‘We always make each other laugh when writing our songs – hopefully that warmth translates to the audiences too.’ 

Ahead of Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2026 ( 29th April – 4th May), I chatted with 5 artists who are featured in the free programme and, in my mind, are ones you should definitely check out as well. In this Behind the Music special it’s the turn of Molly and Dom aka ‘Fonda’ who will be playing the Free Stage, Montpellier Gardens, 5.30pm, Sunday 3rd May.

Hi Molly and Dom, thanks so much for taking the time to chat. Before we get into the main questions, how do you feel about Fonda being involved in the Cheltenham Jazz Festival and what are you doing in the lead up to it?
We’re exceptionally excited to be playing at the festival for the first time! We’ve been following CJF since we were teenagers listening to it broadcasted on the radio – not to make us sound 100 years old – so it feels like a very crazy moment! We’re preparing by carb loading, dance learning, outfit styling, and show building! It’s a big undertaking but we’re itching to go!

There are a lot of Latin music influences within your tracks. What led you to using these?
We take inspiration from many genres, but Latin has been very influential to our sound for many reasons. We both listened to and played a lot of Jazz growing up and are inspired by many of the Brazilian greats. Importantly, as a band we want to make music that embodies energy and vivacity and sparks movement. We are also drawn to creating rhythmically interesting music, so adding lots of Latin percussive patterns is always very tempting. Harmony doesn’t take a backseat though, we always want to push our music to include interesting chord sequences and surprising modulations – influenced by our Jazz heritage. Spoiler alert: We have a lot of fabulous Disco influence in some of our upcoming projects so stay tuned for that too! 

Your releases – visually and sonically – are incredibly polished for a band early in their development. How important was it to you that this was the case?
That’s very kind of you to say! We’re both experienced musicians having played in many different bands over the years, however starting ‘Fonda’ was the chance for us to really express ourselves in a way we had been so hungry to do! We’re flattered to be called polished, but we do definitely try to elevate our sound with each new project we put out. We’re phenomenally lucky to have the support of friend and Filmmaker Gabriel Purvis whom we collaborate with on our visuals. Coming up with fun concepts for music videos and visual content has allowed us to intertwine humour and style into our music. It can be difficult to be noticed as an emerging artist, so we’re creating fun and captivating visuals to solidify our brand. The same can be said for our music. We make music that we’d want to listen to so if it isn’t polished, we won’t sell it!

I understand that as well as writing and performing your tracks, you produce them too. What are the blessings and curses of this approach?
Fonda is a very close knit unit. Although we write together, Dom is the captain of the production ship, always sailing us through beautifully crystal clear waters rich in minerals with majestic waves. He’s a complete wizard when it comes to envisioning the musical world of ‘Fonda’ that we’ve so carefully crafted, always imagining fruitful directions for us to take the songs. Blessings? We’re very much in sync with what we want to sound like. We have full control to make bold production decisions, often trying to impress or surprise one another, which always ends up improving the music tenfold. Curses? I guess really it’s a time thing. We both work full time to fund ‘Fonda’, so it can be frustrating to not have as much time as we’d like to produce and release music. We’re on board though, sailing ahead with no plans of disembarking any time soon!

‘We’ve learnt that everything we do – whether it be songwriting, filming, or rehearsing – it has to be enjoyable for us.’

Your lyricism appears to carry a running theme across your music. Is this part of a wider narrative you are aiming to tell in the future?
Lyrics are very important to us! We would say that the running narrative of ‘Fonda’ is told by a somewhat playful character. I (Molly) take a lot of inspiration from funny women – in music, film, TV etc. Whether it be Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl or Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, women who can hit the high notes, hammer a punch line, with a tongue in cheek and a cheeky wink are my kind of story tellers! The lyrics of many Jazz standards are a huge inspiration to us too. Bold yet simple, playful and sometimes camp. The theatricality of word play adds to our performance too! Preferring to insinuate rather than explain, we like to dance around the subject in our songs rather than stamp on it. We make each other laugh when writing our songs and hope that that warmth translates for audiences too. 

With such an expansive sound to your tracks, how do you approach taking this into the live setting? 
Live is where we thrive! Performance is where we get to take all the best elements of our music and visual style and throw them at an audience. We also get to break our own rules in our songs too – adding a surprise swing section or the Count Down theme tune to the end of a song, imagining new ways to add a bit of theatre to our shows. It’s like being at the playground! We like to do things that hopefully make us memorable to new audiences too. It can be difficult since our sound is rather large – in an ideal world we’d have a 20 piece band to take us to the heights we’d like to go (so look out for that in the future!) – but in the meantime, the 7 piece we have are absolutely fantastic. We can’t wait to showcase them at CJF!

And a sneaky bonus question: What has been the biggest learning curve as a band to date and how has it impacted you?
Showbiz ain’t what it used to be kids! Content, streaming, social marketing… it’s all a bit of a mood killer, especially when you’re such a small team. We’ve learnt that everything we do – whether it be songwriting, filming, or rehearsing – we have to make it enjoyable for us. As soon as we make it fun it stops the boring bits from being too drab and ghastly. The impact? We enjoy what we do so much! We make joyful music and have fun doing so. It’s the best! Besides, we all know how impenetrable the music industry is so if we’re going to try to wine and dine it, well, Honey, we may as well pick the restaurant!

Thanks Molly and Dom of Fonda for chatting with Listen to Discover
Remember you can catch ‘Fonda’ playing the Free Stage, Montpellier Gardens, 5.30pm, Sunday 3rd May.