“If the Beatles were girls…” is the tagline for the aptly named Penny Lane, an all-female Nashville quartet that bills itself as “the world’s one and only four-piece all-girl Beatles tribute band.”
They may well be right about that. In all my years covering live music and the profusion of Beatles tributes all cut from the same mop-topped, testosteronal cloth, Penny Lane presents a unique feminine spin on the Beatles mystique while retaining the music’s groundbreaking urgency, energy and beauty.
Spearheaded by bassist Sami Jo and guitarist Jay Rin, the Lennon and McCartney of this outfit, and filled out by fellow expert Nashville musicians Maddie Rose and Stephie G, Penny Lane will perform no fewer than five times in Delray Beach for Beatles on the Beach next weekend. Shows include a 5 p.m. March 7 set on the Old School Square Pavilion main stage, 11 pm. jams at the Blue Anchor Pub on March 7-8, and a 2 p.m. March 8 set at the second main stage. The quartet will conclude its Delray Beach run with a special, interactive “Hard Day’s Night”-themed production, complete with acting homages to the movie of the same name, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 9 at Throw Social. It’s all part of a whirlwind Florida tour, bookended by gigs in Saint Augustine (March 6) and Sarasota (later on March 9).
We caught up with Sami and Jo in advance of their first visit to the Sunshine State.
How did this project come together?
Sami: About two years ago, we started to get together and play Beatles music. I’ve loved the Beatles for a long time, and I’d always wanted to start a Beatles tribute band. I thought it would be cool to start an all-girl Beatles tribute band. I posted about it in a Facebook group, not expecting much, and asking if there were any other girls out there that love the Beatles as much as I do and would want to join a band with me, even if it’s just for fun, and see what happens.
I got a lot of responses—hundreds of comments—but most of them were men, saying that, “yes, you should do that.” A few girls responded that they’d be interested, and Jay Rin was one of them. And she was the first one who really got excited about it with me, and her excitement made me excited. I think it was that enthusiasm that started this band.
There’s a novelty here, because I’ve heard of countless Beatles tributes, but most don’t have any women, let alone all women. Why do you think that is?
Jay: Living in Nashville, there are tons of talented women, a plethora of them. But by default, a lot of the Beatles tributes out there tend to mimic the whole Beatle look—many do the mustaches and the matching haircuts, so maybe it’s more of a subconscious thing; women may categorize them as just being a male-only option.
But I love that Sami was watching a tribute and thinking, I want to do this. She was like, wait, there are probably other girls that want to as well. Though we try to do all the songs note-for-note, we’re not doing the mustaches and stuff like that. We’re being ourselves onstage. Unlike just a Beatles cover band, we are doing our best to attribute the exact parts and exact harmony stackings. The George parts on guitar, our George plays. The Paul songs, Sami will sing. So we do our best to pay homage to our favorite band of all-time in that way.
Have you experienced any pushback from Beatles purists or outright misogynists?
Jay: Definitely early on. When we were still getting our stuff together, we had some rough moments. We went through a bunch of different members. It took us about a year and a half to find our current members, which really jelled. There was a lull, and every now and then we’d get an old man hater on TikTok. We’d have fun responding to them.
How many Beatles songs are in your repertory?
Sami: We have played a four-hour gig. We did mix in some of the solo Beatles and acoustic things, but we have three hours’ worth of full-band Beatles songs. We do one or two from every single album, and all eras.
How do you structure your set lists?
Jay: It definitely varies. We’ve done it where we’ve started with the early Beatles stuff, and do our half-time intermission, and change into our “Abbey Road” outfits and do selections from that and “Sgt. Pepper’s” and “The White Album.” It depends; lately we’ve been working on a “Hard Day’s Night” show, which is based on the film production the Beatles did.
With these songs originally written for male voices, have you had to change any keys to adapt them to your vocals?
Sami: Yes, there are a few songs where we’ve had to change keys, but we’ve also stayed true, because the Beatles did have higher voices. We’re able to work with that. Being able to change the key does give us more of a punch.
What was the most difficult composition to master? I ask that because almost half the discography was so difficult to reproduce live that the Beatles never toured these songs themselves.
Jay: We’re always laughing, because the challenge varies per song, per musician. There might be one that’s easy for three-fourths of us, and then maybe the Ringo part’s very hard, or maybe the Paul part on bass, while singing. So it all varies.
Sami: If I had to pick, playing the bass while singing, it would be “Oh! Darling.” That one is all over the place on the bass. And Paul didn’t play that one on the bass; George played the bass on that song. It’s just a lot of moving parts, trying to be a monster while singing on top of it.
Jay: For the “Hard Day’s Night” show, it sounds simple, but the rhythm guitar part on “All My Loving” is a series of very, very rapid triplets on guitar, and that was one of those songs that really surprised me. I needed to start with a metronome really slowly. It’s a simple thing, but it’s not a strumming pattern I do very often on guitar. You don’t realize it until you’re the one playing it.
When you’re getting into the groove of these songs, do you allow yourself to stray from the original composition at all?
Jay: With endings, some of the Beatles recordings just do a fade-out, so we’ve worked out some of our own endings that work for us, or transitions from one song into the next. Our voices, even though we all try to mimic the vibe of how the Beatles sing, we bring our own unique voices to the table, which naturally gives the songs a different kind of life. We honor the rhythms and melodies, but every now and then there’s an inflection that’s probably unique to each vocalist in the band.
What’s it like to perform a set where most likely everyone in the audience is singing along to every word? How does that affect what you’re doing up there onstage?
Sami: It’s amazing. It’s just so exciting being able to play music and have everybody excited about it—as equally as you are, playing the song. We really experienced that in Liverpool at the Cavern Club and seeing everybody dancing and singing every word—it’s magical.
See Penny Lane at Beatles on the Beach, March 6-9, where tickets run $65 to $185.50 for festival passes, and $39.50-$79.50 for single-day Friday or Saturday tickets. Visit beatlesonthebeach.com for tickets and information.
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