I’m With Her is a critically acclaimed folk trio composed of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan—three accomplished musicians whose individual careers have each earned Grammy recognition and deep respect within the Americana and roots music communities. Formed in 2014 after an impromptu performance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, the group quickly evolved from a one-time collaboration into a fully realised musical partnership. Their debut album, ‘See You Around' (2018), showcased their seamless harmonies, intricate instrumentation, and songwriting synergy, drawing comparisons to legendary ensembles while establishing their own distinctive voice.
Now, with the release of their long-anticipated sophomore album ‘Wild and Clear and Blue,' I’m With Her continues to refine their sound, blending introspective lyrics with expansive arrangements that stretch the boundaries of contemporary folk. The album reflects both their deep musical connection and their shared commitment to authenticity, vulnerability, and artistic growth. In this conversation, we speak with Sara Watkins about the journey behind the new record, the trio’s evolving creative process, and how Wild and Clear and Blue marks a new chapter in their collective voice.
Thank you for taking time the time to talk to us today Sara – ‘Wild and Clear and Blue' is such a wistful, powerful, haunting piece of work. You must be excited for it to be coming out?
The release day has kinda snuck right up on me. I was with both Aoife and Jarosz yesterday and we enjoyed being together in release week.
Reflecting on your journey since the three of you first got together in 2014 – how has the collaboration and the way that the three of you work together evolved over the years and in the lead up to this release?
I would say it's interesting because I think we had an advantage in the way that we started working together based on us playing live with each other first. We hadn't written together and the first tour that we ever did was in the UK and Ireland and we were playing a lot of cover songs that we were sharing with each other alongside music from our own individual catalogues. So we had about a year of playing shows together that afforded us the opportunity to get to know each other and we were able to see how we gelled and fit together on stage before we did anything else.
Writing together over the years has become a really pleasurable and fulfilling experience because those tools that we developed in those early days have just got more and more refined as our relationships have deepened. Our collaboration started well and I think has gotten better in so many ways.
What magic happens when the three of you play live would you say?
Personally, I just love hearing the stuff that comes out of their brains! (laughing) There's no better place to hear it than standing next to them. We all respect each other's musicianship and enjoy watching each other play. I love to watch Aoife take a lyric to a whole new level with her singing and Sarah Jarosz is such a wonderful singer and an incredible musician – her ability to improvise is a joy to be around. That stuff is inspiring to me and makes me want to play better and be in the moment more.
‘Wild and Clear and Blue' delves into themes of ancestry, growth and belonging. What inspired that focus and how do those themes resonate with you personally?
I'm not sure any one moment or thing inspired those themes but it was something that was revealed to us through the writing process for the album. We did not start this album thinking that these were the themes and we were going to wind the songs around them – we started writing songs and the title track was one of the first ones we wrote. ‘Sisters of the Night Watch' was also right there too as was ‘Ancient Light.' We didn't finish them all in that first session but those themes seemed to be coming through.
As the songs started to evolve into something of a collection we noticed these recurring themes that were revealing what we, evidently, we feeling and thinking at this stage of our lives. Toward the end of the process we did write a couple of things that we were a little more deliberate in expanding into – ‘Mother Eagle' is a song that Aoife brought to the last writing session with the idea of deep-diving into some of the imagery that was already on the record and providing a little more of the direction towards embracing these themes and following the threads that we had created.
‘Mother Eagle' is, perhaps, my favourite track on the album. The harmonies followed by the elongated fiddle solo – man, that sounds so powerful. The song feels like the literal and figurative centre point of the album.
I love that! I feel the same way. I love that it is in the middle of the album and it feels like the centre, thematically, as well. We get some of that ancient imagery alongside the more modern influences where you are reflecting on the power of this dream but you still have to get your kids ready for school at the same time! (laughing) There's some fun instrumental moments on that song, for sure. I love that that song stood out for you.
Would it be fair to say that ‘Find My Way To You' is your most musically expansive song on the album or is there another song that you enjoyed playing on more?
I think that's the most ‘fiddle-driven' song on the album, yeah. That song started out life as just a tune at first. We thought it would be fun to have an instrumental on the album so we worked on that but Aoife kept saying that she thought there should be a vocal over it, that she wanted to sing on it. I was like, ‘Classic Aoife, wanting to sing on it' (laughing) She heard it in a different way to me and we went back and forth over it for a while until we gave it a shot and it's now one of my favourite tracks on the record – it's impossible to play that song without having a smile on your face. What Aoife heard perfectly matches the tune and thematically it feels very tangible and real – I can imagine running down a mountain, trying not to fall, trying to get to where you need to be without breaking your ankle and find the thing you are looking for – life comes at you like that sometimes.
I'm fascinated by the lyrics to ‘Different Rocks, Different Hills' – tell me more about that song.
Yeah, I can see why. That song was a song that Aoife started. To me it speaks to a situation that so many families find themselves in when they partner up with somebody who has their own individual lives and dreams which are just as valid as yours but sometimes they don't intersect. That's something that a lot of people have to navigate.
What I love about this album is one song grabs me with the lyrics, another with the musicianship, a different one with the imagery, another with the harmonies. There's something intriguing about every song on the album.
Thank you. I think it's tricky to balance everything when you are making a whole body of work. This music speaks to me and speaks about where we are in life right now. A lot of the imagery pulls from ancient or traditional ideas that we think, at this point in our lives, a lot of us are all thinking about and feels very relevant to our life experiences and ages. There's the whole thing about remembering our childhoods, remembering what grown ups have told us and how that has influenced us and what we are giving back to the world right now. There's the advice and wisdom that was passed to us from parents and grandparents that we are now passing down to our own children – the heritage and values and advice. I remember my own grandmother saying something like, ‘Just clean one room in your house each day.' Little nuggets of wisdom that are passed down through the generations.
The lyrical content on this album reaches into all of those things for me.
You're taking the album out on the road and you have a bunch of dates in the diary – right up until November. Are you good out on the road, are you a good road warrior?
I am. It's harder to leave home these days but what I really love about it is being with this gang of travellers who make me feel lucky to be around and who make me feel loved on and off stage, band and crew. It feels a bit like a little circus and it's a wonderful gang and a positive group of people who work really hard to keep us going and keep us able to play on stage. All three of us have places we like to go and things that we can introduce each other to in various towns too so there's always something to see and do.
It will be lovely to launch the tour in Europe too! It will be the first thing we do after the album comes out. It will be the first time we'll be playing the new songs alongside the old in front of an audience and we are so looking forward to that.
Lovely to start in Europe and you finish the whole tour in November at the Ryman in Nashville!
Yeah! That's true to how we've always done this as a band. Our very first tour was in the UK and Ireland – so it's very fitting to start this tour off in Europe and then bring it on home to the Ryman and close it all down there.
Check out I'm With Her's fabulous new album ‘Wild and Clear and Blue' which is out TODAY – May 9th. Tickets for their American and European shows can be found here.
