MONA LISA TWINS

Including interviews with Julia Verdin, Cendrine Marrouat, Elena Ganjoula

MONA LISA TWINS

Interview by Lon Levin

I came by MLT on the internet a couple years ago and was blown away. I had to interview them and they agreed.

The MonaLisa Twins, with 25-year-old actual twins Mona and Lisa Wagner fronting the band, are one of the very few modern groups who continue the tradition of song-writing that took off in 1963. They bring back what has been started 50 years ago and write modern songs in the 60’s Beat music tradition, reviving the genre with a fresh twist without sounding pop-ish or trivial. Their signature features are their close harmonies and wirey, bright guitar sound, with a mix of humor and depth in their music that speaks to a wide range of international audiences.

On their debut album “When We’re Together”, which they rec rded at the mere age of 16, they present finest Rock ‘n’ Roll and Beat music, skillfully venturing out in Psychedelic,Folk and Latin genres, inspired by the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan or Simon & Garfunkel.

THE INTERVIEW

You’ve been posting on YouTube for many years. Who’s idea was it to do that? How does it feel now to watch yourselves as young girls singing and performing?

M: The very first 24 videos we ever posted were of a family concert we did when we were 13 years old. It was our first “real” performance outside of school (we were nervous as anything!). Since we put so much preparation into the show, our dad made sure to capture the whole experience on video for our teacher as a way of saying goodbye.

"Harmony comes fairly natural to us at this point.”

Of course they were all terrible and it wasn’t until we turned about 13 and teamed up with our dad that you could call them proper songs.

How did that evolve into the popularity that you now have ? Was it hard or did things go easy?

(Continued)

L: How does it make us feel watching them now? Happy and cringy in equal parts - just like teenage years seem to feel for most people! :-) Overall, we absolutely love having these “time capsules”, seeing us grow up and develop over the years.

We primarily filmed this first concert to “capture the moment” and share it with our friends and family, but on a whim Dad suggested to put it up on YouTube afterwards. None of us really knew what to expect or if anyone would watch it.

It was 2008, and YouTube, and the internet in general with and all its possibilities for music and “building an audience” were still very novel and mostly uncharted territory.

When did you first think about music as a profession and when did you start writing music?

M: We grew up in a very musical household. Our dad owned a recording studio, so music was always around. The idea of making music for a living was never off the menu, though we became more intrigued by it as teenagers when we had to decide on education and future schooling. That family concert we mentioned kind of sealed the deal for us, and we knew that music is what we wanted to pursue.

M: We just kept going! By continuing the writing, recordings, videos, practicing, learning and playing live gigs we consistently started building a bigger and bigger audience.

Once we had a vision, hard work, consistency and trying to carve our own way was what got us where we are now and will fuel us for the years to come. It’s now simply “what we do”, what we breathe and live for. It has become a cliché by now but we believe in creating our own luck.

As with anything in life that isn’t on “the beaten path” it wasn’t smooth sailing and certainly not easy. We took several wrong turns, life threw its fair share of hurdles at us and we all have to deal with personal challenges but there probably aren’t many people that couldn’t relate to that.

At the end of the day we are beyond lucky to be in the situation that we are in and grew up in circumstances that allowed us to focus on this passion from such an early age.

It appears like you’ve had tremendous support from your dad and mom. Did that give you the courage and confidence to perform?

L: We always worked and lived as a family going on this adventure together, so we always

had 100% support from our dad and step-mom. That was and still is huge. We definitely wouldn’t be near where we are now without their guidance and the team work, dedication and sacrifice of everyone involved.

They certainly gave us a lot of opportunities to perform and to build our confidence on stage early on! We were lucky to go to schools that encouraged that a lot, too, but on top of that our parents let us go to extra music classes and even took us to the US to make our first “real” live experiences outside of school and in an English speaking country.

Austrian audiences are notorious for being reserved and preferring German lyrics, so when we were just 14 years old our parents decided to book a 1-month trip to California where we played our first open mics and small cafés and experienced the “American outgoingness” and enthusiasm for music. That taught as a lot and opened our eyes to how live performing can be!

Aside from what we can see online, What kind of kids were you? Where did you grow up? What were your influences? Did you go to school?

M: We grew up in a tiny village just outside of Austria’s capital, Vienna. Think big fields with woods and lakes, few houses and lots of room. I have wonderful memories, especially of our early childhood.

I’d say we were really carefree, happy kids. Maybe a bit too carefree at times, looking back now. It got us in a fair amount of trouble at times, but it also meant that we were interested in absolutely anything, having an extremely optimistic outlook on life. We were the super

chaotic but really positive and creative type. Having one chaotic and messy kid must be bad enough. Having chaotic and messy twins surely caused quite the headaches for our parents sometimes.

L: We had a great family that got somewhat shaken by the divorce of our parents but we were lucky to “gain” the most wonderful stepmother at the age of 7.

We went to high school in Vienna with music teachers and friends that fostered our passion for music. We were fairly good students but decided to finish after the mandatory 10 years of schooling (age 14) to focus purely on the music.

Your style and way of handling classic songs is very unique. I think part of that has to do with your unique harmonies and a hint of your accents. How did you arrive at that way of doing things and why?

M: Singing harmonies comes fairly natural to us at this point. We’ve been doing it for so long and remember the endless car rides of us and our Dad singing our hearts out together when we were just little kids.

Harmonies made everything sound so much nicer, especially inside a car while doing 70 on the freeway. Lots of the music we’re into, like the Beatles or Beach Boys taught us a lot in that regard too. Their clever use of harmonies and interestingly arranged vocals is something that inspires us to this day.

L: The accents, well they just come with it naturally, too. ;-) But before we go into the studio, we like to kind of “deconstruct”

each song we are working on. What are the essential bits that created the magic in the first place? What parts can be adapted to fit our style? What is sacred, what is not? We don’t like changing things for the sake of changing but we do enjoy playing around with the arrangement. Sometimes more, sometimes less, whatever the song allows for.

One of the comments we get the most on our covers, and that we are very happy about, is that people feel we’re able to give songs a new, fresh twist while still staying true to and honoring the essence and integrity of those original classic recordings.

Who decided what instruments you’d play and who would sing and play lead guitar? Any interesting behind the scenes stories that happened?

L: Well, Mona started out on the drums at the age of 9, while I picked up the guitar first. So she was always a bit better at rhythmical stuff while I concentrated more on lead guitar. So when we both started playing guitar together a few years later, she would usually play a quite percussive rhythm guitar while I struggled my way through the first guitar solos. Everything since is a natural progression. On the records Mona still plays the drums and most rhythm guitar while I have expanded my lead guitar skills.

When it comes to who does the lead vocals/backing we usually try it out both ways and then go with whatever suits each song best. I have a bit of a higher register but Mona is a lot better at the “raspy” rock tunes. We serve the song and go with whatever it commands ;-)

I noticed in real early videos that Lisa had strips of red in her hair that eventually turned into her trademark flaming red hair (which I love) What was the reasoning behind the hair color choices? To me besides carving out individual identities it is a brilliant way to stand out and market yourselves. Can you elaborate?

M: Oh yeah, after that it got a little out of hand, didn’t it ;-) We were about 12 when we were allowed to dye our hair a little bit - just a small streak at first. I think it was after a particularly good report card when we all went for a trip to the hairdressers.

We both still had natural brown hair but I went for a little blonde and Lisa for a little red streak of dyed hair in our fringe. Not sure where the idea came from, but I guess it marked the beginning of me gradually turning blonder and blonder and Lisa really falling in love with having red hair.

L: We were never really into dressing the same or trying to look alike. While we share lots of traits, hobbies, interests and friends, we still have quite different characters. It might sound a bit silly but having vastly different hairstyles was one way to sort of define and express our individuality. We get referred to as “the twins” often enough, and we didn’t want to add to the possibility of people thinking about us as one and the same person by looking too alike.

You’ve been writing and performing your own songs now for a few years and the influence of The Beatles, Sebastian and others is apparent yet somehow your songs are unique. How do you come up with your original songs. What’s the Process?

L: Ooof, that’s a big question and the answer changes with every song and every new project. Writing music is never straight forward, at least not to us. Inspiration comes in its

most unusual forms and while ideas sometimes start out with a song title, a chord progression, or bass line, what triggered the initial spark is sometimes hard to pinpoint.

M: It could be a distinctive conversations we overheard or an article we read but sometimes ideas originate from a thought that’s been lingering in our heads for a while or a feeling we feel the need to express. We all have different song writing approaches, too. We write together with our Dad, and we all have different life experiences and ideas to draw from. We share the same taste in music though, which is important, so we can bounce ideas off of each other and always find something we all are happy with.

How does it feel to perform at the Cavern Club where the Beatles became so famous. Is it fun? Do you feel a need to perform at your best when you’re there? Do you feel their presence? Have you tried to contact Paul or Ringo to perform with you?

M: We loved playing there. We had a Saturday night residence at the Cavern Club and played well over 100 shows at the “cellar of all cellars”. It was a privilege and perfect practice ground where we grew tighter as a live act and honed our stage skills.

It was just as sweaty and crowded as you’d imagine (maybe even sweatier) and we loved playing there week in week out to an enthusiastic audience.

However, we decided to quit the residency there a few years back. We wanted to concentrate on the next step in our musical life, writing own songs and making more videos again. We also didn’t want to run the risk of getting boxed into the “Beatles Tribute act” category too much, which can easily happen.

L: We’ve never directly been in touch with Paul or Ringo but if we have a good enough reason, we might give it a shot one day!

You are two very attractive women, how can you or is it possible to have a social life dating etc when you constantly performing?

L: I wouldn’t really say that performing is the thing that ever got in the way of us living a more social lifestyle. Actually, when we were gigging more frequently we went out a lot more, but we have never been fond of socializing or dating just for the sake of it.

We feel blessed to be surrounded by people that share our goals and aspirations. Our little tribe. If we pick up Mr. Right along the way, awesome, but as they say “you can’t hurry love” and we still have so much of our lives in front of us. Until then, we’re married to rock n roll :-)

Why do you think you’re not known in America?? Do you want to be known in America? Have you made efforts to come here to perform?

We don’t see it as a way to become well known, not in comparison to focusing on our online presentation. We definitely plan on hitting the road again at some point but at the moment we’re still in another chapter of the book. - Do you think that performing classic songs on Youtube has helped your credibility as unique artists or hindered it? It seems like it could be both.

M: That depends on how you define “known”. Statistically most of our audience online is located in the USA but it is such a vast place that those people are still fairly spread out. The great thing about the internet is that people from all over the globe can listen to our music but that also means that despite the places we’ve lived in, there isn’t much of a central point where everyone knows who we are. Our focus has never really been on reaching the biggest audience possible but rather to connect with the people that really enjoy our music and grow a tight fanbase. Obviously, the more the merrier but not at any cost. We’d love to come over to the States at some point.

L: At the moment we’re still of the opinion that playing shows for a couple hundred people a night isn’t more effective than making a new video that will be watched by thousands of new eyes each day. So for us touring would be more “part of a bigger project” or because we really enjoy it or want to

Like you say, it swings both ways. Overall, it definitely helped us grow an audience. So many people have found us through our online covers but decided to stick around for the original music. We get “advice” from both sides, people telling us we should ditch the covers, others say it’s what they like best. Personally, we do it for fun, to learn from the greats and to get inspired. But in the end our original music matters most to us and I hope that’s what comes across.

You both have such great stage presence, Have you considered films or TV?

That’s something we’d absolutely love to try eventually. Are we particularly good actors? Not a clue but we’d give it our best shot. We’d love to explore acting more at some point down the line.

What’s the future hold for you? Any ultimate goal? Are you interested in having a family, children, dogs, etc?