Checkered Lilies understand the sinking feeling that comes with a breakup.

The Southwest Michigan band processes that disappointment, uncertainty, and frustration on their latest alt-pop single, “Abandon Ship.”

“It was very autobiographical just because of stuff that has happened very recently,” said Kayla, vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for Checkered Lilies.

“I tried to reframe it into more of a relationship because relationships are super complicated, no matter the nature of the relationship.”

Backed by somber piano, electric guitar, and drums, Kayla sings, “I’m tossed by the current / Buried by the waves / I hope you got that escape you craved / So now you can go / And sail through your bright, clear skies / I’ll be where you left me behind.”

“I think that was my favorite part of the writing process: trying to take this situation, which I don’t think is very easily relatable, and extending it into something that’s more applicable to people wherever they are,” she said.

“Regardless of the type of relationship, any relationship has [its] ups and downs, so people can take it and apply it to their own lives.”

“Abandon Ship” also serves as the debut single for Checkered Lilies, which features oldest sister Kayla, 20, and her two younger sisters, drummer-vocalist Trie, 18, and guitarist-vocalist Cesca, 12.

“Personally, I think one of the biggest things that’s coming up for us is the release of Checkered Lilies in and of itself,” Trie said.

“We’ve done a few originals before, but Checkered Lilies is a whole new big project where we’re really writing songs that we connect with and songs that mean something to us. We’ve got a ton of them lined up starting [this] month and continuing on through the summer, and we’re all very excited about that.”

I recently spoke with the band about their background and latest single ahead of a June 27 show at The Stray in Grand Rapids.

Q: How did your musical journey start in Southwest Michigan?

Trie: When [Kayla] was two, our dad figured out that she had perfect pitch by playing around on the keyboards with her. She would also start complaining that the neighbor’s car horn had a different tone from ours. Ever since then, she’s taken classical piano training, so she plays all of the classical music stuff—Mozart, Beethoven—and she’s really good at it.

Growing up, Cesca and I always heard Kayla playing keyboards. Both of us had played keyboards at some point, but neither of us was very good at it.

Eventually, Cesca switched to guitar. I played keyboards, violin, recorder, clarinet, and guitar, and I played a lot of different stuff before I found out I really liked drumming.

Q: How did your musical focus shift during the pandemic

Trie: As we were growing up, we all were involved in learning how to play instruments just for fun and as part of our electives in school. And since we’re homeschooled, we did some group partnership stuff for music, so we were all in choir and band.

[Once] the pandemic hit, we weren’t able to do band or choir anymore. For our music class, our parents had us do our music together, and from there, we just started playing cover songs and doing stuff as a band together. We just developed from there.

Q: How did that lead to forming Checkered Lilies?

Trie: Checkered Lilies is a very, very recent project for us, because for the past three-and-a-half years, our band practice together became something that we were doing in public. We were getting gigs as a cover band [called] Vineyard Chicks, and that started as a YouTube channel where we were doing homesteading.

That’s where we got the Vineyard Chicks’ name. Then, we wanted to start writing our own music under a separate name because those are two separate things, and that’s when Checkered Lilies started in February.

Q: What inspired your band name?

Kayla: When I was seven or eight, I had a special interest in medicinal remedies that were used in the Renaissance period. Over time, I just started getting curious about things in nature that were a little bit more dangerous. Lilies are kind of synonymous with being pretty flowers that are also very dangerous.

The checkered lily is one of the more obvious ones, as far as that goes, because it has a very striking pattern. I also think the flower is super pretty, and I’ve liked lilies specifically since I was very, very little.

We were going down the list of [band names] because we had songs written, but we didn’t know what [band name] to release it under. We just ended up coming back to that because it’s just something I already knew a lot about.

Q: “Voices” examines the challenges of articulating the thoughts and feelings that are running through your head. How did experiences with speaking up inspire this song?

Kayla: It was most likely written from the place of a communication issue. Something that I’ve noticed throughout being an adolescent is that when you’re trying to explain something to somebody you care about, it doesn’t usually go well, and it’s not always your fault.

A lot of the time, what you’re saying is not exactly received the way you meant to say it. It was written super simplistically with one verse and one chorus, over and over again, just to illustrate that.

Trie: It was written with the intent of explaining in a simple way something that’s really hard to explain because the whole problem is words. It’s hard to put words into words.

Q: How did producer Jake Rye help you shape the sound of “Abandon Ship” at Social Recording Company in Adrian?

Kayla: We had been asking around open mics and places we were going as a cover band … about studios that people had good experiences with. We wanted to try a bunch out, and one of the first ones that got back to us was Jake [Rye] at Social Recording Company.

That was such a cool experience, and [we] enjoyed that a lot. We sent him a demo of a couple of songs, and this was the song he picked to work [on]. He took a very educational approach to doing it with us because we had never recorded in a studio like his before.

We had only recorded an original song one other time, like a week before, so we were still very, very new to that whole process. He walked us through laying down each track individually, so we started with the piano, and then we went with the drums. He assisted Trie in finding a groove that worked better for the song because he was very adamant that she do it herself.

I deeply enjoyed the two days we spent recording [the song], and he had a lot of attention to detail, too. With the vocal tracks, we spent probably about an hour just recording, redoing lines, and picking different places to breathe.

I think he did add some guitar in [post-production], but for the majority of the guitar, he was just teaching Cesca about diamond chords and what she could do to make the strings sound better.

Q: You recently released a video for “Abandon Ship.” How did that come together with director John Garrod?

Kayla: John Garrod is a family friend of ours, and he did sound at a county fair, which was the first place we ever played in public. And since then, he’s been an amazing friend to our family and to our band. He wanted to help us with a music video. It was such a cool process, and we started planning the music video.

Trie is also an artist, so she was doing a little animatic of the poses and the vision that he had for the music video. She was quote, unquote the creative director, and very early on into this animatic she was making, she realized that we were going to need a guy to act in it. It was a very cool idea in theory, except for the fact that we didn’t know [anyone]. We were asking everybody we knew.

Trie: Eventually, we ended up going to an open mic at The Stray, and we met Melissa. She was hosting the open mic that night, so when we went up to play our songs, we made an announcement: “If anybody knows anyone, or is in the 18-25 [age] range, we need a guy to act in our music video. All you have to do is yell at Kayla for an hour or two.”

That’s pretty much how the music video goes. Then Melissa said that she [had] texted her son, [Jonas Lenkiewicz], and that he would be open to it. We met up with him the day we recorded it … and it was actually really fun.

Q: What can people expect from your June 27 show at The Stray?

Kayla: I think we have 45 minutes [for our set], and there are going to be two other acts—Rebekah Jon from Traverse City and Monica James from Grand Rapids—going before us. We’re going to do “Abandon Ship,” a few of the other originals we have lined up to come out in the next few months, and maybe a couple of covers.

Q: You’ve been recording new material recently with Joel Ferguson at Planet Sunday Studios in Rockford. How is that coming along?

Kayla: Every subsequent recording, other than the concept video for “Voices,” has been with Joel Ferguson of Planet Sunday Studios. We’ve been in his studio a good bit. I think we have seven songs already recorded; we had one scheduled [in May] and maybe one [this] month.

Q: What plans do you have for new material?

Kayla: We’re planning on doing a single-by-single release strategy, but at some point, we want to do a four or five-song EP. We want to make physical copies of that because … we’ve never done physical merch before.

Checkered Lilies perform June 27 with Rebekah Jon and Monica James at The Stray, 4253 Division Avenue Southwest, Grand Rapids, Michigan. The show starts at 7 pm.