Some people can’t stand their brother, but Emily McCollum has made a career with hers.
Fourth-year mass communication student Emily McCollum started piano lessons when she was six years old, and since then music has never left her life. After a few years of playing oboe in her middle school band, McCollum picked up the guitar and began writing music. A little over two years ago, McCollum teamed up with her brother, Alex, to form the space-folk band Stagbriar, a band named after a street from their childhood.
Stagbriar released its first album, “Quasi-Hymns, Murder-Ballads, and Tales of How the Hero Died,” in May 2013. The album features Emily McCollum on vocals and guitar, Alex McCollum on vocals and guitar and Brandon Edwards on the drums. The band has also started writing their second album.
“We were really excited and surprised by the outcome of the first record,” Emily McCollum said. “We’ve been writing like crazy, but no release date has been set. If people are waiting, we want to give them something that will make them happy.”
Although playing with a sibling is not always easy, Emily McCollum knows that their sibling relationship has pushed the band to more creative limits and allowed them both to experiment and discover new aspects to their music.
“He is really good about pushing my listening ear and writing, and exposing me to things,” Emily McCollum said. “There is something about writing emotionally intense songs with your sibling.”
Music has strengthened their bond as brother and sister, as well as influenced much of the band's lyrical compositions.
“There is this strange wavelength that we are both on,” she said. “People always say, 'Your harmonies are so tight.' I don’t know why. It must be in the blood.”
Stagbriar has played at New Brookland Tavern, Music Farm and many other venues around Columbia. Last year, they performed at SXSW in Austin, Texas with a Columbia organization that helped local bands perform at the festival.
“It was very much an adventure,” Emily McCollum said. “The car broke down on the way there and on the way back. Being at the festival, we spent maybe a fifth of our time playing music. The rest of the time we were a part of the party.”
Emily McCollum enjoyed this small taste of tour life, and looks forward to new opportunities to share their music on the road, but they haven’t lost sight of home. The siblings have lived and played in Columbia their entire lives.
“The older I get the more I appreciate the community that Columbia has,” she said. “We’ve got a good community of people here who care about each other and who care about music.”
Emily McCollum has worked with Girls Rock Columbia the past two years and is looking forward to a third year with the “fantastic movement.”
“It is my favorite week of the year probably,” she said. “Girls Rock has brought even more to life the females in our community who want to have a voice. Getting to work with those young girls is awesome.”
When Emily McCollum is not writing music, going to class or volunteering, she spends her time working at a local toy store and googling pictures of gourmet doughnuts.
“I haven’t had them (gourmet doughnuts), but it is just something that I want,” she said. "Every city has them, every cool city has them. Where is our gourmet doughnut shop?”
However, Emily McCollum’s gourmet doughnut quest has not stopped the band from writing and working constantly. The band doesn’t have any shows scheduled right now, but their newest music video is available on the band’s Facebook and the NPR Tiny Desk contest.