Almost everyone has heard a story of a couple or a pair of friends meeting off of some social media site, but rarely has an entire band met on the Internet. This is the case for Fairground Saints, a band based out of Los Angeles. The trio, made up of Mason Van Valin, Elijah Edwards and Megan McAllister, didn’t directly know each other before starting the band. Edwards and Van Valin, who met through mutual friends on Facebook, quickly sought out McAllister on Youtube.

“I think we just got really lucky,” said McAllister after being asked how meeting each other through social media affected the group dynamic. “As people, we clicked instantly. We’re very compatible as friends and musicians. It was very easy for us to feel like family in the first week of meeting each other. So luckily we didn’t have a problem with that”.

So far, starting a band has worked out well. Fairground Saints has earned an opening slot for Carly Rae Jepsen on her Gimmie Love Tour, playing dozens of cities all across the United States, including to some they’ve never been to. They’ve even been compared to some very well known acts, such as Lady Antebellum.

The band is also a recent creation, with their first music release being in 2015. Even though they’ve already been signed to a major record label, put out a full-length album and are now touring the country, their success has come more slowly than it seems.

“From the outside it appears fast,” says Edwards. “From the inside it feels like it has been relatively slow. There’s a lot of working going on in all of the different aspects of getting to this point. It’s been really cool to see the progression and the work that we’ve put into it.”

Besides snagging Matthew Wilder, who has worked with pop stars like Chirstina Agueleira , to produce their album, Fairground Saint’s lush harmonies have also been noted by many, including the likes of Rolling Stone magazine. Part of the reason why their voices blend together so naturally is because of the different strengths they bring to the band.

“I think our differences are what balance us out,” says Van Valen. “Megan likes R&B a lot, Eli likes jazz a lot and I like folk music. Those three blend together to create some sort of synergistic thing we have.”

All three have had a desire to play music since an early age. Every member of the band cites their interest being due to  their families. McAllister learned how to sing harmonies by listening to the radio with her dad when she was only five years old, then moving on to play in a band with her sisters later on in life. Edwards picked up the acoustic guitar when he was a teenager while Van Valin plucked chords on a piano as a toddler.

However, the members of Fairground Saints haven’t stopped learning about music.

“Success is totally subjective,” says Van Valin. “We don’t ever sit around and think ‘now things are really taking off’.’ Even if they actually were, I don’t think we would accept that”.