How Ferris & Sylvester earned their joy

It’s another heatwave and she and her husband Archie Sylvester join from the coolest spot in their house to talk about new record It’s A Joy To Be Alive, an album born from one of the most traumatic experiences a couple could go through.

Playing Nashville’s Americanafest in 2022, 33 weeks pregnant, Ferris developed preeclampsia and was rushed to hospital for emergency treatment. It’s only now, four years later and after the birth of their second child that they’re ready to process the experience. The result is a record of soulful Americana that embraces both the sentimentality and the power of harmony.

Both Ferris and Sylvester come from similar musical backgrounds, growing up on their dads’ record collections and playing in local bars underage. “I was raised on Jimmy Hendrix, Peter Green and guitar heroes, really,” Sylvester says. “I would steal my dad's CDs. He had a great CD collection. I would take his CDs out, listen to them, and then I was digitalising them, putting them on an iPod. He was angry with me because they were all in alphabetical order, perfectly, and I never put them back in alphabetical order.” 

“Music is my dad's biggest love. My dad has great taste - a lot of Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Joanie Mitchell, big into folk,” says Ferris. “I grew up playing in pubs and my dad going, ‘It's fine. She's not eighteen but I'm her dad so just let her in.’ I’d play as many gigs as I could per week and ended up in London, in Camden at this blues bar.”

Both Ferris and Sylvester landed residencies at Camden’s Spiritual Bar, but always playing on different nights. “I had Archie’s CD, because he was a big deal in that scene. He'd recorded this EP in the bar and so I'd bought it and I really liked it. But then when we met, I obviously pretended I had no idea who he was because that's the only sensible thing to do,” Ferris laughs. 

It was singer-songwriter Lucy Rose who inadvertently threw the two together. Someone had passed her number to Ferris, who texted her for music career advice. She wrote back, “Join a band and get some experience.” Sylvester was playing as a trio at the time, so Ferris reached out asking if she could get involved. “What very quickly happened was Issy kicked out the other band members and then it became a duo,” he laughs to vocal disagreement. “I was lucky that I stayed in the band somehow, but everyone else; bass player - gone, drummer - gone, keyboard player - gone.” 

The pair began writing together. At the time, Sylvester had struck up a mentor-like relationship with the producer Youth, real name Martin Glover, one half of The Fireman with Sir Paul McCartney and known for his work on the likes of The Verve’s Urban Hymns. Every month or so, Sylvester would visit Glover and play him some of the songs he’d been working on. “So the next month I brought Issy along. That was the only time that he was really enthused listening,” Sylverster laughs. 

Glover invited them to his studio in Spain where they recorded the duo’s debut EP, The Yellow Line, and introduced them to management. From there, Ferris & Sylvester began to piece together a team and build a following, but it wasn’t until their second release, 2018’s Made In Streatham, that things began to gain momentum. One of the EP’s tracks, “London’s Blues” picked up a sync and began to accelerate on streaming platforms. 

Recorded in their South London kitchen, everything about the release was DIY. Since then they’ve continued to release through their own Archtop Records, named after the archtop guitars they were playing at the time. Physical copies of the first EP are still available on their website, but they took the music off streaming after overthinking just how to present their sound. “I think when you're first starting out, that seems really scary because you're wanting it to be perfect the first time,” says Ferris. 

“It turns out that we sound closer now to how we did in that very first EP,” Sylvester continues. “In hindsight, maybe we should have just left it up there.”

Two EPs followed, before the release of their debut album, 2022’s Superhuman, which went to number one on the UK's Official Jazz and Blues Album Chart twice, and won UK Album of the Year at the 2023 Americana Awards. Their second album Otherness, although it was released in 2024, was finished by the time they were touring Superhuman. The final date of their tour was a trip to Americanafest to set things up ahead of their next steps. “The whole plan, the reason why we were out in Nashville, was because we had this new album,” says Ferris. “Our first album came out, it was doing really well. We did Glastonbury. We did this big festival season which ended in Nashville. And we were like, ‘Look guys, Americanafest. We've got this new record. Here we go.’" 

Of course, things didn’t go to plan, and their four day trip became a two-month long ordeal. “Issy had had a perfect pregnancy. We'd had a good summer doing festivals and touring and she’d felt great. She was chilled and enjoying being pregnant which was so magical,” says Sylvester. “We were so naive and this didn't even cross our minds that something could go wrong. We're just in this bubble of just la di dah everything's gonna be great.”

The couple were due in November and Americanafest was taking place early September. Ferris was cleared by her doctors and the airline to fly and they didn’t think more about it. “The midwives had checked her over. She'd had her blood pressure done. All fine. Then 3 days in, Issy got very, very poorly overnight, suddenly really ill,” says Sylvester. “We went to hospital the next morning and Issy’s saying, ‘I think I've just got food poisoning or something,’ and the doctor’s saying, “Hang on, your blood pressure is through the roof.’”

Ferris was quickly diagnosed with severe preeclampsia and pancreatitis. “It was honestly the biggest shock of both of our lives. Our son's four, and the shock of it is still there,” she says. 

Recounting the story now, you can feel the stress and bewilderment with which they both speak. “Issy was deteriorating very quickly and she was starting to seize. If that happens you have to get the baby out within a very, very fast period of time or the baby's going to die,” says Sylvester. “Suddenly, I'm realising this is really serious. They managed to stabilise Issy with magnesium enough for the doctor to be able to say, ‘You are not going anywhere. You're not going on your flight home. Your child's going to be born in America and this is really serious. Your organs are failing, your kidneys are not working.’ I'm going, ‘Are they both going to survive? Is one of them going to survive?’ That was a huge shock.”

Ferris was transferred to a nearby hospital with a specialised NICU while they waited to see what would happen next. She gave birth to her son a couple of days later, seven weeks premature. “Obviously I feel like I carry a lot of weight and shame around going to America. But at the same time my advice to any other pregnant person would never be not to, because I do think that the chances of this happening are so small,” she says. “Obviously go get yourselves checked out, but if you're feeling well, pregnancy is such a special time and it shouldn't be sort of darkened by worry. It's hard because I'm fully aware of what we went through, but at the same time, my message to other people wouldn't be one of fear. I wouldn't want to put that out there.”

The duo have since started working with the Tommy’s Baby Charity, to raise money and awareness for the work they do. “We were introduced to Tommy's about a year ago, so our second child at the time was six months old, and the body and mind work in mysterious ways,” Ferris says. “We kind of only started processing what had happened when our daughter was born full term. Both of us were hit quite heavily with the weight of what had happened and then we were introduced to Tommy's. They provide support for families who have gone through anything from stillbirth to miscarriage to premature birth, as well as all the research that they do into these issues.”

Despite everything that had happened, the couple continued with the plan they’d made for Otherness, an album that grew from the darkness of the 2020 pandemic. It wasn’t a light record for them to tackle, but neither realised the weight they were feeling while in the promo cycle. Released in 2024, it was only after touring was complete that they were able to take a step back. “We came off that tour and I don't know, there was just a moment of, I don't think we quite processed anything that had happened in Nashville in the months after,” says Ferris. “At the same time we were touring this album that felt quite heavy. I mean, we're really proud of that record, but there's a lot about loneliness in there.” 

In between albums and with enough distance, and support, to process the events of their son’s birth, they unanimously decided to focus on joy. With a fresh perspective on life, any cares or concerns for how the new music might be received were muted. Instead, they decided to work on songs that made them feel good. “I remember in the early days we were really keen not to come across as overly sentimental and then there was a moment where we were like, romance, sentimentality - that's what we want to write. We want to write something that’s totally unapologetic in that sense,” says Ferris. “Then obviously, as it always tends to happen, life creeps in. We realised we were writing these songs all about joy. Then as the writing went on, we realised, actually the real message here is that we feel like we experience joy more strongly because we've been through a lot of darkness, so it means more. Sure, it's great to write an album when you're feeling really happy and great, but it means a lot more when you're writing an album about these things from a place where things aren't too great and the message is, it's going to be okay.” 

It’s A Joy To Be Alive, out this week, is a vibrant, glowing body of work. The songs are unpretentious cuts of truly joyful musicianship, full of rich orchestration and classic composition. “It literally does what it says on the tin,” laughs Ferris. “When one goes through these experiences the things that used to matter to you, for instance people thinking that you're really cool, that stuff just doesn't matter anymore. I remember when we first started writing songs, we didn't want people to know that we were even a couple. We wanted to come across all mysterious. But now it's like no, we just want to write something real that can actually really benefit people, help people, but hopefully people like it and can really relate to it.”

While there are still cuts of Americana-inspired rock, like recent single “5-4-3-2-1” complete with Sylvester showing off his bluesy guitar hero hooks, a lot of the record takes inspiration from soul and classic songwriting. “Imagine if Burt Bacharach was still alive and he'd written an album for Ferris and Sylvester, except he's not still alive and we're going to write it ourselves,” he explains. “How does he write about love so beautifully? It makes you feel something when you listen to it. There's magic going on there. It's the same when you listen to the old Disney film soundtracks - the Sherman brothers. They knew how to make you feel something. You listen to the lyrics and you realise, he’s writing saying it's going to be okay. It's, hang on in there, everything's going to be okay. It was a message to us. Lots of it was subliminally or quite deliberately writing to ourselves saying, keep going, it's going to be okay. If anyone else wants to listen to it and they feel how that made us feel writing then great, but it's for us.”

Sylvester examined the way other writers and composers would use chord progressions to create atmosphere and invoke emotion. Casually listening to the album, it just feels timeless - smooth songs that are filled with luscious melodies. But behind that ease, there were times when the pair would battle with the complexity of the music they were creating. “If you break it down, it's a jazz album by accident. The complex harmony - I really studied hard on that harmony for writing this album,” he says. “What is it about the Sherman Brothers? The melodies are simple and sing-alongable, but why do they feel like you want to cry? If you can get the right kind of harmony in there, you just get whatever note goes into the chord that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable and then the next chord is a warm hug, and then you're crying.”

Album opener and title track “It’s A Joy To Be Alive” is as uplifting as it gets - genuine sunshine in a song. “It doesn’t scare me to get older,” they sing in full-bodied harmonies. “If I was to be really blunt about it, when we were writing that song, it's like I nearly died at twenty-five, of course it doesn't scare me to get older,” says Ferris. “I'm four years on and I'm twenty-nine, like, how amazing? This is just great. Actually what a privilege is it when I start getting wrinkles? When my kids grow up, I'm going to see that. All of the stuff that I think before to us, and also just on a societal level, it's not seen as something that's desired. And I'm like, my gosh - I'm thrilled to be here.”

One of the album highlights “Peach Tree Street” is a hooky cut of UK soul that glows with an almost motown refrain, taking cues from Sylvester’s love of the Daptone Records catalogue. It sounds like it should steal formative inspiration from a bygone era, but rather it came from a place of escapism. Stuck in the hospital in Nashville while their favourite artists all played shows down the road, Sylvester had to drive back and forth to Atlanta to organise an emergency passport for his son. Peach Tree Street was the address of the nearest UK embassy. “It's a four-hour journey there and back and I had to do it twice,” he says. “So I did sixteen hours driving and then I got back and I was singing. I had a guitar and I was singing, ‘Down on Peach Tree Street, where the cool cats meet.’ I did it as a joke -  it was a complete nursery rhyme.”

While the real Peach Tree Street boasts several government buildings and a Hooters, to Ferris it sounded like a buzzing metropolitan hotspot. “Archie came back and was singing this song that to me was about life outside of our reality in the hospital,” she says. “The feel of it reminded me of ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark, like that sort of escapism aspect of it. I loved it.”

The songs on It’s A Joy To Be Alive are full of light, refusing to betray their author's intent. However, there are a couple that take on a deeper meaning once you have their backstory. One of the hardest songs for the couple to finish, and one of the most tender moments of the record, is “Tiny Little Love”, a soft slice of shimmering songwriting that swells with soul. “The lyrics were on my phone the night before he was born. So we knew that he was going to be born the following morning. It was that sort of like, cling on for dear life and we're going to be all right, and across the ocean there's a tiny house,” says Ferris. “That was sort of just like a lullaby to him before he was born. So the start of that song was written in the moment and then we finished it many, many months later. I think it caused a few arguments. I was like, I just don't want to work on that.”

“It was one of the last songs that we wrote for the album, because we couldn't get to it. I think I couldn't get to it,” says Sylvester. 

It’s A Joy To Be Alive is a sugar-rush of sentimentality. With songs packed with emotion and rich, radiant production, Ferris and Sylvester manage to avoid the saccharine through the sheer heart that emanates from their performances. It’s a powerful album and one that’s easy to share in the delight of. Even the blues swagger of “Lucky Night” can’t resist exploding into celebratory chorus. Named after their son, they flip the meaning of the phrase to make it as personal as the album he inspired. “I love the idea of getting his name in there,” smiles Ferris. “It was kind of written for us, that sort of just enjoy it. When we were writing this album I was then pregnant with our daughter. It was that moment of just, we're here, we're making this record, Lucky's over there, he's great, baby's kicking, just enjoy this moment. Just enjoy it.”