From a Tee-Shirt to a Band
While not perfect, John Conroe's The Demon Accords has some of the best world-building of any series I've ever read. Given that I read well over 100 books a year, that's saying something. From the series, I've created multiple tee-shirts for my personal wardrobe: Rowan West Diner, Club Plasma, Treasured Words, Katie's Pub, College Arcane, and a Sisters Erie “Wind and Rain Tour” shirt, among others.
When designing, my brain tends to wander in strange ways. For the Sisters Erie tee-shirt, I figured that if it was a tour tee-shirt, it needed a list of tour dates and stops. So I used the information in the book and certain assumptions to plot a possible 19-stop tour through cities they might have traveled, with real Irish pubs and coffeehouses. They had to end in Burlington, Vermont, on the appropriate day given the description in Executable.
And, since I was the one figuring it out, I had them stop in my hometown on my birthday.
Because I'm a geek.
I really liked how the design turned out, so I created a follow-up shirt with just the logo.
The Sisters
In Executable, Conroe gives us a band of four witch sisters from Ireland who are sent to—well, basically seduce—an incredibly powerful male witch. In his world, male witches are generally weak. He provides descriptions of the sisters and their music. Ryanne receives a fair amount of attention, Gael less, and Mary and Aileen very little beyond basic physical descriptions.
The Sisters Erie site started as an experiment with AI-based web design and image generation. I had a bit of a character crush on Ryanne, whom I visualized as Lindsey Stirling with a bodhrán, and I kept getting her and Gael confused. I also felt that Conroe did Ryanne a little wrong in the series.
Conroe had not provided enough personality detail for individual “About” sections, so I had to come up with my own additions that would make the characters real enough without breaking the source canon. What were the little things that could take them from words on a page to people? Using ChatGPT, I developed profiles for each Sister from pages in the book. I then added quirks from people they reminded me of and let serendipitous comments become traits.
Ryanne is always caring and gives crap to people she likes. She is also a “leap before you look” type. Gael initially seemed like the stereotypical fiery redhead, and a comment about “Gael Force 5” took that stereotype and gave it depth. Mary was “the quiet one”; knowing plenty of introverts, I gave her a love of puns and a deep interest in almost everything. Aileen, the oldest, needed a little extra cynicism and an odd love of '80s pop.
Those are my expanded-continuity choices, not claims about Conroe's canon. The source gave me the sisters; the work of making room for their individual voices was mine.
Making the Music Come to Life
I discovered that Suno could make some really cool music and thought, “What if I could turn them into a ‘real’ band with multiple albums?”
I listened to a lot of Celtic music in my teens and twenties, enjoyed going to Ren Faires, and have been to Sherwood Forest Faire many times in the last few years.
Conroe specifically mentions Sisters Erie performing “Step It Out Mary” and “Green Eyes, Red Hair,” and I wondered what the band might actually sound like. I tried making it happen with Suno—and hit MASSIVE issues trying to make covers.
The album and song dates below belong to the Sisters' fictional chronology. The Suno experiments, revisions, frustrations, and occasional successes are the actual production process behind this project.
The Coming Storm EP (2012)
My read of some of the Sisters' history is that they had been to the United States before, so it made sense that they would have had at least an EP to sell at their shows. I had them create one in 2012.
“Step It Out Mary” was already a favorite of mine. “Green Eyes, Red Hair” is the other source-named song; from there, I figured that “The Queen of Argyll” could easily be in their playlist. I also realized that it was going to take some time to become proficient with Suno and related tools, so an EP with two covers and two original songs would be a reasonable place to start. Then I could create Wind and Rain: Live at Katie's Pub, a “live” album with the covers I had in mind.
I hit so many issues, given the current state of music AI, that I decided to drop the covers for now and focus on original songs. But I had already come up with these two, so they went on the website.
The Castles of Ireland (“AFC”)
Coming up with ideas constantly has been an issue of mine for years, and I started coming up with random song titles. AFC popped into my head early on, and I started working on lyrics with help from ChatGPT. We then worked out how to prompt and came up with eight different versions, all of which were good in different ways, but one of them sounded like Sisters Erie in a pub.
It is also intended to be the first Sisters Erie video, which remains in progress as of October 19, 2026.
An Ode to Nuada
Another random title was An Ode to Nuada. Nuada Silverhand was one of the Kings of Faerie who dealt with a fair amount of drama, and it seemed like the title of a song that would make a good contrast to the two covers and AFC, while showing Sisters Erie's range.
Wind and Rain: Live at Katie's Pub (2013)
I wanted to create this album using the songs from their “playlist,” but, given the difficulties creating good covers and how much fun I was having with Suno—especially given how fast AI is evolving—I decided to put it on hold for the moment.
Beat the Sunrise (2016)
Since creating Wind and Rain was, for the moment, off the table because of issues with covers, the logical alternative was an album of original songs.
Half-Myth, Half-Trouble
At some point in the process of creating songs for Sisters Erie, ChatGPT made a throwaway comment about the Sisters being “Half-Myth, Half-Trouble,” and I instantly knew we had the song to introduce the band.
Gael Force
In building out the personalities of the characters, in my version Gael—the redhead fiddle player—was, personality-wise, well, a redhead fiddle player: too much personality for too small a package. The conversations with ChatGPT referenced her playing as “Gael Force 5.” Having Gael need to be managed just seemed fun.
A Drunken Ass
In addition to specifically named songs in Executable, several were mentioned as descriptions: songs about drunken men, drunken women, and even a drunken donkey. If it's in the book, it has to exist…
Running Underhill
Running Underhill started with Kate Bush, VoicePlay, and an idea for a Celtic alternate-lyrics treatment. After the story, the cover attempts, the swearing, and the original-song breakthrough, there were dark-techno remixes as well. The fuller story is in Creating Running Underhill.
One More Round!
Executable also mentioned multiple drinking songs. What would Sisters Erie come up with if they heard the Scratch's “Another Round”?
Too Much Water in My Whiskey
I'm beginning to wonder if the Sisters might want to look into AA. Lots of drinking and knowing far too many different toasts.
An Empty Space
Mary's song of goodbye to the love that wasn't. There's a joke about how all Celtic songs are about one of five things, one of which is “heartbreak and romance,” and we didn't have one of those. Mary singing about a love that didn't happen—not because anything went bad, but because it just didn't go where she hoped—felt right.
The Candle in the Window
Ryanne's coming-home song. In Executable, the protagonist describes listening to Ryanne sing as being as close to Erie as he has ever felt. This seemed like the perfect way to finish the album.
Where the Sisters Are Today
The book was released in 2013, and at the time of this article it is 2026. That gives the band thirteen years of play: multiple tours, multiple albums, and various merch.
I added a note to the Sisters Erie website that it had been hacked and was still being put back together. A completely valid reason for it not to show the latest content.
To quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Where do we go from here?”
That depends on what The Sisters tell me.