Sound

'It's not easy to figure things out when you’re a 14-year-old girl who wants to be in a band'

Tom Jenkins | Tuesday 15 January, 2013 14:00

Enchanting Icelandic twins Pascal Pinon, whose sophomore album Twosomeness is released this week, take their name from that of an infamous early 20th century circus performer known as ‘the two-headed Mexican’ – Pasqual Pinon. We chatted to Jófrídur and Ásthildur about righteous parents, ‘teenager music’ and tea …

How did you find working with (Sigur Rós and Jónsi collaborator) Alex Somers on the new album?

It was really amazing! Alex brought out all the best in us, making us create and get ideas and inspirations that we didn’t know were possible. He also had lots and lots of tea and healthy food, keeping us well and happy.

How did the recording process differ from that of your eponymous 2010 debut? That record was famously made using only one microphone …

It was actually kind of similar, the most important things were: we were in a home (home studio, but home none the less), and we mostly used one microphone (though we did sometimes experiment with a really shitty mic through a nice amplifier).

But still, this time we had 20 something songs to choose from and we had no idea how they would end up sounding when we started working on them. We totally stripped them down, finding only the core of the song and then we figured out the sound and the instrumentation as we played it more and listened to it. On the other album we just recorded what we’d been playing live in the months before. After this recording session we had to completely re-think our live set … and Alex has lots more gear of course.

You’re both 18. This is perhaps your last album as ‘teens’. Is there a sense of moving into the adulthood on the next album and how do you think that’ll manifest musically?

I don’t know really. We’ll just have to see what happens. We have never intentionally set out to make some kind of ‘teenager music’. The fact that we are still in our teens is something people link to us afterwards – it’s true and inescapable – but it’s not something we’re too aware of. We just make music; we started young and we’ll grow. The music probably grows too.

Talk us through the songwriting process. One can’t help imagining some sort of twin telepathy at work.

I (Jófrídur) usually write the songs on my guitar at home, when no one can hear. Then I let Ásthildur listen and she is always very, very honest with me. I feel lucky having someone so unafraid of making me change what I do, it’s usually always for the best. We make arrangements together and work a lot on the vocals and sometimes we have cassette playback that we do together. The songwriting is the easiest part – with the exception of lyrics. I have a high standard for lyrics; they have to be true to me without revealing too much and being too specific. I want the listener to be able to relate and fill in the missing information with his or her own thoughts and feelings. They have to be poetic and I like it when they rhyme. Where it takes me 15 minutes to write a song, I can be weeks finishing and polishing the lyrics for that song.

Your sisters sometimes perform with you; your dad is your manager. How important is family to you and can either of you ever imagine writing and performing outside of that framework?

Our family is very tight, our parents take care of us in so many ways and sometimes they are very afraid of letting us go and watching us grow up. We have had a very protected childhood and some incredibly tense teen years, with lots of conflicts and arguments, but it’s good to know they will always have our backs, both now and when we are 40, 50, 60 or whatever. They really want us to be who we are and they want us to be happy, but they have a strong sense of justice and righteousness, which doesn’t always match our point of view – being a teenager and everything.

Our father has a lot of experience in the pop music world and he has taught us high standards when it comes to touring and playing shows. It would’ve taken us a lot longer to get to where we are – it’s not easy to figure these things out when you’re a 14 year old girl who just got the idea it would be cool to start a band.

Twosomeness is out now through Morr Music

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