Sometimes leaving home is the best way to learn to love it.
When Silverlake songstresses the Watson Twins, Chandra and Leigh
Watson, were still alternative kids from Kentucky considering
moving out to Los Angeles to make it as musicians, the last thing
they wanted was to be associated with country. But after years of
honing their skills and growing with Silverlake’s indie-rock
community, the Twins have learned to let home into their music.
“When we first came here, we realized that what we came
from was beautiful and started allowing it into what we do. Looking
at home from a distance helped us be mature enough to identify with
it,” Chandra said.
Performing tonight at the Getty, the Watsons are bringing their
searchingly emotional, beautifully harmonized and soulful folk to
the museum as the first concert of the season. Riding the success
of their two releases last year, their own “Southern
Manners” EP and “Rabbit Fur Coat,” with Rilo
Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, the Watson Twins have truly arrived,
whether they were expecting it or not.
Judging by their modest perspective and do-it-yourself ethic,
they probably weren’t. But with the amount of time the
identical twins have spent with each other musically, it’s
not surprising that Chandra and Leigh have figured some things out.
One aspect of their work that has repeatedly drawn fans and other
musicians to them is their considerable ability to complement each
other vocally, an ability that began to develop when they were
still young.
“We’ve been singing forever. We were part of the
choir in church and used to do solos. When we started writing our
own material at around 16, we started collaborating and singing
together more,” Chandra said. “Since we trained
together, we instinctively know what each other will do ““
sometimes in the studio it’s hard to tell during playback who
is who.”
The decision to take this training seriously happened while the
Twins were still in college. While Chandra was studying theater and
Leigh art, the Twins began to experience frustration with their
disciplines. Talking it over with a friend, Chandra was made to
realize the obvious.
“I was talking to a friend about how she knew more about
theater than I did, and she said to me, “˜Right, but you know
so much more about music than I do. Why are you pursuing this when
your heart is in music?'” Chandra said.
As Leigh experienced similar revelations, the two made a
commitment to serious songwriting and singing. Starting out in Los
Angeles and cramming songwriting sessions between multiple day
jobs, and going to shows and performing when the chance arose, the
Twins began to meet other musicians and found themselves invited to
work on others’ projects.
One of these musicians was Blake Sennett, who shares with Jenny
Lewis the songwriting duties of Rilo Kiley. Impressed with the
Twins’ sound, Sennett suggested that the groups should
collaborate.
“Blake wanted us for a B-side, and so we’d play with
them and run into each other every now and then. When Jenny Lewis
started working on her solo record, she decided that she wanted us
to be on it, and we’ve been on the road together for the last
year,” Chandra said.
Yet there is another aspect to the Watson Twins’ rise to
recognition that has the homemade, modern twist the stories of an
increasing number of musicians are beginning to take. Gigging and
networking aside, the Twins knew all along they wanted to create
and produce music under their own name, and they certainly
weren’t going to wait around for someone else to get them
started. Once their day-job-mired composing progress granted them
the material, the Twins knew it was time to cut a record.
“During the time we were writing, our friend J. Soda had
been amassing a collection of analog gear, so it was pretty much
perfect timing. We got together with another friend to help us work
some things out, Russel Pollard, and recorded an EP. We’ve
put out the album ourselves and found some independent stores
across the country to sell it,” Chandra said.
New avenues for discovering music ““ especially the
Internet ““ aided the Twins and their completely independent
approach to music making. Taking advantage of the increasing ease
with which one can market on the Internet, the Twins have used
vehicles such as MySpace to make their music available on a wider
scale. In a year that combined their collaboration with a widely
recognizable artist and the release of their own album, the timing
couldn’t have been better.
Their success aside, the Watson Twins, with characteristic
modesty, wish to show other music lovers that it is possible to
produce material independently.
“The biggest thing for us is to tell people we’ve
recorded and released an album on our own. We want people to know
that it can be done ““ record your own album and follow your
dreams,” Chandra said.