With all due respect to Grand Rapids and the people who live there, the Michigan city has never had a reputation as a cosmopolitan hub of culture. Erica Driscoll grew up there, but she and her siblings had the good fortune to be blessed with a Brazilian-born mother.

“We grew up always having Brazilian music around,” Driscoll recalls when the Straight calls her in Los Angeles, where she now resides. “My mom was really influential in us being involved in music since we were kids—you know, piano lessons, and I played violin and I taught myself guitar and stuff. She always had tons of Brazilian records around our house: Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa and all this music. And we would always go there and spend most of the summer there.”

Any inspiration from Tropicália and bossa nova isn’t readily apparent in the music Driscoll and her brother Bruce make as Blondfire. As heard on the band’s second and most recent LP, Young Heart, it’s a dreamy but sometimes dark sound, with shimmering guitars and electronics layered over dance-floor-worthy beats. Driscoll insists, though, that Blondfire’s songs bear the influence of Antônio Carlos Jobim and Astrud Gilberto, however subtly.

“Bossa nova music, to me, is kind of happy and sad at the same time,” the singer-guitarist notes. “It’s kind of bittersweet, and I feel like we have some sort of element to our music like that. Also, my brother approaches beats differently sometimes than just the typical rock drum beat or four-on-the-floor all the time.”

Indeed, beat-making and other aspects of music production are Bruce’s main concerns these days. After years of logging his share of miles with his sister, he no longer tours with Blondfire, leaving the live-performance duties to guitarist Steve Stout, bassist Nathan Beale, and drummer Kevin Rice. “He just realized that he enjoys the studio part more than touring,” Driscoll says of her bro. “And he wants to be able to do more projects, too, and work on different things. Like, he really wants to get into scoring films and that. So these guys are kind of like my road band that I go on tour with, and I create music with Bruce.”

This state of affairs didn’t come about without a period of adjustment, mind you. After all, the Driscolls were playing shows together before Blondfire even existed, having toured nationally with their band Nectar (which also featured big sis Monica) when they were still in high school.

“At first I was really worried, to be honest, because I was used to having that other person to rely on in so many ways. But I feel like it was actually good for me, because it made me kind of come out of my shell a little bit and step up to the plate, in a weird way—like, good or bad, I have to do these things. I can be shy, but there was really no room to be. So it’s actually been really good for me.”