To Sophia officially began playing together at the beginning of 2007. Since then, they have been gigging regularly at various nights in Manchester. Paul and Dave met Najia at a house party and began jamming. Since Dave and Paul were in another band at this time, and Najia was focusing on solo work, they played together informally for about a year. This involved a number of frantically improvised gigs using songs written by Najia. After some time Paul and Najia began to do acoustic gigs as a duo and writing songs together. When Dave got a cajon it fit really nicely with the sound they were developing and it went from there. There was no clear idea at the beginning of the kind of music that would be made. All three members have very different musical interests and backgrounds. Najia performed as a solo singer songwriter for years in London, influenced heavily by soul and funk music. She cites her biggest influences as sensational female vocalists like Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn. Paul has a pretty varied musical background. He learnt saxophone, clarinet and guitar at a young age and for some time focused on playing Jazz. After moving to Manchester however, he began to play with various other musicians, jamming anything from rock, funk, jazz, even playing in a samba band with Dave. His Jazz background has given him a great appreciation of song arrangement and as such he is also influenced by electronic artists such as Amon Tobin and also by ‘progressive rock bands such as Tool, Led Zeppelin and The Mars Volta. Dave began playing drums at 11 years old. As a teenager he played in punk bands before turning his attention to improvisation. In later years, he has focused more on hand drumming and played in a large Samba band before learning the Cajon. He cites his main influences as rock bands like The Mars Volta and funk music but his drumming often takes its cues from Drum and Bass as well as hip hop and Spanish music. Basically, To Sophia thrive on their musical differences. Their lack of wishing to make a specific type of music means they can often be pulled in new and interesting ways. Their only musical aim is to create something original, passionate and exciting, as they all agree music should be. There is, between the members, a shared love of creativity and performance, a desire to make something new and to stimulate audiences worldwide.