has been very educational. We’ve tried a lot of different things but I think we’re starting to hopefully find a balance between it all.