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Photo by Katrina Barber
10 Things… is a recurring new music feature in which an artist goes H.A.M. on a particular topic.
Andrew and Brendan Bond are not what you would consider the conventional pair of twins. Although blood ties technically forever join them, and they’re nearly identical physically, a good chunk of their lives were spent apart and mapping out completely different paths. That is, until music brought them together again.
Brendan, who performed with acts like A. Sinclair and backed Delta Spirit’s Matthew Logan Vasquez, and Andrew, of Brooklyn outfit Friends, found common ground on which to bridge their once separate existences. Together, they formed Bond Twins — really, could the name be more apt? — and settled on Austin as a new home base for their creativity. The band’s early stages weren’t exactly the smoothest, as Andrew’s and Brendan’s individual selves are at times still at odds, but it wasn’t long before things clicked into place, the chemistry — err biology, making for a natural fit.
The way the two complement and compliment one another can be heard on their latest song, “Dance Night”, taken from their upcoming Just Kids debut EP. Like a 7-inch pulled from a ’60s-era record shop along Venice Beach, the song is all summer, sun, and standard classic pop. “So you wanna go to dance night/ We could start with karaoke, karoke,” the chorus goes, a sweetly innocent yet direct but of romance not unlike other songs from that simpler time. “And our voices intertwine/ Well, I would just die, I would just die.”
Hear it below.
Just Kids EP Artwork:
Just Kids Tracklist:
01. Pool Boy
02. It Don’t Mean Nothin’
03. Dance Night
04. Oh, Home
To give more insight into what the creation of the EP was like, one of the Bond Twins themselves, Brendan Bond, has shared the 10 Things he loves about working with his twin — delivered with perhaps just a touch of sarcastic tongue in cheek.
The memories!
Six months ago I posted this photo of us on Instagram in an effort to get some cheap likes (follow us @bondtwins!). The most common comment was, “Which one is you?” I genuinely have no idea which of these little monsters is me. I am also 100% sure my own father would be clueless. He’d equivocate, then act like he knew but didn’t “have time for these games,” and finally admit to his ignorance while calling adult-me the wrong name. My sister actually did know and told me in the comment section, which was kind of her considering I cropped her out of this photo.
He always has my back!
True story – when we were teenagers, my brother was arrested and told the police that he was me. I had to deal with it for weeks. I still bring this up when we are ready to murder each other over who is actually taller.
We share the same interests!
For various reasons, my brother and I attended different high schools and lived apart for a while, so it was cool when we started to reconnect over a shared love of pop music. Cool, that is, until we started writing songs together. Writing songs with your twin is an identity crisis that never ends; imagine the frothy mixture of crippling self doubt and rampant egomania that comes with being a songwriter/performer, but duplicate it exactly and put it in the same room! It’s terrifying. I am confident we’ll need years of therapy for every record we make.
The cute misconceptions!
No one is laughing at fully grown adults that are asking these kinds of questions – we’re concerned for your mental well being. That weak smile and obliging chuckle? Pure pity.
The whole family gets involved!
My father is named Oliver James Bond V, the fifth generation of a proud line of people named Oliver James Bond. Dad planned all along to be a good ancestor and name his firstborn son, my brother, Oliver James Bond VI, thus continuing the tradition and keeping the Oliver J. Bond name alive. What happened? Twins. I single handedly ruined five generations of work just by being born. They were apparently so shocked they referred to us as A and B until we were old enough to crawl.
We’re together at work!
Going into the studio for the first time together was daunting, but not daunting in a “Hey, let’s climb this mountain together!” sort of way. It was more like “How long are we going to pretend to act like normal people before our shaky truce breaks down and we start howling at each other like apes in front of everyone?” Here’s a typical studio conversation between the two of us:
Andrew: “Hey, that verse is kind of weak, you should add a line.”
Me: *Points finger at his face* “Fuck. You. You never understood me.”
[5 minutes pass]
Me: “I added this line. Do you like it?”
Constant encouragement!
When I’m feeling down, there’s always one person I can turn to for consolation, one person who I know will set me straight, one person who will tell me that everything will be ok.
Singing together!
One legitimately awesome thing about working with your twin musically is vocal harmonies. It’s a well known fact that no one can sing better harmonies on your music than your sibling. I don’t even have anything snarky to say about this, it’s honestly true! Singing with your sibling rules.
Twins in media!
I don’t think I ever truly grasped how truly sickening those weird Buzzfeed lists are until I gagged while reading this one. All lies.
The “Who’s the evil twin?” question!
Never gets old (gets very old)! It’s both of us.
