Meeting The Secret Sisters, Laura and Lydia Rogers, is an enjoyable experience, within a few moments it’s like we’ve known each other for years. The Alabama sisters grew up in a home filled with music through their family and church. Their Fifties/Grand Old Opry sound got them signed to Universal Records and produced David Cobb (Waylon Jennings/Chris Cornell) with T Bone Burnett as Executive Producer. Vanessa Monaghan caught up with The Secret Sisters while they were on tour with Ray LaMontagne.
The first introduction many people would have had to you was when you played on Jools Holland on New Years Eve last. It’s probably the biggest music show over the festive season, what was it like to perform on?
Lydia: ‘That was really fun we don’t have many shows like that in America so we didn’t realize how big of a show it is and the impact it has over here’.
Laura: ‘If we had known how many people were watching that it probably would have scared us but we’ve come over here as a kind of a follow up tour to that and everybody says ‘Oh I say you on Jools Holland and you took my breath away and you stole the show’. It was good exposure. We loved it, thank you to Jools, he’s such a nice person.
Everything took off for the sisters about eighteen months ago when Laura went to an audition in Nashville. What exactly happened?
Laura: ‘We both just went to this audition and sang and didn’t think anything would come of it but it did and that was kind of what opened the door for the record deal and then the album and all of the touring. It’s been a whirlwind and a real life changing decision.‘
Lydia wasn’t at that audition though?
Lydia: ‘I came along later, Laura came by herself and auditioned on her own and she told them she had a little sister so I drove up from my ceramic class in Alabama and tried out on my own. They liked my voice as well so we sang together and they had liked what we were doing.’
If you are used to singing together it must be hard to sing solo especially under such pressure like an audition ?
Lydia: ‘Honestly growing up we didn’t sing that much together. We would ding in the privacy of our living room and at family reunions but we would sing a lot on our own as well so we didn’t really start thinking about it until that audition.’
Laura: ‘We’re having to learn a lot very quickly.’
So as newbies in the music industry have you found any downsides yet?
Laura: ‘Well the industry itself is as crooked as can be as everybody knows that. It’s really demanding to be an artist and we always say it’s not like having a regular everyday office job because at the end of an office work day you get to go home ot your place, you get to turn everything off and go to your own bed and your own belongings. When you’re a musician you’rte gone all the time, you’re sleeping in a different hotel every night, you’re living out of a suitcase and you work all day just to get to that itty bitty amount of time when you’re on stage but that little window of time when you’re performing makes everything just worth it. You Know? It’s that energy change between you and the crowd that’s so rewarding and when you’re standing there you realise why you’re there. It’s so nice.’
There are a lot of questions asked in music about brothers in bands, sisters in bands how do you get on? Would you have spent this much time together at home.
Both together: NO!
Lydia: Laura was actually living in Nashville at the time and I was living in Alabama, we saw each other maybe every two weeks, now we see each other every day, all the time (Laura: Every hour, every day) so you know thing’s are on edge a lot of the time. We’re learning a lot about each other throughout this process and we’re learning what gets on each other’s nerves and what doesn’t…’
Laura (butts in): ‘What you shouldn’t say certain things’
Lydia: ‘It’s a learning process and we fight all the time. When we go home we get far away from each other and have our alone time.’
Even as sisters you have figure out that if this is something you really want to work you have to learn to compromise
Laura: ‘You do, you really do. I think we both realize deep down that I can’t do this without her and she can’t do this without me so we push it to the limit then we step back before it gets too far. So we’re learning and it’s something we want to be doing together for a long time so we’ll make it work.’
Having someone like David Cobb, T Bone Burnett or even Jack White singing your praises, does that put a lot of pressure on you ?
Lydia: ‘At the time it was a lot of pressure but know that we know them, you know, they’re just people, we’re just people. We’re musicians and they’re producers..’
Laura: ‘It’s actually a really big confidence boost I for one growing up was very insecure about performing and my vocal abilities, I was very insecure. But to have someone like T Bone Burnett or Dave Cobb or Jack White say ‘these girls are good, listen to them’, It’s like they don’t have to say that. Nobody is making T Bone Burnett endorse anything, he chooses what he puts his stamp on so to have people like that endorse you and help promote your career, it’s a really big boost because deep down you know that there’s no motivation for them to do that. They can get to where they need to know without the Secret Sisters but they believe that The Secret Sisters are good so they push it and help endorse it and it’s great.’
Jack White played on Big River but it wasn’t on the album. What’s the story behind that?
Lydia: ‘That was a separate seven inch that he put out through his record label, Third Man. There was just two songs on that and that was released before our actual album.’
Laura: ‘It was just a little side project it was like, ‘Let’s go work with Jack White and see what we can do’.
I’ve heard you guys referred to as Neo Country, to get your own seven inch brought out by Jack White, that’s a major kick no matter what genre you are.
Lydia: It was such an honour to work with him and he’s such a down to earth person, he just knows so much about the industry and he’s a living legend and to be able to sit across the room and see him play guitar on a song that you’re recording is mind boggling.’
It’s a bit brave of you to put so many well known covers alongside your own original material and your own material stands up to it. When I heard your music for the first time, your style and harmonies remind me of the Grand Ol Opry, old school country but the production is still very contemporary.
Laura: ‘I know what you mean..The two originals on our record, those were written prior to all of this. They had already been written before we ever thought that this would happen. When we went into the studio we knew that we wanted to do mostly covers on our record of these really great classics but our producer said I want to hear your original material just in case any of them are good enough. He heard everything we had adn he loved ‘Waster the Day’ and ‘Tennessee Me’ . He said I think we can put these on there and I think they’ll fit. So that was really nice to have that happen and I think its a testimony to the fact that this is authentically who we are. Those songs were written when none of this was happening and so our true influences are what we do. It wasn’t something that was manufactured or created as a scheme or kitschy.’
Lydia: ‘It’s been good to have those on there to show people that we are capable of writing our own material and hopefully for our next record we want to have completely originals.’
Laura: ‘When we find time to think about writing, we’re writing and so I think the next record will be primarily original material. Maybe a couple of covers, cos that’s always fun to do. It’s different now because we do have purposeful writing, we need to write songs that we both can do together. We’re in that mindset, it’s just a matter of figuring out the sound we want to capture on the next record.’
On your album you have some fantastic musicians, obviously unless you’re a multi millionaire you’re not going to be able to bring them on the road so what way have you adapted to this?
Lydia: ‘On this tour it’s just been us two and a guitar. Very Very simple set up but its working really well.’
Laura: ‘I think it works well because it strips it down to the beare bones of what we are and it really makes us have to set up and do a good job vocally but it also showcases what we are capable of doing. It’s been fun on this tour with Ray LaMontagne and he’s got a really good bad that plays with him adn he’s been good enough to let them come and play with us during our set so they jump up and play two or three songs with us. So we get to have a band but we also get to be just the two of us and a guitar, lots of people really like that just cos its very simple and sweet and authentic and they get to hear everything.’
You have your own headline show here on May 18th, will that be your set up?
Laura: Our sets over here will probably be very similar to what we’ve been doing, we may add a musician or two I don’t know, we’re still playing with the arrangement. It’s a lot easier to travel with just you and your guitar. Plug in and go. You can trust your own capabilities rather than having to worrry about other players. We can promise really good music.’
When are you planning to schedule writing or recording for the next album?
Laura: (laughing) ‘That’s a really good question!’
Lydia: ‘We’re hoping to start recording for the next record this Fall and get it out there as soon as possible, we’re in that mindset.’
I asked My Facebook and Twitter friends if they had any questions for you. The one that came back the most was ‘What’s the secret?’
Both laughing
Lydia: ‘We get that question a lot’
Laura: ‘Yeah we do get that a lot. We always say that we are the secret, we were just this random pair of sisters, hiding out in Alabama, nobody knew who we were. It’s funny because at the audition where we got discovered, we were both standing there and this very intimidating panel of judges are sitting there and they say ‘Do you have a demo?’ no ‘Do you have a website?’ no, Do you have a booking agent, who books your shows? Where do you play? We were like, we don’t have any of that. We literally were plucked from complete obscurity and thrown out there into the music world. So I guess the secret is there is some good music hiding…’
Lydia (interrupting): I wish we had some weird secret we could tell you. We could make one up?
Laura: ‘We need to make one for EVERY interview that we do!’
Lydia: ‘We were separated at birth.’
Laura: ‘We found each other in a little tiny music venue outside the Grand Ol Opry’
As I leave the room, The Secret Sisters’ energy and laughs are contagious. They’re just two down to earth sisters who love playing music.
The Secret Sisters play The Academy 2 on May 18th. Tickets are price €12.55 and are available from Ticketmaster.ie