Harry Potter pwns Sailor Moon; Teacups pwn Jenny Lewis.

Two thirds of Teacups talk to a familiar faux-twin of their friend about their dainty music, crafts and fake facts.

Normally, nice girls shouldn’t go into dingy Queen St bars. But when said girls have a biting wit, astute class and endearing friendliness, they can withstand the stale beer smell and uncomfortable couples mingling bar-side, because places like these are often where they end up on a Friday night. Teacups are Auckland’s freshest new folk band to take quasi-residence in our often-lesser known, dingy establishments, but coming from the streets, these girls take everything with a grain of salt.

“We used to busk every Friday, that was pretty much all we did until we got that one gig!” laughs singer Chelsea Jade Metcalf, referring to the trio’s groundbreaking gig at Spiegletent, for the AK07 Craftwerk extravaganza.

Chelsea and Elizabeth Stokes [guitarist/singer] are school friends who would play outside the café where now third member Talita Setyady [double-bass/xylophone/singer] worked. “She’d make us soy hot chocolates!” grins Chelsea. The duo would busk in Botany, “up until the point where’d they’d set up a henna tattoo stall,” at which point they’d be “competing”. Talita says, laughing, “I gave them wasabi, I didn’t have any coins!” Chelsea: “She collects sauce packets! Wherever we go…” Talita: “Do not write that!!”

It’s easy to slip into lazy diatribe when writing from a roughly hour-long interview, which at times felt more like tea with friends than a discussion with an up-and-coming band. Not to blow the whistle too early, but Teacups are magnificently talented, nonchalantly covering Jenny Lewis’ entire Rabbit Fur Coat album so that they could swap their friend’s copy with their own cover version, much to the friend’s oblivion.

These craft-lovers are experimental in their approach to cutesy folklore, road tripping to buy an accordian, staging thematic shows and learning traditional Japanese chanting. “We’ve got a new song called Two Month Sleepover At Craig’s House,” Chelsea says. “And it just consists of Taiko drums, Liz on guitar, and a Japanese shout, cause Liz and I did a Taiko course – it’s a Japanese war drum, it’s awwwesome. Liz was so good she got asked to join the troupe!” They’re playing Craftwerk again on September 13, and they’re involved in various other creative activities as well. Talita plays in prog-jazz band Pink Fluffy Islands, and Chelsea won the wearable arts awards with her quilt-dress. “That day the theme was Indians!” Chelsea says.

Evidently the supermodel-esque band’s first interview, they are modest and endearing, softly spoken with self-professed faux-American accents, but uproariously funny and very giggly. The giggling is “derived from awkwardness,” Chelsea says. Commenting on the Watergate-ness of my taping our conversation, she says, “We should’ve brought a tape recorder too! We could’ve put it on our EP, it’d be the coolest!”

After Chelsea and Talita’s band-that-shall-not-be-named made it as far as the Rockquest national finals, they quit and began having their own band practice/nap clubs. But Chelsea says they got pretty lazy post-Spiegletent. “Our band practices were so bad, they were like ‘oh, do you wanna come over?’ and then we’d spend the whole night watching Youtube videos. One time we had band practice on a Sunday and fell asleep on my floor! [laughing] We slept there for like six hours; nap club.” Initially sticking to covers, they did Feist’s ‘Mushaboom’, The Bluebirds, and of course Jenny Lewis. “We played a medley,” Chelsea says, and hastily wrote an original, ‘Birds’, the night before the Spiegletent gig. Now they have many originals.

When asked about their song writing process they are increasingly modest. “There’s not a main songwriter, most of the time we write them together or someone will come up with the bare bones…sorry, I’m very bad at holding eye contact…” Chelsea stutters, looking away. The über Bear Cat/Harry Potter fans are driven by one thing –fun. “We’re just hanging out and laughing all the time,” Chelsea says. “I love it, sooo funny.” They’re three friends with a shared love. “Jenny Lewis. Why else do you think we sing in an accent?” Chelsea says. Adds Talita, “Yeah, the accent’s pretty intense; ‘we arrre country folk!’”