NEW TUNES, BJORK AND SIBLING MAGIC: AN INTERVIEW WITH GIRL TONES

Loud and proud Kentucky sibling duo Girl Tones are back with new single ‘I Know You Know’. The band are an indie rock, riot grrrl dream and are taking their talent global, supporting fellow southern siblings Cage the Elephant on their Europe tour. The band have a heavy, artistic sound married with effectively loud visuals and have an already rather polished groove that can only get better.

I sat down for a slightly glitchy (thank you to my uni house wifi) yet insightful chat with Kenzie and Laila about the tour, the new tune and who exactly the Girl Tones are.

As a sibling duo, Girl Tones aren’t always picture perfect but definitely have a “good trust and honesty” between them, most importantly good communication saying: “To be totally transparent, we have definitely had yelling matches over Girl Tones before”.

“At the end of the day it just works – we both know the end goal, what we want to do and are willing to do whatever we need to for the cause. We’re kind of stuck together so might as well make the most out of it.”

And making the most of it they are, Girl Tones are making a name for themselves on their visuals alone, using bold primary colours that electrify their sound – seen specifically in the ‘Fade Away‘ music video. Kenzie said that they felt like they wanted an “aesthetic for the project that people would immediately grasp or connect to.”

“Sometimes you have to put yourself in a box to be able to create something different, so we decided to go with the primary colors. I really don’t know where that idea came from, but I’m really glad we stuck with that because I think it’s a really cool thing.”

The new track, ‘I Know You Know‘, is a more subdued and airy in comparison to the bands previous work, but they are keen to stick with their aesthetic.

“It is going to be interesting to kind of play with the song and see how [visuals] kind of changes, I think that’ll be really fun to see the difference.”

On the note of the new tunes’ newer tone, the girls said that they wanted to set people’s expectations to the unexpected, to show that they “dabble in a lot of different sounds.”

The sisters are both classically trained musicians, saying: “We really didn’t want to pigeonhole ourselves into a specific genre, because that’s just not who we are as musicians”.

“We have always kind of done, you know, classical jazz, all those kind of different stuff and I just think it’s amazing that we’re able to kind of like that in the album to kind of show, hey, we like doing all different types of things.”

The track, out today (14th February) has a Mazzy Star/Radiohead vibe (Girl Tones covering ‘High & Dry’ in the past) and when asked about any new inspiration Laila said that Bjork has been a current favourite of hers.

“I’ve been watching a lot of her music videos and I think her visuals are really cool and creative. It’s hard to branch out and explore new things and to connect with it, so it’s really satisfying when you find artists, new, old or new to you that clicks and you’re like, okay, I get this this is interesting”

“I feel like we’re both constantly kind of searching for that; just go and try on different hats of genres.”

‘I Know You Know’ is an interesting track lyrically, a relationship laced with betrayal and lies with lyrics like “your delusions stuck like glue”. Kenzie wrote the song a couple of years back about a friendship that sadly ended, a twist on the conventional romantic breakup song.

“I have noticed people are relating it romantically to things. When I wrote it, it was more about a platonic friendship, a falling out of that friendship. In addition to that the person was a self proclaimed pathological liar and Ii was so like I don’t know this person… I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“I love this song because there’s a longing; you love this person and you’ve had such an amazing relationship with this person – but you don’t know that person.”

Kenzie explained that the song sounds like a sad song, but when you properly listen it’s almost a bit eerie, tasteful revenge: “How can you tell someone to let go of this wonderful relationship that you thought you had?”

“I 100% agree that a friend breakup is just as painful as a romantical breakup, or it can be.”

The new tune is produced by Cage’s Brad Shultz, who the band say is “always very insightful and a great outside perspective.” Saying that he definitely brought out and helped achieve the girl’s vision.

“It’s always a good experience working with Brad, it’s definitely super necessary for an outside perspective to kind of look at [music]. He’s very good about breaking the song down and adjusting it in a way that makes it more interesting and more cohesive.”

“This is probably not a good thing, but we were being told you’re so much better live than in your recordings, so its nice to see the recordings reflect how we are live a bit better.”

Get your tickets and go see Girl Tones take on my part of the woods, the UK and Europe, supporting Cage the Elephant, as well as their free headline gig at the legendary Old Blue Last in London and have the satisfaction of knowing you saw the magic happen before it truly takes flight. In their own words: “Give us a shot, you never know. You might find something that resonates with you – try and see the vision.”