Exclusive Interview with The Carter Twins

[caption id="attachment_1260" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="The Carter Twins - Zach and Josh"][/caption]

Listen to the song "Reinvent the Wheel" by The Carter Twins: [audio http://fansiter.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/carter-twins_reinvent-the-wheel.mp3] (Download MP3)

This is the 31st post in our Musician of the Day series.


The Carter Twins Zach and Josh have been taking over country music by storm. Their version of pop rock has been winning the hearts of fans everywhere they go and at 19 these boys have a very bright future ahead of them. Jonas Brothers, they're not, they've got their own sound and they are proud to keep it that way.

Exclusive Interview with the Carter Twins

Interviewer: Well my first thought is for you guys, obviously. Why country?

Z: Well... it's kind of what we grew up in. It's fine that we ended up here. You know, we are big fans of where country music is headed, it's kind of headed in that, we call it "new country", and that's what we call our sound too, it's more of a pop meets country but we actually grew up in country because our mom works for a country radio station in Cleveland, Ohio when we were little and we were always surrounded by like... we always met the Dixie Chicks, Faith Hill and Shania Twain, George Strait and things like that when we were little and it's kind of funny because we used to tell the joke that my mom used to have George Strait's picture on the mantle, no joke, you can ask my dad...it was his picture and my mom next to each other and like I swear, it was like he was our dad. We just kind of grew up with country music surrounding us. It's like the only thing that we listened to up until we were around like fourteen years old. It's kind of a fun fact that no one really knows about us.

I: Yeah, I know where you're coming from, we had Billy Ray Cyrus when we were growing up, not George Strait. Sorry about that.

I: So you guys write your own songs. Are any of those going to be on the new album next year?

Josh: yes, actually we wrote every song on our album besides one of the songs on the album.

Zach: So they’ll all be featured on the album and we might actually even have a couple more, so we’re pretty excited about it.
I: Sounds pretty cool. Now a lot of your songs are about relationships, do you have experience in this?

Josh: I've had quite the experience in this department. A lot of failed relationships, but there's currently a good one now so hopefully it doesn't end bad.

I: Ahh... now you're going to disappoint all your fans with that one.

Josh: Yeah but there’s still a free twin.

[caption id="attachment_1262" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="The Carter Twins performing at Joe\'s Bar"][/caption]

I: So tell me, what's one of your favorite memories from touring?

Zack: Wow, there's so many it's not even funny. I mean, we've got... the great thing about country is that...and I know you’ve probably heard it from a lot of different artists, it’s such a family. Every artist, every writer, country is like one big family. They’re so nice and so cool, and they’re so supportive of you. We’ve gotten to work with such great people like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland, Jason Aldeen, and Toby Keith and Trace Atkins. You know we’ve just gotten to work with a lot of great people and I think we’re really blessed because of it, and they taught us so much. It’s been a great opportunity.

I: How is your home life like with your mom, is she with you on tour?

Josh: You know my mom is very selective in the cities she wants to go to. My mom only goes to cities that she hasn’t been to and that she really wants to see. Like when we went to Santa Fe, New Mexico, my mom was like I’m going on that one. She doesn’t come on all the trips she just comes on some.

Zach: But you know our home life is really different because we’re not going to college right now we’re pursuing our music. But the thing is our parents are really supportive and they’re been really supportive from day one and I swear I’ll say this, they’re like the best parents in the entire world. They’re so so completely supportive. They moved to Nashville with us, so they could help be there for this process and be there to support us in any way they could.

I: Your music seems to be going very mainstream, are your concerts the same way, typical country concerts?

Josh: It’s actually pretty funny because that’s really our favorite part of going out and meeting our fans because a lot of people on first impression since we are younger automatically go towards Jonas Brother. They’re young, they’re light and fluffy, but it’s actually so funny because our concerts are really more southern rock and country rock. Because we through in covers like Sweet Emotion and Shine, and we even throw in some Matchbox Twenty covers. We’re really all over the place, we’re really energetic and it’s just a really high energy show. That’s what we always tell people when you go, expect high energy.

I: So you guys seem to get along great with your fans. I’ve heard that you’ve had bus parties, what’s that about?

Zach: We just decided, like one weekend when we were out on the road, you know lets do this thing where we can involve our fans and have like a barbeque and a cookout. We can get to know them. You know, cause they know who we are, why not get to know them. So it’s been a really cool experience because we got to get to know our fans and get to meet them and get to hang out with them. So it’s been really fun and we’re going to continue to do that at each party, and it’s a cool way to involve your fans, involve them from twitter and all the social media sites, like facebook and myspace and they have to go through that to win tickets. It’s pretty fun.

I: Facebook and Myspace seem like the jumping board for all the big acts these days, do you agree?

Zach: yeah, Josh wouldn’t you agree to? I think MySpace been, like the social media networks online and I feel like, I think we both feel like nowadays its online that helps build your fanbase, and radio and all that other stuff kicks in.

Josh: It’s really the online community that just you know, you lay the groundwork for your fan base and then later on it all comes to fruition with like all the radio and everything.

I: Yeah, you guys don’t have to all that crazy footwork like touring all the time to get fans.

Josh: I know, right, tough life.

I: You guys always seem to impress, the only bad things I hear about you is that people are upset about the pop direction country seems to be going.

Josh: Well you know what I just feel like we need to broaden, new acts like us and others, we just need to broaden country. Cause like you said, if you’re the only one within how many miles that listens to country, that sucks. That needs to be stopped. I just feel like people think county is so stereotypical and you know only people that live back in the holler drive a tractor listen to country music and it’s just a bunch of twang. And no it’s not that way, there’s just so much and there’s so much dynamic to country. People just need to get accustomed to it.

I: Are you guys excited for your Hilton Head concert?

Josh: It’s the first time we’ve been back in awhile and it’s gonna be fun to see our friends and hopefully have a good turnout. You know it’s just so rough to play in Hilton Head, the island is just so…

Zach: (sarcastic)Growing up there was just hard and going to high school there was just difficult. It was just a rough place. Have the ocean near you..

Josh: The weather never getting below 50 or 60 degrees, it’s just difficult.

I: So what do you guys see for yourself in the future?

Zach: You know I think we just to be continuing to build up our fan base to get people aware of who we are and you know touring and you know having more than one or two albums, I’d like to have like 60, or like 35 like Reba over here. We’d love to have a career like Reba or George Strait, or Brooks and Dunn even so, I guess just continuing to meet our fans and build our fan base and create awareness.

I: Can you tell me when the new album is coming out next year?

Josh: You know I would love to tell ya, I would love to even know when our album’s coming out. We have no clue yet, we haven’t set a release date. It’s sometime 2010, earlyish. Believe me when we find out you’ll be the first ones to know, we’ll just post it.

I: I think you guys are doing great and I think So What is an amazing song, the music video to that just looked like a lot of fun. It was more you guys than Heart Like Memphis, so I really liked it.

Zach: Well thank you. Cause Heart Like Memphis was kind of like our first music video ever and it was kinda more you know how everyone has like the serious music videos and then we just kinda wanted to do one that was just a fan oriented video. It was just our personalities and getting the fans to know that we are completely big goobers and losers and so we just need to show you that.

I: Yeah I like the music videos that show a lot of the personality of the artist better. It seems like everyone fits the same formula, put them in a barn, get them some hay bales and look there’s a pretty girl over here somewhere. It’s perfect.

Josh: Yeah the pretty girl just like walks past them and they’ve got a cowboy hat on. There’s a truck in the shot too right.

Zach: I do feel ya, it gets very sterile. I do love when artists come out with like funny music videos showing off their personality and goofing off, cause it just shows you how real they are and how cool they are. How they could be your best friend.

To learn more about the official website

Listen to the song "Reinvent the Wheel" by The Carter Twins: [audio http://fansiter.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/carter-twins_reinvent-the-wheel.mp3] (Download MP3)

[caption id="attachment_1263" align="alignnone" width="510" caption="The Carter Twins"][/caption]