FAIRBANKS — Sunniva Bondesson doesn’t try to sugar coat what it’s like to be in a band with two other sisters.

“We don’t get much better at behaving toward each other,” Bondesson said. “We still act like teenagers sometimes.”

She said that despite the quarrels, the three sisters — Greta on banjo, Stella on double bass and Sunniva on acoustic guitar — are all good friends.

It’s probably a good thing, since they’ve been performing informally since they were toddlers.

Part of a musical family that always encouraged music, they started singing together while growing up in Sweden and started learning how to play instruments in their teens. They were encouraged by their father, Janake, a musician himself, with whom they eventually formed a band, The Slaptones.

But Bondesson said that initially they weren’t “super excited” about being a musicians.

“If you have it in your home, it’s like following a trend; music is just always there,” she said. “You (instead) want to be a journalist or a talk show host.”

The sisters all attended what Bondesson said was a “boring” choir school in Sweden that focused on classical choir music.

“It was not cool at all,” she said.

But as the three began to find influence in different kinds of music — like indie rock and alt country — they found their own style and decided that maybe a more intense form of country music was for them. It was a style they didn’t see many people performing.

“It’s not what other bands were doing,” she said. “We decided we would try something different.”

What they created was a three-person, alt country, “killbilly,” “banjo punk,” “mud-country” ensemble. While the music has its twangy, country roots, some of the songs are darker and the lyrics more intense.

That’s part of the “killbilly” style Bondesson said — rockabilly sound with darker lyrics that sometimes involves death. Bondesson said the name is a play on the “Kill Bill” action flims.

The three sisters decided to rename their group from the Slaptones, a straight rockabilly outfit that included their father on drums, when their father decided to stop playing in late 2005. Instead they picked up the name Baskery.

Bondesson said that the name doesn’t have a specific meaning. She thinks that fits.

“No one would think of us as any one type of band,” she said.

They were limited in The Slaptones by their genre, and she said they often had to play a lot of covers.

Now as Baskery, they play any kind of music they want and write songs about anything they want. While they sometimes focus on a soft, almost classical country style, they also can have a harsher sound that slips into indie rock territory.

Bondesson said she does most of the writing but that all three play a large part in creating the music.    

Even if sometimes they disagree.

“Sometimes it takes a long time to do stuff and we get stuck,” she said. “But we’re learning how to work together. We want the songs to represent the sound of all of us.”

Their debut album, “Fall among Thieves,” was released in 2008. Bondesson said the group has been touring the United States and Europe almost non-stop since then. After they finish their most recent U.S. tour in Fairbanks, they will head to Europe to take some time off and then start work on a new album, due for release in sometime next year.

Bondesson said that the sisters are excited to be in Alaska. Bondesson, calling from Austin, Texas, was not liking the heat.

“You can’t think in this,” she said.

She said that the weather in Alaska is more like what she’s used to, coming from Sweden, including the dark winters and sun-filled summers.

“We’re used to that kind,” she said. “Maybe other people find that weird, but we’ll feel at home.”

Contact features writer at Suzanna Caldwell at 459-7504.

IF YOU GO

What: Baskery

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

Where: The Blue Loon

Tickets: $25, online, at Gulliver’s Books or The Blue Loon

Information: www.baskery.com