Nalani and Sarina Have a Special Kind of Songwriting Telepathy
These ladies are about to blow your socks off with their soulful sound
We’re back with another Member Spotlight, because our members are FRIGGIN’ AWESOME and always worth bragging about!
Alright guys and gals, riddle me this: What’s better than one incredible singer-songwriter? OK, that was rhetorical, but the answer is two incredible singer-songwriters! And what’s better than that? They’re twins! Introducing, Nalani and Sarina.
I had the pleasure of meeting these two remarkable musicians when they performed at a SoFar Sounds show a while back. Then again at a concert a few weeks later. What I’m getting at is that fate basically dictated we needed to run a Spotlight on them. So we got together over coffee and had a chat about their upcoming full length album and fantastic new single ‘Young and Inexperienced’.
Check out our conversation below:
Walk me through your musical act. How did you guys start playing together? At what point did you decide to go pro?
Nalani — We actually started off with classical piano, and that sort of ventured off into hopping onto other instruments, because the piano actually gave us a really good foundation. For us it was easy since the piano’s laid out so it’s easier to comprehend, so from there we jumped around to the guitar and the ukulele. We actually took opera for five years and did musical theater, but it was very limited for twin parts, so it wasn’t until we were around sixteen that we decided to start writing songs. We saw a lot of people our age doing that. I remember at Battle of The Bands we saw all these kids our age writing songs, performing, and were like, “Hey, we can totally do that!” And it wasn’t until that point that we decided to try out the whole songwriting thing.
So we met up with some local musicians, put together a band, and started writing and performing out in New York. This was all at sixteen, so we would always get kicked out of bars and places like that. But that was our first real jump into the music business, and that eventually led us to make the decision Senior year — we only had to take one credit — to do this full time.
Why did you play the same instruments instead of divvying up different ones?
Sarina — We never really made a distinctive decision, like, “OK, this is how it’s going to be.” We both just played the same instruments. We thought it was kind of fun to play musical chairs on stage, but when we were first learning them, it wasn’t a competitive thing it was more like if one of us picked up the guitar, the other one did too, and we started diving into it more just because we were curious.
Walk me through how your obviously close relationship affect your creative process and how you get inspired?
Sarina — It’s really interesting. When writing, we always get asked if we have telepathy. And I think the truest form of that is through songwriting. So every single song that we write has a part of both of us, whether it’s us both sitting in a room and deciding to write together, if one of us comes up with something the other one finishes a line, or if one of us is stuck it’s a nice way to finish a song or just go through the creative motions with somebody. A lot of people forget that it’s a co-write, it’s two people, a lot of people just bunch us into one, but I think being twins especially, it’s almost — and not in a creepy way — we can almost read each other’s minds.
We can straight up tell each other, “No, that sucks. Don’t write that.” Or, “Change this line.” And fully trust each other and not feel like someone’s walking all over it.
Nalani — Which works in our favor. I think that with other songwriters, and other co-writes, it’s easier to get into that guarded sort of self-conscious approach going in.
Sarina — But we’re not afraid to say anything that comes to mind and not feel judged.
Nalani — I think even going a step further with the business end of things, I couldn’t imagine doing this without having someone by my side who I’ve known my entire life. And I see how some people who go into the business early can get lost in such a toxic world without having someone to keep you grounded.
Tell us about some of the challenges you guys face as up-and-coming musicians.
Nalani — I think being both young and female definitely takes a toll in trying to make a name for yourself. People are so quick to judge once they know your age or once they know your sex. I feel like some people are vultures, especially in the business.
That kind of ties back to the name of our single that just came out, ‘Young and Inexperienced’. We always get questions on how that relates to us, because the song is about young kids trying to find a job and being taken seriously as people. The way that we relate to it is that even though we didn’t go to college and didn’t have student loans to pay off, we’re still trying to make a name for ourselves and being taken seriously, which a lot of our friends are going through themselves. So that’s how we really channel that emotion, because we have felt it in trying to make it in this business.
People are quick to judge. They don’t take you seriously when you say, “Yeah, we have our own business, we’re the CEO’s of our own business, we launched our own record label.” It takes a lot and people are so quick to assume that you’re not capable of doing that at a young age. But I think it all comes with confidence and if you have a vision for yourself.
Sarina — And it’s kind of different for every artist; we’ve met many artists and everybody has their own issues that they come across.
We can only speak to our own experience. When we first started out we looked a lot younger than we do now, and we got offers from Nickelodeon and that kind of teeny-bopper stuff. And of course looking at you and seeing the twin aspect of it, they’re going to throw that out to you and want to use that as a niche. And for us we didn’t want to see that for ourselves, we wanted to be taken seriously and make a really good first impression. So we had to turn all that stuff down and really set a vision and a goal for ourselves, and I think the hardest issue that comes across for us and our experience is making sure that people don’t only see that. Yes it is a marketing asset for us to have, but it’s not the only one. We want people to see the music and the writing first.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about your single?
Sarina — When we tested it, it was at a SoFar show and as you know, those shows are filled with so many young people, so it was a great opportunity to do so. We got an overwhelming reaction from people going through the same thing. We wrote it from just observing our friends, but we didn’t realize how strong of an issue it is until we actually performed it. That was our main reason for wanting to make it our first single. We knew it was an issue that’s been going on for years, especially now, and it’s one that almost never goes away — being that you’re young and trying to make it.
Tell us how your music now differs from your previous EP’s?
Nalani — With each album we like to think that we’re evolving and trying to challenge ourselves in a different way. With this one in particular we realized that a lot of these songs relate to millennials, and that’s not exactly the right word, because the word ‘millennials’ gets such a bad rap. But it’s really about people our age. And we didn’t realize that until we actually compiled the songs.
When we go in and write, we kind of just write about whatever inspires us, and then afterwards we try and see if there’s a common theme or if there’s something we can pull from it. But with this album in particular, we not only try and take on other people’s stories, but we take on other forms, or we try and push the boundaries a little bit with concepts and topics that are more topical instead of just relationships. Looking back our first album, ‘Lessons Learned, was pretty relationship-based.
Sarina — I mean, we were young! We were going through relationships! Especially when you first start writing you’re like, “I’m so depressed!”
I think the main difference between our last album, ‘Scattered World’ and this one is two things: First, the topics. ‘Scattered World’ was in a broader sense about other people in general. This is a more observational album people that are a little closer to us.
The second thing is the sound. We’ve been experimenting more. We’ve been able to mess around a little more with sounds that interest us while still maintaining a live feel. Most of the songs were created in a studio, cut live, and we like to keep that. We feel like we get the best reaction from people at shows and gigs, so we wanted to maintain that same energy, but of course keep experimenting.
When’s the new album set to come out?
Sarina — We’re saying broadly in the springtime. We’ll probably release one or two more singles before then.
That’s it for this Member Spotlight. Make sure you follow Nalani and Sarina on their website, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for any and all updates on their new music.
Finally, if you think what you’re doing is pretty darn cool and want to feature in your own Member Spotlight, email us at hello@newstand.com.
