Q: Hey, can you tell us a bit about where you come from, and what made you want to start a career in music?
A: We’re from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. We’ve been playing music since our teens and found it was a great way to express ourselves, our feelings, and be able to share stories that otherwise wouldn’t have an outlet.
Q: Did you have any formal training, or are you self-taught?
A: We are mostly self-taught. We’ve had some lessons but a lot of time was spent in the bedroom just figuring things out.
Q: Who were your first and strongest musical influences?
A: Our musical tastes are pretty diverse. We grew up on a wide range of music – from the 60s and 70s onward to the 80s and 90s and even the early 2000s. We think a good song is a good song no matter the time period.
Q: You have just released your new EP, ‘Cinema Sounds’. Is there a story behind it?
A: Cinema Sounds is a collection of songs that we spent quite a bit of time working through. We’ve been working on dozens of songs and decided to release three together as an EP that we felt had a cinematic quality to them. They felt like they had clear cinematic themes and tied together nicely.
Q: What is the message of your music?
A: There’s not a single message that resonates through our music. It’s life. It’s story telling that we enjoy being able to tell.
Q: What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
A: We’re strong proponents of melody, hooks, and atmosphere. We think that having clear hooks and strong melodies should really resonate with listeners. We try and write music that’s timeless and doesn’t feel like it leans into trends and themes that often tie music to certain points in time. We’d love listeners to be able to listen to something in 10 years and feel like it’s relevant and fits into the time.
Q: Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more?
A: Music is highly subjective. We love when people love it and oftentimes we’ve found that people need to come around to ideas. We’re pretty confident that people will catch up and come to enjoy things. So it’s always about playing the long game. But it’s always fulfilling to write and record music. We’ve always said we’ll keep doing this as long as it’s fun.
Q: Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song?
A: It almost always starts from a tiny piece. Maybe a chord, maybe a portion of a melody. And then we just build and expand. We try and tell stories not only with the lyrics but the music and make sure that everything builds and tells that all encompassing story. We keep iteresting on everything until we feel we’ve taken it as far as we can go or want to go.
Q: What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
A: We were in a previous band together that was right on the verge of “making it”. But life always poses challenges. Kevin had signficant health issues that took him out of commission for quite awhile as he had a degenerative bone disease that was painful and made it impossible to tour. At the same time, we were dealing with competing interests from labels, bad advice from managers, and messy personal lives. We got through it all and realized the cliche that things do happen for a reason. Everything turned out fine. We’re all in better places now and resumed our musical journey and we’re ready for round two.
Q: On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
A: I’d say simply recognition and acknowledgement. We started picking off musical bucket list items and being able to write and play music is one of the best feelings.
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