The Staves are dead... Long live The Staves

The Staves, currently on tour with Florence + The Machine, have just uploaded a disturbing video for their new single, Steady.

Shot entirely on 16mm film it sees the sisters (Emily, Jess and Camilla) witnessing eerie visions of their own deaths in a remote, abandoned apartment.

There's something particularly creepy about seeing someone standing over their own lifeless body, singing "I was never here". But I suppose that's the point.

The video also gets a special citation for excellent acting by an orange.

The Staves - Steady


When I spoke to them earlier this year, the band described how they arrived at the intricate arrangement of the Bon Iver-produced single.

Jess: Mills [Camilla] came up with the Steady part of the song and straight away I loved it and thought, "oh we have to work on that"... A year later, we eventually did.

I'd had a piece for ages that was completely disconnected to that song, that suddenly fit – which is the verse I sing. It's the bit that goes "Rabbit in a snare" – that was a totally different song. It was a nice moment when they both fused together and it was like, "I think this is legal!"

And then, in the studio, we were like “it needs another section, too”

Emily: I love songs that have got sections.

Jess: So that song’s really nice for us to perform, because Mills starts the song, then passes the baton over to me, then we all come together and Em takes the end section. It was a song of many sections fused together.

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