Photo of Circling Girl with Emily Donville (third from the left, CJSW).

Circling Girl performed during Sled Island on Thursday, June 18th at #1 Legion (Main Floor) & Saturday, June 20th at Dandy Tasting Room (Parking Lot).

Interview Audio:

Interview Transcript:

Emily (CJSW)
There’s like a weird metronome sound. Anyways, my name is Emily. I’m here on behalf of CJSW Radio at the 2026 Sled Island Music and Arts Festival. I’m sitting here with Circling Girl from Denver, Colorado. How are you guys?

Devon
We’re doing pretty good. How are you?

Emily (CJSW)
I’m very well, thank you. Maybe before we get into our conversation here, can you all introduce yourselves and your role in the band?

Noah
My name is Noah. I am the bass player and keyboard player.

Devon
Hello, my name is Devon. I sing and I play guitar, and also keys.

Isabel
My name is Isabel, and I sing.

Alison
My name is Alison, and I play guitar.

Ben
And my name is Ben, and I play the drums.

Emily (CJSW)
Awesome, thanks for coming in all the way up to Calgary. It’s your first time performing in Calgary, let alone outside of the country, is that right?

Isabel
Outside the state too. I’ve never been out of Colorado.

Emily (CJSW)
Well, we are very lucky to have you here, feeling very blessed. It’s your first time playing Sled Island, first time in Calgary, and unlike, you know, your traditional festival, where you’re in this like closed off muddy field, multi-venue festivals like Sled Island often take over an entire city or neighborhood, and so I’m curious, how does interacting with, like, Calgary and its environment and the crowds influence your performance and or mindset?

Alison
Sorry, could you give me the last part of that question?

Emily (CJSW)
For sure. Just like, how does interacting with the local environment influence your performance and or mindset?

Alison
Yeah, we are loving Sled Island so far. We are very happy to be here, and I would say the first thing that I experienced here was the real, like, sense of community here, like it’s really palpable. You can feel it in the air, and you know, a lot of times where we’re from, it’s kind of hard to get people to engage, you know, like we want them to come up close to the stage and, and say hi, and but here, like everyone, like was just immediately like invested, even though a lot of most of them I assume have never heard of us, and it was just, it’s wonderful to feel like part of a community here, and it’s truly, it’s just very special, and to be able to experience a lot of the local places, you know, it makes me feel very at home here in Calgary.

Emily (CJSW)
Amazing, you kind of touched on it a little bit, but tell me more about your scene back in Denver. Is there anything about your music scene that’s kind of helped you gain traction as a band? Anything notable that you want to share?

Noah
So, we have some festivals much like this in Denver, and we played one last year called the UMS. It’s the Underground Music Showcase. It’s a lot like this. It’s open air in a neighborhood, and that was our experience coming here, and what we had basically planned on, and this one, you know, just feels a little different, like it’s it’s a, it’s more spread out, and it’s in the heart of the city, and our experience is in, like, kind of like a sub neighborhood, and that has helped us a lot, and one of our favorite shows was at a place called Levitt Pavilion, which is it’s a collection of venues across the US, and they do free concert series, and so you know we’ve been able to play shows like that, where we’re actually able to, you know, we get paid still as artists, which is awesome, but we still get to provide the community with art, and that feels a lot like what this is, is it’s like this is a very community-driven show, but bands still get paid, and everyone still is actually able to survive as an artist, and you know, that’s I think that’s one of the most important things about creating a space like this, and a festival like this, or venues like Levitt, where you get to, you know, you get to support everybody who needs it, and the community gets to benefit from it.

Emily (CJSW)
Totally. And I really appreciate that there’s opportunities like that that are barrier free, because I feel like everyone’s kind of suffering with the cost of living, and so I need to talk louder, you know, like everyone’s suffering with the cost of living, that it can be hard to prioritize, like arts opportunities like that. So I really appreciate hearing that.

Noah
The application for this was free too, like, and there are plenty that I’ve done that are you get to the end of it and they’re like, “oh, well, you should donate 20, 25 dollars.”

Emily (CJSW)
It’s like oh, I’m getting scammed.

Noah
It’s like, okay, so this is a scam, like you might not even look at this, like you might be full, but you’re gonna leave it open just to get another 20 bucks out of some bands. But this was free, and everyone’s been supportive, and everyone’s been communicative, and like, “oh, hey, you should go check this out. Let’s go check this out. I work at so and so, you should come, you know. I’d love to talk to you about, you know, whatever it is,” and, oh, like, you want to help everybody here. This is, like that feels awesome. And it is very refreshing to come up to a place that we’re not from and we don’t know much and be received in such a wonderful way, where we feel at home, like Alison said, and like we feel like we were around people who understand and support, which is great.

Emily (CJSW)
I actually, I met Alison last night outside of the Palomino. We were talking about this, about how Calgary has this very tight-knit, passionate community, and I feel like there’s a lot of pride in our community, and we’re just so eager to share that. And so it’s amazing when artists, you know, come from all over the place to kind of share that with us. Circling Girl contains a lot of references to girlhood, both in its name and kind of your vibes. Tell me, what role does girlhood play in creating your identity as a band?

Isabel
That’s a really good question. Actually, the other day we were talking about this in terms of stage presence, for me, because I’m the only one who doesn’t have, like, a physical instrument, besides my vocal cords, I am always just trying to go back to when I was a child, and I was so free in my movement and my dancing, and you know, like, strange interpretive dances to whatever music my parents would play, and just like that kind of carefree feeling of just being a girl in the world, and moving as what felt natural, and I think that’s a huge part for me. Also, I think Devon and I, we’ve known each other since we were in seventh grade, we’ve been singing together since then, and so I think that, like, core beautiful friendship is like very big in our, like, you can feel it in our music, that’s what we’ve been told a lot, is like our chemistry is very palpable, because we’re just like so locked in, because at this point we feel like we’re siblings, almost. And yeah, so I think I don’t know, does that answer your question a little bit?

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, for sure. I really like what you said about, you know, tapping into that creativity that you kind of embraced as a child, like I feel like as adults, like we carry the weight of these responsibilities and everything, and it can be like hard to tap into that. So, do you almost like kind of see this project as like a kind of practice and kind of finding your inner child?

Isabel
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I’m also an elementary school teacher, so like I feel like I’ve dedicated both parts of my life to just like my inner child, and like honoring her, and also like being okay with not, in terms of movement, like when we’re kids, the art we make, it, we don’t care about whether it’s like quote unquote good, and I think, although I love our music, and I think it is good, like when it comes to dancing and moving with it, I just really try to tap into the, like, this is not about looking perfect or being choreographed, it’s about, like, being true to what feels good to me, and to, you know, what I was like when I was little.

Emily (CJSW)
I love that. That’s amazing. Let’s see, you released your debut album, Only My Veins Know, last September. Tell me a little bit about the process of writing that record.

Isabel
Yeah, did you want to talk, or? So we, it’s not like locked in every single time, but usually what happens is I will, I have a ton of just words in my notes app that just kind of comes to me, and then Alison brings some sort of riff, and we try to match the two and then Devon is very melodically inclined and so those are kind of our, our parts that we play and we come together and start with Alison, I try to find lyrics that I think will kind of match her energy and then Devon kind of finds a melody.

Emily (CJSW)
That’s awesome. How did you come up with the album title, Only My Veins Know?

Isabel
I feel like I’m talking a lot. Do you want to?

Alison
Yeah, well, we were kind of hard pressed to find an album title, because I don’t think we wanted this to be a self-titled album, you know?

Emily (CJSW)
You’re not ready for that?

Alison
Yeah, not ready for that quite yet. But, like, you know, so really, actually, what we did was we just went through all the lyrics and like found little tidbits that like stood out to us. And there’s this one line in our song Sunday that says, I forget, how does it go?

Isabel
Only my veins know just what’s left to say.

Alison
Only my veins know just what’s left to say, and we felt like that was… I don’t know, it just, it felt right for the album.

Isabel
I think it was also just for me. I think when I wrote that, I was thinking of how sometimes you process things so subconsciously, and so sometimes it feels like even though, like, my mind doesn’t know what to do with something or how to process something, like my body processes it anyway in ways that I didn’t expect or don’t make sense, but I don’t know, like, it’s more of a subconscious process.

Emily (CJSW)
It’s that sense of like you know yourself better than anything anyone else can.

Isabel
And even when you think you don’t, there’s a part of you that always will, like when I, when I write words, I usually don’t know what they mean until we’ve like written the entire song, and then I’m like, that’s, I was processing this event that happened to me, so it’s yeah, it’s kind of a nod to just like how our brains are processing things in ways that we don’t even realize until maybe like weeks or months later or years.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, that’s cool. I was reading while I was doing my research, you did an interview with Grace Maruska, I hope I’m saying that right, and you guys mentioned kind of how each band member plays a different role in the writing process with different perspectives and roles at play. How do you compromise and come to an agreement over a song’s musical direction? Or is it like, are you guys like all on the same page?

Isabel
I mean, it’s, and we want to move out of this because we have two very talented songwriters with us. Ben is the newest member of the band, and he has his own project that’s wonderful, and we want to begin to incorporate his writing, but the three of us, Alison, me, and Devon, are usually the ones who write – at least we wrote Only My Veins Know, and we are just kind of like, I don’t know, it’s very symbiotic. We just kind of sometimes, if we come to a disagreement, we set it down and come back to it later. That feels like it’s probably the best, because we all have very strong feelings about this stuff. And so, like, our song Blue Collar, we said that it was, it was a difficult birth, because when we first sat down to write it, it was just like really difficult, and like there was like a blockage in a way, and then we came back to it like a month later, and it just like spilled out.

Emily (CJSW)
That’s awesome. And I feel like earlier you mentioned you have this like great chemistry, I think that also helps, like you’re not gonna like ever force the song out. It just kind of comes naturally, I like that. When you’re touring through a new city, or maybe more broadly when you’re traveling, I’m curious, are there any things you like to collect or seek out?

Noah
100% bolo ties.

Emily (CJSW)
Bolo ties, have you gotten any?

Noah
In Calgary, not yet. I haven’t had time to go to the stores I wanted to, but generally, when I’m on tour, I try and pick up one or two. I think I’m up to 20 now. I tour with other folks, and so you know, I always try and find space to do that, and usually other people don’t go with me, but now that the Circling Girls are going out, I’m hoping that they will indulge me in the bolo hunt.

Isabel
Well, we lost them, but Dev found some really cute, like, I heart Canada pins.

Emily (CJSW)
Oh, nice.

Isabel
And then they fell out of the bag, so we’re gonna have to go back and get some, but I feel like that would be a fun thing to collect. I saw you guys had some pins over there, and I already grabbed one. I love a good pin.

Alison
I am a big sucker for souvenir shops.

Emily (CJSW)
I, not gonna lie, stalked your Instagram story, the canned moose meat, I was like what the heck is that?

Isabel
I think it was like a surprise thing where if you open it, a moose like pops out.

Alison
Yeah, we weren’t exactly sure what it was, but it said adult supervision required, so I think so.

Emily (CJSW)
So don’t leave me alone with that.

Alison
Yeah, but yeah, I’m a big sucker for for souvenir shops, I know they’re like total tourist traps, but I love them. I love them. They’re so fun and tacky and cute. I think another thing is just pictures, you know. We’re always like, ‘let’s take a picture, let’s take a picture!’ you know. And so that’s been something, you know, that we’re, you know, very happy to always get.

Emily (CJSW)
Nice, right on. I like to collect zines, zines. I try to find zines wherever I go.

Alison
Yeah, we want to, we want to make some for Circling Girl.

Emily (CJSW)
Do it.

Isabel
We’ll send you some.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, yes. I would love that. Snail mail. I’ll send something back. Sorry.

Noah
Is the Canadian Post as slow as it’s been told to me?

Emily (CJSW)
It can be. Yeah, it’s… it’s not great sometimes.

Noah
Well, you’ll get it in three years, maybe four years.

Emily (CJSW)
Probably after the next strike.

Noah
That’s what I’m, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Yeah.

Emily (CJSW)
Let’s see beyond your own performance, which other artists on the lineup are you most excited to catch or have seen? Because I know it’s kind of the last day, second last day.

Noah
Yeah, we did quite a few. My favorite was Buddie, that was awesome. We saw them last night upstairs, Palomino. I think everybody else also has other stuff, but.

Isabel
We saw HOMESHAKE in the church, and it was really, really cool. He, like, changed a lot of the songs, so that they weren’t at all what they sounded like in the recordings, but it was like really cool, and very unique, and also, like, everyone was sitting, and it was a church, so it was like very dreamy, and like bizarre, and a wonderful way, kind of surreal.

Alison
For me, probably Spec Realists downstairs at Palomino. I’m a big, I’m a big fan of post punk, everything.

Emily (CJSW)
I’m right there with you. They were super cool.

Alison
Especially the singer’s voice, really reminded me of Peter Murphy from Bauhaus. You know, it was very cool.

Ben
I was really excited to see feeble little horse and Fanclubwallet, but of course travel meant that we got here the day after, but same as Noah, I just like I had no idea they even existed until we were there, but Buddie kind of like floored me, like I really, really loved Buddie, and yeah, I don’t know, I love the sort of spontaneous discovery of just, you know, wandering into a place and just being drawn in by the music, I love that. So I’m excited to see who we enjoy today. Oh, and we’re excited to see mon cher, she or they are also from Denver, so we’re excited to make that connection today.

Emily (CJSW)
Do you know each other back home? Do you know each other back home?

Isabel
Sort of like we are mutuals on Instagram. I don’t know if that counts.

Emily (CJSW)
Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Did you have anyone you want to share?

Devon
I have to look up the name.

Emily (CJSW)
We have time for that. Yeah, I feel like I love hearing what everyone’s enjoying, because I feel like sometimes when it comes to Sled, there’s like a hesitancy from some people to buy tickets because they’re like, ‘oh, like, I don’t really know anyone on the lineup,’ but I feel like that’s not the point of Sled Island, it’s literally like a discovery festival, and you know, I’ve found so many amazing bands through this festival that it’s awesome, kind of hearing what everyone else is checking out.

Noah
I think for me what a lot of that comes down to at a festival like this is the trust of the festival, like, as a, as a patron, as somebody who wants to find new music, I know that the curation of Sled is something that will create good bands. Yeah, like, I’m like, I, I will buy a ticket blind, because I know that the people who are doing this are doing good work and sourcing bands and finding folks, and you know, doing great bills, like we were kind of scared for our show at the Legion, because we’re like, ‘we don’t know if we really fit in, like I don’t know, all the all the folks here kind of seem like it’s not really what we fit in with,’ and then at the end of the night, we’re like, ‘oh, yep, that worked, that was great.’

Emily (CJSW)
You got to trust the process.

Noah
Like it flowed really well, all the other bands work. It was like, okay, that was, that was really, that was really sweet. Okay, cool. Like, maybe we shouldn’t be scared about how any of this works, because we can trust that somebody higher up is doing good work.

Isabel
There was way more people than I than I expected. So, when I looked at, I was like, oh wow, and I got a little nervous when I was talking, but it was so cool, because everyone at the front was like dancing, and there were some folks who literally had shirts on that they bought like right before we went on, and it was just like such a crazy feeling to look down and literally see someone wearing one of the shirts that we made in a completely different country. It’s yeah, it’s awesome. Did you remember your person?

Devon
Yeah, yesterday I had the opportunity to see Wayne Patrick Garrett, the pedal steel player, and yeah, he played a beautiful set ending with a Daft Punk cover, Something About Us, which was super cool and special in the church. I would love to play a pedal steel, that’s hopefully gonna happen in the future.

Emily (CJSW)
Yeah, yeah. Like, I love the pedal steel so much, I listen to a lot of Weyes Blood, and the pedal steel is like some of my favorite components of her work. I’m glad you mentioned that, because I knew that was a cover at the end, but I didn’t know which one, but now I do. So, thank you. Yeah, some of my favorite shows happen at Central United Church, like it’s just such a beautiful setting. Didn’t get to see HOMESHAKE, but I saw Sharon Udoh, and just again completely floored me. So lots of amazing bands to take in this week. Before I let you go, what’s next for Circling Girl? Shows? new music?

Noah
We have a lot of festivals this year, which was a goal of mine. Just because, yeah, I kind of, I do a lot. Like, I wanted to do a lot of festivals. Sled was one of, like, the top three that I was like, I, we have to do this. We had a bunch of friends play it last year, and I was like, we, I got it, we got to do it. Yeah, we’re not not doing it. And then inside of that, I was like, I want to, I want to hit a bunch more festivals, so we’re, I think we’re up to six this year. A lot of them are all in Colorado-based areas, hopefully more, we’re in the middle of writing our next LP. Yeah, I mean, going, going slow this time. Last time we put a deadline on it, and it, it wasn’t, it wasn’t ideal. And I think now we’re going to turn it around and let it happen, and then when it’s, when it’s done, it’s done, and then we can decide what to do with it, but giving, giving you know what we want to do, time to breathe, to be more authentic, and you know, better well prepared, and you know, just feel better to us.

Alison
Yeah, we, it’s been a second since we’ve been able to work on new material, you know, just because our schedules, and we’ve been so busy with playing shows and stuff like that, but you know, we’re finally going to have some downtime to really figure out what we want to do with this next project. There’s a little bit of a sound change, which will be cool, I think. We’re all really excited to explore, and as Ben is newer to this band, this is going to be our first time writing with him, so that’s very, very exciting.

Ben
Yeah, it’s really exciting to be on board. I am, I feel like a drummer, second or third, I definitely started in music as like a songwriter and singer and guitar player, and I think a lot of us, well, I know a lot of us, are multi-instrumentalists, and even started on like different instruments, and I think that that’s like really special and valuable to the band, because I think we’re all able to like wrap our heads around like arrangement and the big picture really well. I think that actually ties into an earlier question, better about like how, like, if we were, what was it? If we were all on the same page when we write, and I feel like even when that’s not necessarily, at least based off my few experiences writing with y’all so far, I feel like even when that’s not exactly the case, we all have such a like good grasp and understanding of what makes like a good song and a good arrangement that nobody’s like stuck on, like, oh, this part, like my instrument, has to do this, and like my vocal, like we’re all always thinking about everything, like the whole arrangement, the big picture, and I think that that’s really cool. So, yes, as the newest member, I’m very, very excited to be part of like the process for the new material. Yeah, I’m really grateful to be here.

Emily (CJSW)
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective. It’s like very clear to me that each one of you has like brings something very distinct and special to the band, and I’m very excited to see you play later today. Before you go, are there any bands or artists or anything from Denver you’d like to shout out that should be on our radar?

Isabel
Oh, look at fiona. Our friends. Alison literally lives with, like, half of them. They’re wonderful and spectacular. Corsicana, that’s Ben’s other projects that’s been around for a while, and it’s awesome. Who else? Oh, prairie. prairie is from Fort Collins, Colorado. We played with them a while back, and they are so wonderful. Yeah, they’re one of our favorites for sure.

Alison
Their latest album, too, was like all recorded to tape and everything, and it was just so, so good.

Emily (CJSW)
I love, like, tape recordings, or like anything that’s like recorded through, like, an analog medium. Just so special.

Isabel
Totally.

Emily (CJSW)
Sweet. thank you so much for your time. This has been an interview with Circling Girl. They performed on Thursday, June 18 at the No. 1 Legion, and you can catch them again Saturday, June 20 at 5 o’clock at the Dandy Tasting Room. Thank you so much, and enjoy the rest of your time in Calgary.

Isabel
Thank you, it was so nice to meet you.