The word “stunning” comes up a lot when people talk about The Krickets, and it does not take long to understand why. Even apart from the songs themselves, the blend of three voices in close harmony — traded seamlessly among three songwriters — has a way of making listeners lean in.
The Gulf Coast Americana trio is made up of singer-songwriters Emily Stuckey Sellers, Lauren Spring and Rachel Grubb, all accomplished musicians in their own right who rotate through lead and backup vocal duties. Each writes, each sings, and together they have built a sound that Paste Magazine once described as “a truly stunning, one-of-a-kind sound” — genre-bending Americana anchored by signature folk harmony.
A band built by a benefit
The Krickets traces its origin to a breast cancer benefit in Port St. Joe, Florida, held in honor of Kristina “Cricket” Russell. The cause stuck. The band remains passionate supporters of their namesake, The Cricket Fund, which provides cancer aid to the uninsured.
After early personnel changes, bassist Rachel Grubb joined the lineup — a move that landed just as the COVID pandemic arrived. The other two already knew her work from festival stages. “We were big fans of Rachel. We loved her music,” Spring said. “When you have someone talented like that, and you already know you love their music and already know what their vibe is, it’s not hard to imagine if they’d be a fun fit.”
Grubb was a guitarist who had barely played bass. She took it on without hesitation, first on a small ukulele bass, then on an electric Hofner of the sort Paul McCartney made famous. “She did it without blinking an eye,” Spring said. “The practice she’s put into that craft has just been crazy. We’re so proud of her.”
Three writers, one record
The trio’s third full-length album, “If You Only Knew,” arrived in the fall of 2025 and marked a homecoming of sorts. It was recorded at Sun Drop Sound in Florence — the Muscle Shoals-area studio where their 2016 debut “Spanish Moss Sirens” was cut with producer Ben Tanner of the Alabama Shakes. This time Austin Motlow handled production, with Tanner contributing keys and Single Lock Records artist Caleb Elliott adding cello, alongside guitarist Sol Philcox-Littlefield.
The album was financed in part through a Kickstarter campaign, and the band has been candid about what that support meant. “Albums are expensive to create,” Grubb has said. “This album would not exist without the donations raised.”
Every song is a love song of one kind or another — romance, friendship, longing, estrangement — drawn from lived experience. “On this album, every song is a love song from a different perspective,” Spring has said. The writing is shared: all three members wrote for the record, with the title track co-written with two other singer-songwriters and “Your Light” co-written with Fairhope-area songwriter Eric Erdman.
Critics have taken notice. Americana Highways called the record a “total home-run,” praising the traded lead vocals, the harmonies and the hooks, and noting how the band’s sound evolved from the folkier textures of earlier releases toward rock, gospel and soulful country-pop. The band’s trophy case already includes two Independent Music Awards for Song of the Year, in the folk and alt-country categories.
The catalogue behind it
The new album joins a growing catalogue: “Spanish Moss Sirens” (2016), “Redbird” (2018), recorded in Nashville with Sam Ashworth, and stand-alone singles including “These Games,” which premiered in American Songwriter’s Best New Music feature, and “Pay No Mind,” a 2023 collaboration with Rick Hirsch. Across all of it, the constant is the three-part harmony — the thread that connects every version of the band.
400 miles apart, one band
The remarkable thing about The Krickets is that they are rarely in the same place. Stuckey Sellers lives in the Fairhope area. Spring is more than 200 miles away in Port St. Joe, Florida, and Grubb is another 200 miles beyond that in Lake City, near Jacksonville.
Getting together is the hardest part, Spring says. Every gathering means a long drive, and if more than two or three weeks have passed, the band needs a rehearsal before any show to make sure the set is tight. Their time together is working time — business decisions, set lists, rehearsals — which is exactly why the time on stage carries such weight.
“When we’re together there’s definitely a magic feeling,” said Spring, a multi-instrumentalist whose arsenal includes acoustic and electric guitars, fiddle and the guitjo, a guitar-banjo hybrid. Stuckey Sellers, who also plays guitars and guitjo, put it more simply: “It’s one of the most wonderful feelings to sing and create together, and it definitely touches on something in your heart when you’re in three-part harmony together.”
Family first, then the music
All three juggle band life with solo and duo projects, and with families. “We’ve learned to prioritize, and it’s family first, for sure,” Spring said — her own teenagers nearing graduation, Grubb’s son already through, Stuckey Sellers’ children younger. The scheduling is a constant negotiation, and the band treats it as a feature of who they are rather than an obstacle.
Five voices on stage
While known as a trio, The Krickets now tour as a five-piece. Percussionist Caroline Watts, who also manages the band, keeps time, and veteran Gulf Coast musician Molly Thomas — piano, organ, cello and viola — recreates on stage the instrumental layers the records carry. “Our albums have all of these instruments on them, and she helps recreate those records beautifully,” Stuckey Sellers said. “It has been nothing but a dream-come-true playing with her.”
Thomas, whose own albums the band admires, offered her services after becoming a fan — an invitation the trio accepted gratefully. The result is a live show that mirrors the studio work: lush, layered and built around three voices that were made to blend.
For a band that started as a one-night benefit and never really stopped, the mission remains simple: make records worth hearing, play them well wherever they land, and keep the harmony — musical and otherwise — intact.