Start Listening To: lilo
Best Friends, Breakups, and Big Feelings: Lilo’s Blood Ties Is the Sound of Growing Up Side by Side
Lilo are a band built on friendship, trust, and an almost telepathic musical connection. Made up of lifelong friends Christie and Helen, the duo’s sound merges tender folk roots with the shimmering edges of pop and Americana, always anchored by their instinctive harmonies and candid storytelling. Their long-awaited debut album Blood Ties is a deeply personal and emotionally expansive record, tracing the messy beauty of growing up, weathering heartbreak, and holding onto each other through it all. Written over years of shared experience—from euphoric late-night drives to gut-wrenching personal reckonings—the album is as much about the power of chosen family as it is about the music itself. We caught up with lilo to talk about the making of Blood Ties, their unique creative bond, and how a turbulent summer shaped the songs that mean the most to them.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
C- So we are Christie and Helen, we’ve been friends since we were 12 years old when we met at school in Winchester. We love each other and love listening to music together and I think that’s the main spring board for everything we do. I think the only reason why either of us make music is because listening to music with our friends was how we learnt to express ourselves and it was the most joyful way to grow up together. Our music begins in a folky world and stretches into Americana, and almost pop music at times, and is always reflective of the music we love and grew up listening to.
Your debut album Blood Ties has been a long time coming. How does it feel to finally be releasing it, and what does this record represent for you both?
C- It feels incredible to be finally releasing it. I love the idea that something we have sat with and reckoned with for so long is now in other people’s hands for them to make of it what they like! I always find it quite funny to hear the interpretations of our friends and families, their guesses as to what songs are about or how they’ve reacted to them. The record represents us growing up and growing into ourselves really.
The title Blood Ties reflects your deep bond as longtime friends. How has your relationship shaped the way you write and create music together?
H - I think there’s a huge amount of trust that goes into making music with someone else. Bringing a song or an idea to the table is really a vulnerable thing to do, it can feel like you’re opening up your insides for everyone to take a look at. Our relationship, and the trust we’ve built, mean that I’m not afraid to share my ideas, which was something I used to find really hard. In that sense it’s what has made making music together possible.
C - I absolutely agree, I think we’re incredibly lucky in that we are able to experience being that comfortable around someone else. I obviously can’t speak for Helen but I never second guess myself when we’re together which I find makes playing together and creating together so natural and easy. Really, all the songs I’ve ever written, have been written to be sung with Helen. I wouldn’t know what to do otherwise. Probs make some techno or something.
Your new single “It’s Not The Same In Winter” explores dissociation during a crisis. Can you talk about the writing process behind this song and how you captured that feeling musically?
H - I don’t know whether to say this but here I am going for it, I wrote nearly the whole song in a few minutes while I was going for a wee break during a writing session. This feels relevant (sort of) because it’s the classic thing: as soon as you stop thinking about something, it comes to you. I guess having my brain go a bit space-mode felt quite hard to pin down into a song, but as soon I stopped overthinking it, it was suddenly so obvious what I was trying to say. There’s a relief, I think, to distilling something big into a simple, repeating line of a song; at the end of the day, it all boils down to wanting your brain back to how it was before, in that respect it is pretty simple to write about.
The album is described as moving between anger, joy, sadness, and everything in between. Were there any particular moments or experiences that influenced this emotional range?
C - I think watching each other go through two very turbulent relationships almost off the back of one another was very difficult for us both to do. It really pushed our friendship too, to a place it hadn’t been before, when one of us had to put our foot down and say, actually this just really isn’t right and I can’t watch you do this. It was a situation like the one we wrote about in our song Just A Thought but… times 1000. That moment was a real peak for me, an out of body experience almost that was so unexpected, so upsetting, and so needed and reflective of what an actual true friend does. We were both taking a LOT into the studio throughout the whole process, and our poor producer Joe had to put up with all our feelings! We need to pay him double.
You’ve said you like to give your songs “a poppier lean” despite being rooted in folk traditions. How do you strike that balance between classic and contemporary influences?
H - Making music is such a precarious thing to do, there’s never any guarantee that things will ‘do well’, that you’ll achieve your dreams, whatever whatever… I think the only real thing you can make sure is that you’re enjoying what you’re making, and leaning in to who you are as people. For us that really means following our musical whims, making songs that are fun to play, not taking ourselves too seriously. We’re not consciously trying to strike a balance, necessarily, it’s just that we as people are a bit of a mix between folk and pop, and that’s what comes naturally.
There’s a strong storytelling element to your lyrics. Do you tend to write from personal experience, or do you also pull from outside stories and observations?
H - It tends to be personal experience, but this definitely extends to each other’s experiences. Christie wrote Crash The Car about my ex boyfriend, for example. Our lives are quite entangled, so I guess it feels quite personal to both of us when something happens to either one.
C - I definitely take almost everything from our lives, at most, the lives of our friends. However, I like to take lots of inspiration and ideas from looking at images, whether photographs or paintings or movies, and draw a romanticised and almost fantastical element into the songs, so they become something I feel I’ve created and morphed outside of a diary entry or conversation. I like that our songs have quite speculative sides to them, imagining what something could’ve been, or trying to create a scene that reflects a moment we’ve been through. Mostly we just try to have fun with it and not think too much! Very often the first thing I write is what we finish with.
You’ve mentioned that some of these songs were written after a particularly turbulent summer. How did that time in your lives shape the themes of Blood Ties?
H - I think if anything it brought us closer together.
C - I think the nature of it being complete chaos mode but really fun at the same time. We spent a lot of it driving around screaming along to pop songs on our way to increasingly mental events. I think the open space of ‘the road’, even when said ‘road’ is the M3, shaped a lot of themes on Blood Ties. We feel like on this record we are really moving forward.
Your harmonies are such a defining part of lilo’s sound. Do you have a specific approach to arranging them, or is it something that happens naturally between you?
H - We’ve been making music for so many years, at this point it feels instinctive. It’s usually as simple as we sing through the song together and there they are, harmonies ready to go. From there, whatever other instrumentation we add, the harmonies are there to ground the song.
Artists like Julia Jacklin, Laura Marling, and Mitski have been referenced in relation to your music. Are there any unexpected influences, musical or otherwise, that shaped this record?
H - The album title ‘Blood Ties’ comes from Michelle Zauner’s book ‘Crying In H Mart’. I found the way that she writes about the significant relationships in her life really inspiring; there’s an unconditional, transcendent love that runs through the book that I hadn’t really considered in depth before. Her aunt says “That’s blood ties” to mean ‘I would do anything for you, you’re family’ - I think that sort of unconditional love exists in friendships too, and it’s sort of the central theme that our band is built on.
You’re heading out on tour in April, including your biggest London headline show to date. What are you most looking forward to about taking Blood Ties on the road?
H - Hanging out with the band haha. Also I love the highs and lows of our live set; I’m looking forward to having a good shout, maybe a cry, and to playing Cycling I love that song (even the three note riff in the chorus that I consistently get wrong).
C - I’m looking forward to one of us panicking and saying something unhinged on stage. I’m also really looking forward to being with my favourite people on the planet!! I’m also looking forward to visiting Glasgow for the first time and seeing all the other brilliant cities we have on the list!
The album took its time coming together, and you’ve said you didn’t want to rush the process. How did letting it develop organically change the final result?
H - I think making this album forced us to really lay out the parameters of our sound, which took a little while to get right. Ultimately, taking our time trying out different things gave each song space to take on a life of its own. We did go round in some circles though: some that were completely worth it, like the end of Closing Time, which took so long to get right, but is one of my favourite moments of the album; and some that weren’t, like completely rearranging Step, before realising that all the magic had been lost from the original version, and stripping it right back down again.
C - The Better Conversation key change was not in the original draft I’ll tell you that.
What do you love right now?
H - Wow I tried one of those Kinder Card biscuit things the other day what even is that?? Delicious.
C - That the days are getting longer!
What do you hate right now?
H - People doing horrible things and getting away with it. Hate that, a big out for 2025.
C - The rat in the cupboard under my stairs
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?
C - The other day I got really drunk unexpectedly with my friends playing a policy cards in my living room lol. When everyone left I realised how drunk I was. I stumbled to do the washing up and put on ‘I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning’ and cried for no reason. I just think it’s great.
A lot of Blood Ties explores change. Breakups, hardship, but also moments of happiness. Did making this album change your perspective on anything?
H - This album solidified for me what I already knew, that everything is basically fine if you’ve got your friends with you.
C - Making this album made me think that actually maybe it is worth spending ages choosing the right synth sound rather than just sticking to the garage band one I guess.
