By Butch Maier
A trio of rising stars will bring their neo-traditional country sound to the Patriotic Festival on May 24 at Scope Arena in Norfolk. The Castellows—comprised of Balkcom sisters Lily (vocals), Ellie (lead guitar), and Powell (banjo)—are from little Georgetown, Georgia, and now call Nashville home. Ellie and Powell turn 23 in May. They are part of a set of triplets with their brother, Henry. Lily is 21.
Coastal Virginia Magazine: You originally performed as the Balkcom Sisters but switched to The Castellows to honor your great-grandmother’s maiden name. Was she still around to find out?
Ellie Balkcom: “She was not. She died when we were about 10.”
CVM: What was it about her that made her so special?
Powell Balkcom: “She was just such a musical person. She was such a special lady. We come from a small town, and so everybody in our town knew her and loved her. She just had such a love for music. As she got older, she had some Alzheimer’s and dementia, but her gift and love for music never left. She was playing piano right up until she died. She instilled the love of music in not just us but in everyone in our family.”
Lily Balkcom: “She never forgot how to play the piano. She’d forget who her son’s face was, but she could sit at the piano and play for the nursing home.”
CVM: At what age did you start singing and playing musical instruments, and what all can you play?
Lily: “So, I was probably 11 or 12. Ellie and Powell were about 13. Ellie’s been playing guitar and piano since she was itty-bitty. And Powell took up the banjo when she was 14 years old. And we would just gig around our hometown and lead worship in our church.”
Ellie: “Lily plays guitar. She plays bass a little bit. Powell plays banjo, and she plays guitar a little bit. I play piano, guitar, and mandolin, and bass.”
Lily: “She can play anything with a string.”
CVM: That gives you a lot of variety when you are coming up with songs.
Powell: “Yeah, it does. We’re always like, ‘Play this instrument and learn this song for this.’ You know, even if we don’t know the instrument very well, we’ll kind of like…”
Lily: “Wing it.”
Powell: “Wing it. And I play mandolin in our set, and I’m not a mandolin player.”
CVM: What was the moment each of you realized, hey, maybe we can sing and make music for a living?
Ellie: “It was probably different moments. I don’t remember one specific moment. We started writing songs, and then half a year later, we moved to Nashville, so it was like a giant snowball [effect], a little bit. But I think once we started writing songs, the opportunity presented itself. ’Cause it’s hard to be an artist and have your own voice if you don’t write or have anything to say.”
CVM: Yeah, I think it’s really great that you write your own stuff, and you can put yourselves in your music. If you each had to pick one, what is your favorite song of yours to perform and why?
Powell: “Oo, that’s a…”
Powell and Ellie: “…great question.”
Ellie: “Lily, you go first.”
Lily: “I love playing a lot of different songs. Alabama Snow is fun. I play guitar on it, and Ellie just picked up piano to play on it. I love performing that one live. Or Old Way, the song y’all wrote.”
Powell: “My favorite, I think, is one of our slower, ballad-y songs called Broke. And the way we do it in our set is Ellie and I are pretty much playing instruments the whole set, but during that song, we set our instruments down, and we just kind of get together real close and just sing that song. It’s almost like we’re just singing it to each other. It’s my favorite part in the set. Our band does a great job playing it. I love how they play it. It’s nice to just put down your instrument and sing because I feel like I don’t ever get to do that.”
Ellie: “My favorite is probably—I feel like it changes all the time, honestly. But as of now, I’ve really been enjoying playing Place They Call Home. It’s a song we have out with Flatland Cavalry. It’s just about the Earth, and I feel like we go to a lot of cool places, so I like playing it in pretty places.”
CVM: I like how your videos are shot. They’re presented like they are short films.
Powell: “Thank you. Thank you. That means a lot.”
CVM: So, you are joining Luke Combs as special guests on his My Kinda Saturday Night Tour through Europe in July. How did that invitation come about?
Ellie: “We just got the call. We were actually playing the Bootleggers Bonfire [in Florida] with him a couple weeks after we found out we were doing it, so we got to say thank you to him in person, which was really special.”
Lily: “We went to Europe for the first time last year and had so much fun. We had a good bit of fans there that we were not expecting to be our fans because we had not been to Europe—period.”
Powell: “We really love the fans over there. They don’t get country music over there [as much as] they do in the States. They’re so thoughtful and very attentive and ask great questions, so I’m super excited to go over there. I’m thankful for Luke for having us.”
CVM: Who are some of your dream collaborators? Somebody you have not worked with that you think, “Oh, that would be great to do a song with them.”
Lily: “We have so many friends who are artists and in bands, so selfishly, I would want to do a collaboration with some of our friends.”
Ellie: “For me, it would probably be Turnpike Troubadours.”
Powell: “We’re such fans of music, and so I almost don’t feel like I’m an artist or we’re artists and part of it. We’re just big fans of all these people.”
Ellie: “Or, like, Chris Stapleton. I feel everyone says Chris Stapleton, but it’s for a reason.”
Powell: “For sure.”
CVM: What are your interests beyond music? Do you have acting aspirations?
Lily: “I think acting would be fun. I think it would be really scary.”
Ellie: “I don’t know if I would be good at it or not.”
Lily: “I think you’d be great. We have a bunch of hobbies outside of music. We grew up on a cattle farm, being on the land, working cows and riding horses. We do a lot of reading.”
Powell: “Music was our hobby, and so it’s funny. Now that we live in Nashville, we’ve had to pick up things because music has now become our job, so we’re like, ‘OK, what should we do?’ We cook a lot.”
Ellie: “I’ve been embroidering. I’ve been learning how to embroider.”
Lily: “It feels like we’re little grandmas over here.”
CVM: You are performing at the Patriotic Festival. What does it mean to be part of an event centered on honoring military service members and their families?
Ellie: “It’s super cool….We’re patriots. We love our country. We fully and very deeply understand military value and significance. Our great-grandfather was a World War II veteran, and our grandfather served in Vietnam.”
Powell: “We love being a part of things like this, so we’re honored.”
Lily: “One of our dreams is to do a service academy tour and play for each military academy over the course of several weeks. I feel like that would be an awesome way to give back.”
PHOTO BY BEN CHRISTENSEN
The Castellows: Lily, Ellie, and Powell Balkcom
Butch Maier
