Hometown: New Jersey and New York

How did you guys get together?

Erin Rauch-Sasseen: I was just doing my own thing -- playing acoustically around the city. And Anna had previously been in Hawaii for a year, and she had taught herself how to play guitar and started writing songs that way. Then she came back, and she and Katie started writing songs together. And they were like, "What if we played these all together in front of other people and wrote songs together?" It's used to be that I just wrote songs, but then soon enough, the three of us started playing together. That was 2010. Then that next year, we started the band with a different drummer and guitar player, who Matt actually grew up with.

Matthew Langner: Small world.

Erin: They eventually cycled out, and Matt cycled in. And then a couple of years ago, Jamie cycled in. Jamie and Matt were playing together in another band while Matt was playing with us. And that's how he knew Jamie and brought him into the fold.

Matthew: And I think the first offer was, "Would you want to go Tokyo?"

Jamie DiTringo: Yea. The interesting timing of all that was that a couple of years ago when we sat down to talk about this in October, the tour was supposed to start in November, I had just started a new job at the time. So I had fall out of the graces with the company because I sat down and said, "I know I just started here, but I need to take a week off to go to Tokyo." We played down at the Wonder Bar and then Bowery Electric in that small room. Two shows and a bunch of practices, and then we were off.

So how did "Hey Anna" become the name of the band?

[Everyone laughs]

Katie Rauch-Sasseen: The real story is we were trying to find names for the band.

Erin: Katie came up with some strange names.

Katie: I came up with some bird names. Then I texted Anna, "Hey Anna," and then I thought, "Whoa, this would be good."

Erin: Then we thought it was cool, but it started to make sense later. That's really how we came upon [calling the band] "Hey Anna." But then we decided to stick with it because Katie and I were going to Anna a lot for musical questions. She basically taught us how to sing harmonies. It's not that we didn't know how before, but she really took us to the next level. It started out semi-random, but it felt right.

Katie: And she's the eldest also.

Erin: It also made more sense when it was just the three of us, the three girls, especially when we were more acoustic folky. And then when we became a whole live set, we wondered if the band name would still work. But it was kind of like, "Well, this is it. We're sticking with it."

Matthew: It just became our identity. It's taken all the facets of everybody's joy, but it's still within that Hey Anna universe. There's nothing more horrible and self-involved than picking a band name.

Yeah, I noticed that. So since you three (Katie, Anna and Erin) are sisters, what are the pros and cons of being in a band with your family?

Erin: Well, [recently] we were doing a writing session and workshopping, and sometimes you just get really mad at your sister. And we yell or get angry. And it can probably get uncomfortable for others in this room. [Laughs.]

Matthew: No. We're used to it.

Erin: But then that's also a pro because then the next day it's like it didn't even happen. So if you got into some crazy fight with a band member you weren't related to...

Katie: Just for the record, this wasn't a crazy fight. [Laughs.]

Erin: No, it wasn't a crazy fight, but what I'm saying is it was tense. Well, I'm saying we can say the things we want to say. It was just a normal sister [argument]. And if it would have been with someone else, maybe we would hold on to it. But when when you're sisters, it's part of the the game. Sometimes you're loving and hugging and laughing all the time, and sometimes you're not. So just kind of have to get over it.