We continue our look at the upcoming stars of the recent Buckle and Boots festival with an excellent young sibling trio called ORFILA. Based in Folkestone in Kent our LCM featured artists today, Abi Orfila (vocals, backing vocals, piano, percussion), Louise Orfila (vocals, backing vocals, piano, guitar, percussion) and Matt Orfila (guitar, backing vocals, harmonica, banjo, ukulele) are already making waves on the UK Country scene. Winners of the Yamaha Soho Hoedown saw the trio play a coveted slot at the Country 2 Country music festival at the O2 Arena. Our LCM #TrackOfTheDay is a live cover of LBT's 'Boondocks' which showcases their wonderful sibling harmonies. 

They first performed together as a band in mid 2012 when they supported BBC Radio 2 playlist singer/songwriter Ben Montague. Originally intended to be a one off show their set of originals and covers was warmly received and the band decided to continue playing shows together. Later in the year they supported UK rock band Dodgy, Canadian folk artist Andrew James O’Brien and Irish folk legend Sharon Shannon as well as performing at various charity events and showcases across Kent.

2013 saw the band support some major artists such as Beverley Craven and the legendary Albert Hammond. In April Seasick Steve’s tour manager saw the band support Albert Hammond and was so impressed that he invited the trio to record their debut album at his midlands based Studio, The ‘Highbury Studios’, which is famous for producing hit albums from artist such as Duran Duran, UB40, Fine Young Cannibals, Steven Tin Tin Duffy, Everything But The Girl and Kodaline to name but a few. The album was finished off in Kent in 2014 and features guest appearances by Liam Genockey from Steeleye Span, Colin Gibson who played with the Shirley Bassey band and Jamie Crompton former guitarist with Suzi Quatro and drummer for Wishbone Ash.

The band released their debut album “Writing on the Wall” in summer 2014 and the release resulted in the band opening the main stage at the Gibraltar Music Festival (one of Europe’s biggest music events) alongside The Script, Rita Ora, Roger Hodgson (Supertramp), Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet), John Newman, James Arthur, Maxi Priest, Scouting For Girls, Reef, Ella Eyre and Newton Faulkner. The band also received airplay on over 100 European Radio Stations including BBC Radio Shropshire and BBC Radio Scotland, and earned positive reviews in leading UK magazines such as Maverick and Rock Society. They were also chosen as featured artists on BBC Radio Kent (on the James Whale show) and featured on UK Country Radio and Country Music Radio Nashville. Their single “Come Back ” also reached number 9 in the Irish Country Music Charts.

In 2015 the band continued to play gigs including the legendary Bedford in London and featured on BBC Radio Kent numerous times for the Dave Cash Country Show. The band also began writing and laying down demos for their sophomore album which was recorded by Sean Genockey (an engineer who has recorded with Roger Daltrey) at Black Dog Studios in London. All tracks were written by the band and featured guest musicians Liam Genockey and Jessie Smart from Steeleye Span, Lee Pommeroy from Jeff Lynne’s ELO, the legendary pedal steel player BJ Cole, Melvin Duffy from Squeeze, Jamie Crompton from Suzi Quatro’s band and Wishbone Ash, John Hogg, Travis Toy and Tom Yankton both from Rascal Flatts’ touring and recording band and Liam Genockey himself who is a seasoned guitarist with Moke as well as being a session guitarist.

In early 2016 the band played at the inaugural Yamaha Soho Hoedown at Yamaha Music London which was a competition for UK country artists to win a coveted slot at the Country 2 Country music festival at the O2 Arena in London alongside Carrie Underwood, Eric Church, Miranda Lambert and Little Big Town. The band were announced winners of the competition shortly after and played the sub-headline slot on the Big Entrance Stage at the O2 on the Sunday. The band received positive feedback, most notably from the organisers of C2C who described them as “brilliant.” The band are now also Yamaha supported artists.

Before the release of the album the band released a lead single “It Would Be You” which rose to the top 10 of the iTunes UK Country Chart in August and received extensive radioplay. The band then released “Never Slowin’ Down” shortly after which garnered critical acclaim from Dave Cash from BBC Radio Kent, the world’s leading country music and line dancing magazine Up Country as well as many more websites and magazines.

The band were invited to open up the main stage of the Gibraltar Music Festival for a second time in September 2016 and opened up for The Stereophonics, Jess Glynne, Paul Young, Brian Ferry, Europe, KT Tunstall, The Fratellis and Heather Small among others.

In 2017 the band have already played C2C once again, this time performing on two stages. They have been featured in the UK’s leading independent country music magazine Maverick, have gained extensive radio play and have supported UK country music legend Hank Wangford. 

ORFILA’s music has developed since their inception in 2012 to an original, distinctive sound with superb three part harmonies firmly rooted in the country music genre.

The band are also nominated for three UK Country Music Awards this year:

UK Country Album of the Year
UK Country Group of they Year
UK Country Artist of the Year