In conversation with Girl Group at Reading Festival.

Consisting of Katya, Mia, Maria and Thea, all originally from Oslo, and Lil, from Yorkshire, Girl Group is a fun alt-pop band formed in Liverpool. A collaboration between five talented women with their own distinctive styles, Girl Group makes for a playful merging of genres, drawing inspiration from pop, R&B, dance music and more. Their EP ‘Think They’re Looking, Let’s Perform’ is a unique and refreshing collection of songs conveying the female experience, touching on friendship, messy nights out, feminism and the pressure of being a woman navigating a male-dominated music industry.

We sit down with them in the August sun, each of them buzzing and excitable after playing their first-ever set at Reading Festival. They tell us about all things Girl Group: living situations, inspirations, and dream collaborations. 

Emma: Let’s just start from the very beginning – how did Girl Group come to be? 

Mia: We met at [Liverpool] uni. Me and Maria knew each other from before and we lived in the same house and went to the same freshers events.

Lil: Me, Maria and Mia were put in a house together and then we met the other girls at the little shitty events.

Mia: The neon parties!

Emma: Throwback! And foam parties, it’s how the best friendships are made.

Mia: We became friends quite quickly and we were a friend group for a long time before we started making music together because we were all doing solo projects and our stuff at uni. We had such different styles of music that we never really thought to work together and then we all kind of bonded on the fact that we are feminists, and we are political, and we kept having rants about it. 

[Music] is very much a boys’ club and I think we worked so hard to get into this university, four of us even moved countries [from Norway], and found it’s the same thing [in the UK] where all the boys work together and the girls aren’t really invited. If they are, it's on a guest basis which is so frustrating because it’s so ingrained in everyone and people aren’t really aware of it because they thought ‘we’re living in a feminist society’. So we decided to do our own sessions based on that.

Emma: You can tell that you have all your own styles of music because the music you make is a mix of everything. So, do you all live together then?

Katya: We lived together for two, three years. We added one person at a time every year and the whole group of us lived together for two years and we just recently moved out of that. 

Mia: Three of us still live together, me, Katya and Thea still live together. It’s kind of weird because it feels very sibling-esque, because we’re very close friends and we live together and we work together, you’re so close all the time that you get to a family status. 

Thea: Which is good and bad, it is definitely intense being colleagues, friends and housemates as well. We’re in all of each other's aspects of life. There are pros and cons. 

Emma: Do you think that has added something unique to your music?

Lil: I think because we’ve been doing it for a bit of time now, and the amount of time we spend together and how well we know each other has done a lot for the way we make music. 

Part of the reason why we started it was because you’re so often in situations when you’re being creative or writing or with producers where you can feel quite small. So, I feel we’ve got really good communication about everything. 

Mia: It definitely made us really good at letting each other know when we agree or disagree with something. At least for me, I never really felt a barrier there. When I did sessions with a lot of other musicians before this, I had a tendency to feel quite insecure or unsure. 

We all wrote our dissertations on women and music, and there is so much ingrained in our society and culture about what we think is cool and not, and it is linked to masculinity and femininity. When I was a solo artist, working with men, there’d be times where they are like ‘oh, that’s too girly’, and pop is seen as more lame than rock. 

I think that’s the special thing about our project as we’re very proud of our girlyness and we lean into it, instead of shying away. It doesn’t feel the same as when I’ve worked with men as we have such a mutual respect for our musicality and our opinions about the product and the music. We obviously write everything together, it feels very equal and safe.

Emma: You’re all each other's spokesperson – that’s a really nice dynamic. So, for new listeners, what song of yours would you recommend to listen to first and why?

Mia: 100% ‘Yay, Saturday!’

Lil: I was gonna say that one as well.

Emma: I was thinking that one too, because the voice note you use at the end is exactly like something I’d send my friends – is that a real voice note?

Lil: It was actually, Maria recorded me. Initially, we were going to write a song about piss on the toilet seat. It’s how [our songs] come up, like ‘oh, this is really pissing me off, we should write about this’. But then, that was obviously on a night out and that song is about a night out. Though, I do feel like that song explains us quite well with all the different elements in it. 

Mia: All of the voice notes on the EP are real as well, nothing is faked.

Thea: I would also say our first two songs, ‘Life is Dumb’ and ‘Lil’s Room’ as well as that’s how we started and got all the opportunities, and why we’re sitting at Reading right now, which is crazy! 

Emma: The EP cover art and all the covers for your singles are so unique. What are the visuals inspired by?

Mia: There’s so many layers to this!

Thea: We’re so different with individual vibes in fashion and music and stuff, so [the EP cover] is kind of like choose your warrior. 

Lil: We also really reference Spice Girls. 

Katya: The girl groups in the past we really look up to and helped shape us as people, and the cover art points to that.

Maria: When we came up with the idea of doing a shoot like that, there was something so exciting about playing dress up in that way. There’s nothing else, there’s just our outfits and us. We just play dress up and do silly poses and I think that’s something that we do a lot – things that really feel like the stuff that would excite us when we were little girls. 

Katya: With the holographic background, it was very clear from the get-go that we wanted to make it a bit child-like which I think contrasts the actual EP quite well. 

Emma: That leads onto my next question – there’s five of you, so if you were a Spice Girl, who would be who!? 

Lil: We’ve had debates about this! 

Emma: Me and my friends have dressed as the Spice Girls many times, it’s a rite of passage!

Katya: Who are you?

Emma: Posh Spice. 

Maria: I’m Posh Spice!

Lil: In the group, because of who we are, Mia, you’re Ginger Spice, aren’t ya?

Mia: Yeah and Katya is baby spice, Thea is Scary Spice and Lil is Sporty Spice.

Lil: I like a trackie!

Emma: If each of you could choose an iconic woman – past or present – to join the band, who are you choosing? It could be Florence Nightingale, Cher, anyone. 

Thea: Charli XCX. 

Lil: I want Marilyn Monroe.

Mia: I love Beyonce. And she’s been in a girl group before, Destiny’s Child, so she’d know what to do.

Lil: I’d also like Kathleen Hanna, the singer of Bikini Kill. She’s such a force of nature. 

Emma: 2025 has been a big year for you guys, releasing an EP and doing live shows, what’s been your favourite moment?

Lil: I can’t lie, playing Reading has been pretty fucking good! This is the biggest festival we’ve played. 

Thea: As a Norwegian, being the monthly artist from the BBC introducing in Norway was a pretty big moment for us

Mia: Olivia Dean in Paris, I had to pinch myself every second of that! 

Emma: What did you guys do after playing that show?

Mia: We had champagne with Olivia Dean! We looked at each other and were like ‘oh my god!’

Katya: When you’re having an incredible moment whilst also experiencing it with your best friends, it’s just so nice! We’re really lucky.