popwreckoning

The Watson Twins just finished up a brief tour with Josh Radin, giving fans a preview of their forthcoming Vanguard release Talking to You, Talking to Me, due out on February 9, 2010. The album is a departure from previous releases Fire Songs and Southern Manners, giving us less of a Route 66 campfire feel and much more of a full-body groove, backed up by the same brilliant harmonies we know and love. It was a risky move, but we’re pretty sure it’ll pay off. Besides, the twins are some pretty charming ladies and they assure us they’ve got some tricks up their sleeves come next tour cycle in February. Check out some photos below.

The Watson Twins: website | myspace | @ manhattan center grand ballroom | interview with pt. I | interview with pt. II | @ homers

Words & photos by Dese’Rae Stage.

In an indie music city like Omaha, Nebraska, Jenny Lewis is queen. When passing through Omaha, her royal court or backing band has often consisted of the musical stylings of The Watson Twins. However, Omaha had never experienced the Watson Twins without the queen and for their first time in Omaha without Lewis, the Watson Twins proved they are just as ready to rule the scene as anybody else.

For their first Lewis-less endeavor in Omaha, the Watson Twins played not just once, but twice on the same day. They were in town to kick-off Ben Kweller‘s tour in support of his latest release, Changing Horses. That evening, the Watson Twins played a set with a full-band and though they have fairly laid back songs, they played a set that had everybody in the crowd moving. However, the Watson Twins really had a chance to prove themselves to Omaha not during this opening slot at the Slowdown, but at a free in-store acoustic performance at Homer’s Records in the Omaha Old Market.

The Watson Twins stripped down may not sound too different from The Watson Twins normal, but the difference was there, nonetheless. This was good because it made it so the repeat songs from the early acoustic performance still were fresh for the evening.

Wedged between shelves of vinyl records, the twins began playing to the motley crew gathered in the store with an old EP song, “Southern Manners”. Whether the crowd actually recognized this it was hard to tell, they welcomed it just as warmly as the four following songs off the twins’ more recent Fire Songs release.

They couldn’t have been in a better venue than a record store to recommend to their younger fans to check out The Cure as they began their slowed-down folk rendition of “Just Like Heaven” complete with harmonica.

“You look like you have a balloon head,” Leigh Watson teased her sister, Chandra Watson, who was fighting a cold. Even with the teasing, it was clear from the banter that the sisters aren’t just harmonious as singers, but in their familial relationship, too. Their exchange just made the crowd feel even cozier in the small venue.

Leigh gave her sick sister’s voice a rest by taking over the mic and singing “How Am I to Be” complete with snaps. Chandra hadn’t seemed like she was fighting a cold, but it was a bit more obvious once her sister’s more dominant and healthy voice took front and center.

The set was finished out with “Old Ways”, which they described as the “secret title track” for Fire Songs.

This was a pleasantly entertaining set and the girls showed that their ethereal vocals work just as well in the spotlight as they do as backups. I hope the Watson Twins return to Omaha…with or without Jenny Lewis.

Set List:
01. Southern Manners
02. Only You
03. Just Like Heaven
04. How Am I to Be
05. Old Ways

The Watson Twins: website | myspace | @ manhattan center grand ballroom | interview with pt. I | interview with pt. II

On Saturday evening, PopWreckoning got a chance to see the Watson Twins play a rare acoustic set at the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom. The set was gorgeous, as always. There’s something warm and soothing in their lyrics, like a swig of Jameson on the first cold day of the year, and their cover of the Cure‘s “Just Like Heaven” is dreamy–one of the best I’ve ever heard and, given the sheer number of Cure covers out there, that says something. The integrity of each song holds up, even when pared down to vocals, keyboard, and guitar. If the ladies seemed uncomfortable with this arrangement, it was only because they said so. Then again, isn’t this where every song gets its start?

If you get the chance, do yourself a favor and go see them play. They’re finishing up a politically-charged tour with the legendary Billy Bragg right now. Oh, and don’t be afraid to say hello after the set. That southern charm they exude on-stage is no act: they’re the sweetest girls in the world. Oh, and their sense of style is impeccable.

Tour Dates:
Oct 27 - 9:30 Club / Washington, DC
Oct 28 – Ram’s Head Live / Baltimore, MD
Oct 29 – Paramount Theatre / Charlottesville, VA
Oct 30 – Attucks Theatre / Norfolk, VA
Nov 01 - Duke University-Page Auditorium / Durham, NC
Nov 02 – The Orange Peel / Asheville, NC

Leigh Watson

Chandra Watson

Photos: Dese’Rae L. Stage

Part one of my interview with Chandra Watson left off with me having some technical difficulties. Once I got my fan situation figured out, my cassette recorder decided that it also needed a break. This is what I get for using obsolete technology! I argued with it while Chandra laughed on speaker phone. We discussed the difficulty of acquiring cassette tapes, once ubiquitous, and promised to work as a team to keep each other in stock if ever there were a true shortage. I got things up and running again and we went back to it:

Leigh Watson of the Watson Twins @ the Mercury Lounge, 7/11/08

Dese’Rae Stage, PopWreck(oning): So, for the album you had Everest backing you and they just released an album [Ghost Notes] too. Are they going to be touring with you?
Chandra Watson: You know what? They’ve already left us in the dust.
PW: Have they? I know they were here recently.
CW: They’re actually in the UK right now opening for My Morning Jacket and Neil Young. They’re having an amazing time and we’re super excited for them.
We’ve been playing with them for years, with Jay and Russ. They produced the EP as well, so there are many more hours to log with them as far as recording and playing together. We’re just out doing our own things right now, which is great. I’m super happy for them, they have a great record.
PW: “How Am I To Be?” is my favorite song on the record.

Chandra Watson of the Watson Twins @ the Mercury Lounge, 7/11/08

CW: Oh, thanks.
PW: Anytime. What’s yours? What was the most fun to record?
CW: Oh, that’s hard. I think it’s so weird. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite because they all have these different parts in the recording process and in our journey of writing over a period of time, but the cool thing was that when we went in to record, we did it in two stages.
We recorded a batch of songs first that we’d been playing out live and they were pretty much formed and had their arrangements. For the second half, we took a month off and went on tour, came back and recorded songs that we hadn’t really ever played as a band and that we were kind of messing with in the studio. Russ was creating drum parts as we went, so that was really fun too.
All of the songs on the record have this really specific place in time. For me, if I had to pick one to sing and perform, I think it’s “Sky Open Up” because it has all of these different emotional movements in it and the band totally rocks on it, which is kind of fun.
PW: I’m looking forward to hearing it. The album was released on Vanguard. You’re in the company of alum like Joan Baez and then the current roster has artists like Matt Nathanson. How do you like that?
CW: I think that one of the things that really drew us to Vanguard was obviously their catalog and their roster. These are people I respect that have really great careers, really long careers, which is, as a musician, what you want—someone who’s going to be along for the ride.
You know, we self released our EP and we had some really great things happen with that. The great thing about Vanguard was that, from the beginning, they just said, “We don’t want to change you. We don’t want to form you into something else. We just want to help you do what you’re already doing.”
We were at the point where we were like, “Okay, we could just self release this one and keep pushing it,” but it had gotten to a point where we needed more staff. That’s the bottom line. It was my sister and I, our manager, our publicist, and our mom. That’s pretty much it. When you’re looking at that many people, there’s not enough people to make the phone calls, there’s not enough people to work with the radio stations and do all that stuff, so before we signed with them, we gave them the finished record and said, “This is Fire Songs. If you don’t like it, that’s totally cool; if you like it, great.”
They were like, “Let’s do it,” so there weren’t any changes. We basically gave them the finished product and the art work and they thought it was great. My sister and I are very visually oriented people and have specific ideas about how we want to be represented and how we want things to sound and feel, so being able to be in control of that and really have our opinions heard was the most important thing. I think Vanguard’s been really great in that, in letting us have our own creative freedom and not trying to put us in a box.
PW: It sounds like the perfect deal.
CW: It is! I think another part of it is that there’s a different feeling at the label. It’s a really family oriented, smaller label. That’s really great. It feels nice to go out to dinner or walk into the office and know who the people are. They’re just like, “Call me if you need me.”
PW: Okay, we’re gonna switch gears a little. You guys have covered songs by men, like “Powderfinger” by Neil Young and now “Just Like Heaven” [The Cure]. Most artists change the personal pronouns in songs like that and you guys didn’t, like when Veruca Salt did Depeche Mode‘s “Somebody.” Why? Was it about lyrical integrity or was it something else?
CW: Honestly, this is going to sound weird, but we never even discussed it. I really don’t think you have to do that to get the feeling across.
PW: Yeah, I always feel really odd when artists are so conscious of things like that, but it seems like a lot of them think that maybe the image will be one thing when it’s not supposed to be.
CW: Right. We never discussed it. We never talked about whether it should be “she” or “he.” The song just speaks for itself. I think, had either song been less well known, we might have discussed it, but it’s so obviously a cover that everybody who is familiar with any kind of music pretty much knows that song, whether they’re fifteen or fifty.
Most of the listeners, I think, know it. But honestly, I kind of feel like it is what it is, and that’s how the song’s written. I don’t think it makes that much difference. I think you can still sing it with emotion and feeling without having your proper pronoun in there.
PW: It’s actually one of my favorite covers of that song ever done.
CW: Thanks!
PW: How do you guys write songs? Do you do it together or do you do it separately and come back together?
CW: We write separately and then bring the songs in together. We work on them a little bit together and talk about them and talk about arrangements.
It’s nice because she’s drawing from different inspirations than I am. Even though we’re twins, we have very different lives, so it’s cool. She could be drawing inspiration off something completely different than I am. It keeps me interested and also inspires me to hear what kind of sounds she’s working with and what her feelings are on her new material and that sort of thing.
It works for us. I think we’ll continue working that way until something comes up.
PW: Is it more or less difficult to be working so closely with someone who’s so deeply entrenched in your life? I have a pair of friends who are identical twins and all they do is bicker. I feel like they should be best friends, but they just bitch at each other all day long.
CW: Yeah, it happens with twins. I think with Leigh and I, we’ve been playing music together and singing together for so long. Because of that, whether it’s a choir rehearsal or band rehearsal or whatever, we’ve always been coordinating together. It’s like, “Okay, we’re going to leave for rehearsal then,” or, “Okay, you work on this part and I’ll work on that part.” Our whole lives, we’ve been working together in some way or another, and we’re best friends. We just get along, strangely enough.
PW: That’s awesome. It’s so good to hear. Knowing my friends, it’s like, “I want a twin sister! I want a built-in best friend!”
CW: I feel like it’s unfortunate if people don’t capitalize on that because it’s a pretty big gift to be given. Somebody who has your back all the time and is there for you and you can totally fight and scream at them and be their friend again.
PW: That’s really cool. I have two more. What are you guys listening to right now?
CW: I have a funny story. I’ve been listening to this band Chicha Libre. Do you know them? They’re from Brooklyn, actually.
PW: Nope.
CW: It’s kind of like, Brazilian psychedelic surf rock. It’s all those things and it’s instrumental and it’s really fun music. We randomly walked into this bar in Brooklyn when I was there a few weeks ago and we’re sitting and there’s a back room where bands play and you can see through this window and all these people are dancing and everyone’s rockin’ out in this room and it looks really fun and we’re having a drink and all of a sudden they start playing this song and I’m like, “God, I know this song!”
My sister looks at me and she’s like, “Chicha Libre!” So we totally freaked out and it was them playing in the back room and I’m like, “What are the chances of listening to this band I found out about here in L.A. and then walking into a random bar in Brooklyn and they’re playing?”
But I’ve been listening to that, and I just bought the new Allison Krauss and Robert Plant record [Raising Sand]. There are a couple of jams on there. I’ve been listening to the Cat Power‘s Jukebox record, which I love; the new Goldfrapp; just all kind of insane, random things.
I think when you get in record mode and you’re just working on your music and rehearsing, you sort of miss albums that happen when you’re in the studio because you just don’t listen to other music. I’m still sort of catching up, too.
PW: My last question is hypothetical: you’re headlining your dream tour. Who’s supporting you?
CW: Oh, God! Well, the other person that I’m sort of obsessed with right now is—gosh, it’s so hard, though! For me, right now, it’s Andrew Bird. I’m slightly obsessed with his most recent record [Armchair Apocrypha]. The hard thing is you can’t have like, Emmylou Harris open for you.
PW: Sure you can, this is a hypothetical!
CW: If it’s a hypothetical, you’ve got to think big, right?
PW: Yeah! Emmylou’s doing it. Who else?
CW: Bob Dylan opening for the Watson twins. That’s big!
PW: I like it.
CW: If you could just forward that request over to Bob…
PW: Okay, I’m on it. We’ve got Bob, Emmylou, and Andrew Bird opening for the Watson Twins. Cool. That was my last question.
CW: Awesome. Well, thanks for taking the time, and we’ll see you when we’re in New York.

And see me in New York, they did; twice, in fact. The ladies put on quite the charming show, taking turns singing and playing guitar (Leigh does an adorable jig when Chandra sings “How Am I To Be?”) throughout the set. Their voices are magic and their stage banter is clever.

Even better, they genuinely love their fans. They’re not the kind of artists to perform, pack up, and leave. They stick around, have drinks, chat and indulge their more zealous fans with photos and signatures — southern manners, indeed. They’re on the road for another two weeks. Check them out, if you can. It’s worth it.

Tour Dates:
Jul 18 – Turf Club - St. Paul, Mn.
Jul 19 – Pabst Theater – Milwaukee, Wi. (w/ M. Ward)
Jul 21 – Hi Dive – Denver, Co.
Jul 22 – Urban Lounge – Salt Lake City, Ut.
Jul 25 – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, Wa.
Jul 26 – Doug Fir – Portland, Or.
Jul 28 – Bottom of the Hill – San Francisco, Ca.
Jul 29 – The Echo – Los Angeles, Ca.

The Watson Twins: website | myspace

During the long Independence Day weekend, I got a chance to talk with Chandra Watson of the Watson Twins. After a little banter about liquor stores with home delivery services (and the subsequent trouble you may or may not find yourself in), immaculate conception in Park Slope, and some devious scheming (not included), we got down to it.

The Watson Twins @ the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 7/10/08

Dese’Rae Stage, PopWreck(oning): You were raised in Kentucky. How’d you guys get started?
Chandra Watson: We were nine or ten, we were in church choir, and we ended up doing an audition for a kids’ musical type thing. We started singing for the choir director and she was like, “Wow, you guys can sing.” She pulled my mom aside afterwards and was like, “Look, they have some natural talent.

Leigh Watson @ the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 7/10/08

If you want me to help cultivate their voices, let me know.” So we ended up doing vocal lessons with her and singing in three or four different choirs and quartets and all this stuff at church when we were little.  When we were teenagers, my sister learned how to play guitar and started writing songs. From there, we branched out and started going to punk rock shows in Louisville and started getting involved and just hanging out with a bunch of musicians and bands.  We started writing our own music and thinking, ‘Hey, maybe we should play out sometime.’ So, by the time we got to college, we were putting together little bands and playing out, but it wasn’t really until we moved to LA that we started pursuing it in a more serious way.
PW: Who are your influences?
CW: It’s kind of across the board. When we were little, we grew up listening to the [Rolling]

Chandra Watson @ the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 7/10/08

Stones, Pink Floyd, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, the Go-Go’s, the Bangles, and that sort of thing. As we got older, there was a lot of influential music coming out of Louisville: Will Oldham, of course, and bands like Slint and Rodan, so there was a bubbling music scene there which was influential and seeing people who were your peers or maybe a couple of years older than you just playing shows was inspiring.
PW: I’m getting ready to nerd out on you.
CW: That’s okay.
PW: You were in a band called Slydell in the Silver Lake scene, but you guys started gaining notoriety after you met Rilo Kiley and hooked up with Jenny Lewis for Rabbit Fur Coat. How was that?
CW: It was a really natural evolution. We moved into Silver Lake about eight or nine months after we moved to LA and just started immediately meeting musicians. For this neighborhood at the time, that was just what happened. You’d be at the same bars as everyone else and you’d see Beck at the grocery store or Elliott Smith walking down the street. It was just coming up in a way that it was still sort of a secret and there were all these bands playing shows.  We were just talking about it the other day, and it’s so weird because my sister and I have been in LA for almost ten years. All the bands that we’ve been playing shows with, like Rilo Kiley and Silversun Pickups and Earlimart and Sea Wolf, are bands that have been around this neighborhood for awhile and it’s exciting to see your friends who’ve been working for years making their mark.
PW: I’m a huge Rilo Kiley fan and I’ve been listening to them since I was in high school and the Initial Friend EP came out. I was in Florida e-mailing them every week being like, “Can you please come to Florida now?”
CW: [laughs] That’s awesome.

PW: They finally did in 2003. I got to see them play in Orlando and it was ridiculous. I’ve been to every one of their recent New York shows and it’s so different seeing them now.
CW: It’s amazing. I think part of it is, if you’re in LA, you’re closer to opportunity and that’s why people come here. I think ultimately, for us, it was just staying on our path, just working on the music as it evolved and changed. We went from backup singers with Slydell and started writing our own material when that band broke up, to working on our own EP [Southern Manners], then Jenny asked us to do the record with her, and we did that tour.  It’s kind of coming back full circle again where we’re working on our own stuff and releasing this record. I feel like it’s been a really organic progression and really naturally unfolding. I think that when you have that, everyone’s like, “Oh, you’re being thrust into the front now,” and in a way that stuff’s true, but it’s something that we’ve been doing. We’ve been playing our own music for years, it’s just never been the focus.
PW: It all comes with time.
CW: Yeah, and I think for us it’s just coming. It’s time for us to focus on that and have fun with it. We’re looking forward to the tour and shows and to just playing the songs.
PW: Has this tour not started at all yet?
CW: We’ve been doing these really weird one-offs. We’ve been to Chicago, Minneapolis, Philly, Pittsburgh, and we went over to the UK. We’ve been doing a lot of promo shows this last month and just kind of flying around and playing randomly. We did a couple shows with Elbow and played in a little café. We leave on Saturday to drive across the country and start the tour in DC.
PW: How have the promo shows been different from the tour with Jenny? Are the fans different?
CW: There’s overlap. It’s different. There’s definitely a contingent that’s familiar with Rilo Kiley and then there are other people who are familiar with our EP. Sometimes we’re like, “Oh, we did this record with Jenny,” and they’re like, “Who?” [laughs]  So there’s still—which is kind of weird—this small contingent that knows us from this little EP that we put out, an Americana sort of fan base, especially in the Midwest where we’re from. A lot of cool stations played us and helped us there.
PW: Did you ever manage to go on tour for Southern Manners? I know it came out around the same time as the Jenny Lewis album did.
CW: Yeah, it was a little difficult. We ended up doing a couple of smaller tours in between when we were out with Jenny and then beyond that, we waited until the record cycle was over with Jenny and we did a couple more tours after that.
PW: This is actually a pretty short tour then, if you’re just leaving Saturday (7/5). It ends at the end of the month, right?
CW: Yeah. It’s about three weeks. I think it ends up being about 22 shows.
PW: What are you going to do after that?
CW: Come back here. We have a couple of one-off shows that we’ll be doing. It’s been nonstop for us for the last three months. We’re so heavily involved with our merchandise and our website and MySpace. We’re still really hands on with all of that, so it’s been a full-time job. After the tour’s over, it’ll be nice to have a couple of weeks to just chill. Then we’re doing a couple shows out here over the summer and in the fall we’ll go back out and probably go to the UK.

PW: Cool. So, Fire Songs is straight-up analog. Did you like it? Hate it? Pros/cons?
CW: I actually prefer it, just because I’m kind of a… I drive a stick shift. I’m a manual sort. I need to see where A goes to B. For me, it’s like, you’re in the studio and you’ve got this beautiful board in front of you and you’re just kind of looking straight ahead instead of looking at wavelengths on a computer screen, and I love the sound of tape. I love that warm, roomy sound. We did the EP that way and made a conscious choice to make this record that way.

It’s at this point in our conversation that both the fan in my living room and my tape recorder decided to misbehave, so I figure this is as good a stopping point as any. To be continued…