interview & stream: My Brother/My Sister - "Haze/Thursday"
This Friday, will mark the release of My Brother/My Sister's EP, which you can stream below, along with an interview from band members Dylan Kittrell and Jenni Scott. Pre-order the EP from Self Aware Records and dive into their dreamy world below.
The Grey Estates: How did the band come together? With your live shows featuring a rotating cast of friends, how do you choose members to join you on stage and also how do you make sure that they capture the essence of your band?
My Brother/My Sister: Jenni and I met through mutual friends in middle school and we both liked similar music and both played instruments so we decided to meet up one day and play those instruments together. We enjoyed playing together so we decided to try our hand at playing shows. After a couple shows with just the two of us we added another friend on bass. We were a three piece for a while. Later on our third member parted ways leaving Jenni and to figure out if we'd keep playing just the two of us or if we'd involve any one else. Being the only melodic instrument in the band I knew I needed some other instruments to help complete our sound. So basically I just asked some other people I knew that played music if they would possibly be interested in just playing shows and not worrying about the inner workings of the band, luckily they said yes. So when we decide who plays a show with us it honestly falls on who is available. And our friends basically are our essence, we all have similar tastes and like to have a good time.
TGE: Tell us a little bit about the singles. What are they about and when did you first start working on them? What's the writing and recording process like for you?
MB/MS: All the songs we write I feel like capture more of a certain time when things were happening than being about a certain thing. Like "Haze" is about when I had just started regularly smoking weed (sorry mom) and I was in kind of a weird transitional phase in my life where I felt constantly bored and at the same time constantly busy. "Thursday" kinda focuses more on just thoughts we all have that are simple but sorta profound if that makes sense. As far as the process of writing and recording I will kinda just come up with my part and show it to Jenni and if they like it we will just play it for a while and slowly change the song and tweak things in the studio to get it to be how we want it.
TGE: How do you balance being in school and having a life outside of that with also being in a band? How do you tour as well?
MB/MS: We have been juggling school and this band for the majority of high school so we sorta have just come accustomed to having to sacrifice certain opportunities as a band(mainly tours) to make sure we graduate. We slowly have prioritized the band over school but we still go most days. We tour in a big ole green chevy conversion van, usually with our friend Cody who plays bass for most shows now.
TGE: What's been one of your favorite memories since forming and what have you enjoyed most so far?
MB/MS: Um I think my favorite (or at least one of my favorites) is the feeling of pulling out of the drive way on the first day of our longest tour we have done and just being really excited to be doing what I want to do. I just remember blaring the radio for the first hour and us all just being so stoked. We also found a second home in Savannah,GA at a really sick queer oriented diy spot called QUOLAB and i am forever grateful for the sense of community I/we were able to find there. This band has allowed me to meet so many cool people.
TGE: What bands or artists inspire your sound and what have you been listening to? What in particular inspired this latest release?
MB/MS: This question always stumps me because Jenni and I listen to various genres and bands so frequently I can never pinpoint my favorite band much less any influences of mine. An artist we both mutually love is Alex G and I'm sure we find some sort of inspiration from his records. "Haze/Thursday" is sorta inspired by the culmination of all the things we like and want in our music including song writing and production.
TGE: Are you guys depicted in the photos on the cover?
MB/MS: We actually aren't. Both photos are pictures of my sister my mom took back in the day.
TGE: What's next for the band? What would you like to do as you continue?
MB/MS: We are in the midst of booking a winter tour and writing more songs. Hopefully we are able to have more music out in 2017 and just play bigger and better shows. Oh and I wanna play fest...fest book us.