Interview: CIMORELLI, Brooklyn Bowl, London (Part 1)

I was lucky enough to have the chance to sit down with the fantastic Cimorelli sisters before their gig at the Brooklyn Bowl in London (you can read my review of the concert here). Check out Part 1 of our interview, where we talk about 2016, the upcoming album, and moving to Nashville!

Ciara’s Country (CC): This is Ciara’s Country – I’m joined today by some very special guests!

Christina (C): Hey, I’m Christina.

Katherine (K): I’m Katherine.

Lisa (L): I’m Lisa.

Amy (A): I’m Amy.

Lauren (La): I’m Lauren.

Dani (D): I’m Dani.

All: And we’re Cimorelli!

CC: That’s right, I’m joined today by YouTube superstars Cimorelli before their gig at the Brooklyn Bowl in London. So first of all, thank you all so much for taking the time to join me today!

All: Thank you!

CC: My first question for you this evening is how has the year been treating you so far?

D: Oh my gosh. Let me just say something – career wise, band wise, it’s great. Going on this whole tour, it’s great. But other than that, 2016 was horrible! I hated it!

C: I have to say, same thing as Dani said, just mentally for me, 2016 has been the hardest year of my life but will probably end up being the biggest year of growth for my entire life.

L: That’s what I was going to say. I feel like this has been one of the best years of my life. Even though I’ve had some of the hardest times, I grew so much and I had some crazy highs and lows that I’m really grateful for so I feel really happy with it.

K: I think we’ve all had loads of big highs and big lows, but something really exciting for our careers is that we’re coming out with our second album in December, and we came out with our first album in May, and we’re also coming out with a book, our first book, in December, so it’s been like a really big year career-wise. And a lot of hard work. I think we’ve all learnt a lot about hard work this year.

CC: Wow! Well it’s clear that you’ve obviously had a really busy year this year with the first album and now another one coming out in December – what made you decide to release the two so close together?

C: We realised basically that this time that we’re in, like media wise, pop culture wise, is really different to how it was a few years ago. People aren’t wanting to have an album and then wait a couple of years to get the next one. They don’t mind having two in the same year. 5 Seconds of Summer for instance released like three different releases in a year once I think, and fans like it. Like Dani is a fan of theirs, and she was excited about that, so I thought “you know what, people aren’t going to be mad if you keep releasing stuff!” Let’s just put more out – we have so many songs, we wanted to release them. We have a lot, there’s nothing that we’re waiting on – normally you’re waiting on a label because they have to get a budget together, they have to do all this planning, they have all these people working on it, but it’s just us. We have nothing holding us back so might as well release more stuff. It’s great to put more stuff out there, so that was kind of the reason behind it.

CC: And what can we expect to hear differently on the new album?

L: I feel like, in general, the sound is different.

C: The content’s different!

L: Yeah, the content is more like life-stuff.

La: There’s a couple of Christian songs on there too.

C: It’s like a different perspective. The first one, Up At Night, was heavily relationship oriented. This ones like life oriented. And the sound is different – we have a different producer on it. Some people say it’s a much more mature sound, I don’t really know how you would describe it – it’s a little bit more on the alternative side but it’s pop still. It’s a cool additional aspect of us that we’re adding with this new album, so I’m really excited about it – it’s something new and different for us.

CC: And another thing that’s really cool that you’ve decided to do with your albums is with Pledge Music. What’s it like putting your career so much in the hands of your fans?

C: So we didn’t necessarily do it so it’s dependent on our fans to release the album like it would be with crowdfunding, but we do fund everything ourselves, and that’s ultimately through the fans and the way we’ve made money through our career, but it’s great because you get all the control with that, but it’s hard because you’re taking all the risk. You don’t have a label to back you and like hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in, you have a smaller budget, so it’s challenging but we prefer it that way. It’s like, you can die at the hand of your own sword rather than someone else’s sword.

D: Yeah, and we have been really lucky to have such great fans who support us so much. Like the past Pledge campaigns that we’ve done, even the most recent one, were so successful so we’re really lucky.

CC: I suppose it also gives you a lot more freedom to produce the kind of stuff that you want to produce.

C: Definitely, we just do whatever we want honestly. Whatever we want to do, we do it. No one tells us not to do something.

K: Yeah, we have complete control, and I feel like it the past we almost tried to hold each other back like “oh, you shouldn’t wear that, it’s too weird” or something, but now we just wear whatever we want, and do whatever we want.

C: Yeah, like I’m repping a Papa John’s shirt today. This is a pizza company, I’m gonna be wearing it on stage and everything.

CC: I’m sure it’ll be the next style trend! So another exciting thing that’s happened to you in recent years is moving from California to Nashville. What’s it like living in Music City?

L: Oh my gosh, it’s amazing. I feel like we’re all so much happier there than we were in California.

La: Even though it’s a really big city, it really feels like a small town, like the energy of it is very laid back.

A: And the way the industry works is completely different to in California. Like they go to work, and then they actually go home and have family time and live an actual life.

C: Yeah, it’s very family oriented and friend oriented. It’s all about relationships, like everyone is so relationship oriented.

D: We’re honestly like Hannah Montana times six. Like on a smaller scale, we don’t wear wigs obviously, but I feel like right now I’m living my double life like right now we’re touring the world and then when we get back to Franklin we’re just having a Christmas party with all our friends and living this normal life.

C: That’s so true – like in LA it felt like our career and our life were never separate. We were being this artist things 24/7, and then suddenly we move to Nashville and we’re normal people there. And then we’re touring Europe or we’re touring South America doing this really not normal thing, and then we go back and we’re totally normal again! People just treat us like we have a normal job like everyone else. It’s not like that in LA where it’s all about like what is your job, how extraordinary are you, how special is everything you’re doing. It’s not like that where we live in Tennessee – it’s just normal people living a normal life.

CC: Do you think that kind of environment influences the way you write too?

K: I think it’s easier for us to write in that environment cause we’re actually out living our normal lives.

D: I mean we only write from our experiences, so if you don’t have experiences, you don’t have anything to write about.

K: I think in LA we felt a lot more isolated and not really having life experiences as much so it was harder to draw from that.

I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of my interview with Cimorelli! Make sure to drop me a follow on Twitter @CiarasCountry to be the first to hear when Part 2 is uploaded!