Sibling duo, Jocelyn and Chris, have had a busy couple of years. Having both received scholarships to Harvard, you’d think that a career in music would be the last thing on the agenda, but these two are far from your regular twenty one year olds. With a unique amalgam of indie, rock and blues, their debut album ‘Edges’ has gone from strength to strength. Featuring their band and special guests G Love and Govʼt Mule’s Danny Louis, the album debuted on The Jambands Album Top 30 at #17 and is currently #14 after five consecutive months on the chart. ‘Edges’ also cracked the FMQB Top 200 Albums and Singles.
We caught up with Jocelyn and Chris to find out a little bit more about that manic schedule of theirs.
Hi Jocelyn and Chris! Thanks for taking the time to chat to us. Where are we speaking to you from?
Home! We’ve been doing a lot of writing and recording recently for the next album, as well as a secret little project you guys will all hear about pretty soon. That means less national tours, which is sad, but more new music which is dope. We’re really psyched.
So you both got scholarships to Harvard. How do you manage to balance school and a career in music? Both sound very time consuming…
I won’t lie, it gets hella busy. There are a lot of late nights and early mornings, and it’s pretty normal to see us writing up a paper or working on some math homework in the back of the car while we’re driving to the next show. That said, we wouldn’t have it any other way. We really love both parts of our double lives. Music is and always will be our true passion, and Harvard really helps us appreciate how much fun it is. I’m not sure what we ever did to make us so lucky, but I certainly hope we never take our career in music for granted. It’s a dream come true. That sounds cheesy, but I’m standing by it.
Edges came out earlier this year. Congrats! Can you pick a favourite track from the album?
I hate to cop out on you like this, but I honestly don’t think I can. I’ve heard songwriters compare choosing their favorite song to choosing their favorite kid before. I’ve never had kids, but I completely understand why they make that comparison. When Jocelyn and I write a song, we pour as much of ourselves into it as we can. It takes time and effort and knowing when to compromise, and then sending we out into the world and hope and pray people like it and it does something cool with its life. ‘Jagged’ is super fun to play live because it has this really great groove. ‘Where’s the Rain’ is definitely our most personal song, and we’re proud that we’re able to express ourselves through our music that way. ‘Shame’ has been an awesome success in radio, and it’s helped us crack the FMQB Top 200 for both Singles and Albums; it’s getting airplay on more than 200 radio stations across the country. We’re pretty proud of that. We’re also proud that ‘Hot’, a song featuring G Love on blues harp and Danny Louis of Gov’t Mule on Hammond, has helped us reach #14 on the Relix Jamband Top 30 Album chart. We’ve been on that chart for 6 months straight! I could keep going… Each song is so important to us in its own way, I really think choosing a favorite would be impossible.
Talk us through your songwriting process. Is the task shared between the two of you or is there one that takes the lead?
It’s pretty much an exact 50/50 split. Jocelyn’s talent with lyrics and melodies is pretty out-of-this-world, and I handle the musical backbone of the songs (i.e. chords and arrangements and that sort of thing). To kick the process off, one of us comes up with a musical idea. Sometimes Jocelyn brings me a hook or a few lines of melody, and sometimes I bring her a riff or chord pattern I think is particularly cool. From there, we dig into it, trying to build off that initial idea and tease it into the best version of it we can produce. Anywhere from 30 minutes to 6 months later, we’ve got a new song!
We read that some of the songs on the album are some of the first you’d ever written. There must be a big difference in your songwriting back then in comparison to now…
As we’ve gotten older and exposed ourselves to new kinds of music, our songwriting has definitely matured. I think the main difference between then and now is our ability to communicate with each other. When Jocelyn and I sat down to write our first song, we had absolutely no idea where to even begin. I had a riff that I really liked, but we didn’t have the vocabulary to express our ideas, so the whole process moved at a snails pace. Now, 7 years later, writing together is second nature. The hardest part of writing a song is making what’s going on inside your head happen in the real world, and as with most things in life, I think the only way to get good at that is to practice. We’re so much better at that now than we were back then, and our songs definitely reflect that openness and familiarity.
Have you had to rework anything to make it fit with where you are now as artists?
Not really. Like I said before, our songwriting has definitely matured and we’ve streamlined the process, but our old stuff still has that authentic Jocelyn-and-Chris sound to it. I think we were all a little surprised at just how seamlessly our earlier songs fit in with our newer ones, but we didn’t really change anything—it just sorta felt right from the beginning. Of course, we’re always changing little things and tinkering with songs when we play them live, but that goes for all of our music, not just the oldies.
We’re sure you get asked this all the time but we have to know! What’s it like being in a band with your brother/sister?
It’s awesome! Jocelyn’s my best friend in the world, and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember. We both had friends in high school, but we were always kind of the odd ones out—instead of joining the baseball team or hanging out after school, we were always off playing a gig somewhere. For that reason, we spent pretty much all our time together. That closeness is a huge part of how we work—we’re never embarrassed to suggest a potentially stupid idea for a song, and we understand each other well enough to make everything run smoothly. Plus, we’re never afraid to knock each other down a few notches when necessary.
How similar are your music tastes? Do you listen to the same things when you’re hanging out at home?
There are kind of two answers to this one. The first answer is that we definitely listen to the same music when we’re hanging out. I don’t think either of us has ever come across music that we had a blanket distaste for—we listen to everything we can get our hands on, as much as we possibly can. That said, we definitely gravitate towards different things. I am a huge classic rock and blues fan (hence the whole guitar thing), so I listen to a lot of Floyd and B.B. King and Hendrix and America and pretty much anything awesome that came out of the 60’s and 70’s. Jocelyn, on the other hand, really gets into music with powerful, distinctive vocals, like Janis and Christina Aguilera and Fiona Apple and Adele. When we write together, we try to mash up all the best things about our favorite artists and put a little bit of our own spice in there, and see what happens.
You’ve played some great shows (Sundance festival and SXSW to name a few), what’s been your favourite performance to date?
Oh geez. That’s another tough one. We’re always excited to play, no matter where it is. But you’re right, there are certain atmospheres that give it a whole different vibe. Sundance and SXSW were definitely two of the shows we’ve played in that category. We also had the chance to play The Mountain Jam Music Fest near Woodstock, NY, a couple summers ago. Robert Plant, The Black Keys, and Grace Potter were all there… it was CRAZY. They’ve all been such inspirations to us, so playing at the same festival as them was seriously amazing. We also had the chance to play The Viper Room in LA a few months ago as part of a concert put on in conjunction with Edge TV network; that was crazy, too. So many legendary performers have played there, and being around that kind of musical history was pretty inspiring. And we’re looking forward to lots and lots of other great shows heading into this fall and winter, too, so be on the lookout for us! We’ll be hitting up one of our favorite NYC venues, Rockwood Music Hall, on November 26th, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It’s going to be fun… if you’re around, you should come check us out!
Are you working on anything new at the moment? Anything in the pipeline that we should be keeping an eye out for?
Oh yeah. Like I said before, we’re busy recording for the next album right now! Literally, right now, Jocelyn is actually finishing up some lyrics in her little journal as we speak. That’ll be out sometime this winter. Keep an eye out for it when January and February roll around. On top of that, we just finished up another thingamajig which we haven’t told anyone about yet, but that’ll be coming your way even sooner, within the next month or so!
Thanks a bunch to Music Crowns for having us! Nothing is better than finding a new way to connect with fans. You guys are dope AF. <3
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