American indie pop band Echosmith has been making a splash in the music industry as of late despite not being a new band. But they are, however, only very very young!
Raised from a musical family and trained to play instruments from as young as they can remember, Echosmith is made out of 4 siblings who share one thing in common – passion for music. Sure, it helps to have a music producer and songwriter Daddy-o, which kinda paved the way for them, but their respectively talents contributed greatly to their success too!
Formed in 2009, Echosmith is composed of 4 siblings: Graham, Sydney, Noah, and Jamie Sierota. The youngest sibling, Graham (16 years old), plays drums. Sydney (18 years old), the only female member, is the lead vocalist but also contributes on tambourine and keyboard. Noah (19 years old) plays bass and sings back-up vocals for the band while the oldest sibling, Jamie, (22 years old) sings and plays the guitar.
In 12 shorts months, Echosmith have gone from little-known Los Angeles alt-pop gem to Warped Tour‘s undeniable breakout band. They were originally slated to play just the first half of Warped Tour but the reaction was so overwhelming that they were invited to stay until the end! Of course, that only meant that more people got to hear music off the band’s debut album, “Talking Dreams” 😉
The siblings were in town just last weekend (Saturday, 8th August) for a “Good Vibes Presents” gig at KL Live. Well, all except Jamie. And we got to meet them real quick before their show for a one-on-one chat.
Here’s what went down:
Welcome to Malaysia, you guys! How is Malaysia treating you so far? Have you seen much of the city yet?
Noah: I have! I walked today and went to the KL Tower, and went up to the top. It’s really incredible.
Sydney: The tower’s really pretty – I haven’t seen anything else aside from that yet (laughs). I saw the KL City GP race outside. So crazy! And it’s so crazy that we’re here at the same time. So cool.
What were you looking forward to most when you heard that you were coming here?
Noah: It’s interesting to kinda find out what the food here in Malaysia is like. Because you hear about all types of food like Indian food and Vietnamese food but in America we don’t hear very much about Malaysian food. So it has been fun to come out here and try all the food! It really is incredible – obviously you’d know better than us..
Spices and stuff?
Noah: Yeah, spices and all the different kind of flavours. It’s kinda like the food we know but slightly different. That’s something that we’re very intrigued by. We love to travel and eat food, and try the food at different places and the different cultures we go to so..to be here..there’s a market I wanna get us all to go to tonight.
Sydney: There’s even..you know, even the food on the plane, it was awesome! It was so good, the best airplane meal I’ve ever had. It’s some sort of rice like, chicken..a little spicy. And it had some cashews in it..
You guys could probably go for supper after the show!
Sydney: Yeah!
Noah: Yeah we could!
You’re all in a band together but you’re also siblings. Does being around each other this much annoy you sometimes?
Sydney: Some times. But we definitely get along really well and we really enjoy each other’s company, for all the crazy things that we get to do. But there are times, of course, that we annoy each other.
What are some bad habits about each other that you can’t stand?
Sydney: Um, chewing with our mouths open! We all do it some times and we get super annoyed when one person does it. During between us we’re always like, “Guys, close your mouths” and then the next person would do it.
It wasn’t until recently that we heard “Cool Kids” but that song was actually off your 2013 album, “Talking Dreams”. Did you know it was getting played a lot here?
Sydney: Not here at least. We’ve heard about the UK and stuff because they were one of the first to play it internationally. And I knew about the Philippines because I remember hearing that they were the first. So it was really cool to hear about the few countries but it was hard to keep track. We didn’t know about Malaysia playing it this much until recently! They just gave us plaques for 400 thousand and double platinum for here and we had no idea until we got here, which is so cool.
So the lyrics to “Cool Kids”, were they inspired by real life experiences?
Sydney: Yeah! It was really just inspired by the fact that we all had that desire to fit in at some point in our lives. And, you know, we all went through that in different ways. It’s something we all felt before so we just wrote the song that sorta naturally came. We just wanted to get out the message of accepting yourself and we remind ourselves every time we sing it.
What do you think the cool kids would most likely be saying to you now that Echosmith has shot to international fame?
Sydney: (laughs) I don’t know. Especially people in school that we were always like, “Oh, she’s so cool I wish I looked like her!” or whatever. Um, I don’t know what they would say to us now.
Noah: (shrugs) I don’t know too.
Also, “Talking Dreams” was released 3 years ago. Is there a new record in the works?
Sydney: Next year, we’ll be working on one. We just haven’t had the time to write or record or anything. Next year will be the year to really work on it.
You’ve recently collaborated with Zedd for “Illusion”. Did he approach you guys to do it?
Sydney: Yeah! Like his management or something reached out to ours and was like, “Hey, Zedd would love for Sydney to sing on one of the songs!” and then he sent a few, and we kinda just picked which ones we wanted to sing on and that was it. It was actually a really simple process, it happened almost instantly. We went and recorded it and we didn’t even get to meet until after it was done. It was a really great experience to do that because it was our first collaboration with a DJ and we’ll see what else we can do with Zedd and with everybody else in the future.
Do you still get nervous when you have to go on stage? How do you kinda..zen out?
Noah: For me, I don’t think about it. As soon as I get really excited, I’m just like, “Okay, it’s gonna be a really fun show” but I don’t think about it until I walk on stage and see a sea of people, and they look excited and then you’re just in the moment. You don’t really have time to get anxious or be scared so..for me it kinda just works. I just think about other things and just go on stage and then I’m super excited. That helps a lot.
Sydney: I do vocal warm-ups, maybe some stretching,maybe a little running in place..
Noah: Yeah, we run in place a lot.
Sydney: Yeah a lot! Or do some jumping or something to get the energy up because sometimes, you know, we’ll be waking up from a nap and then going on stage because..you gotta sleep when you can (laughs) Anyway, it’s kinda like a funny thing before stage. It’s not a typical band, I don’t think. Oh, we also pray a little before going on stage – that’s something we always do.
If you could have free, unlimited service for 5 years from an extremely good cook, chauffeur, or masseuse, which would you choose?
Sydney: Masseuse! For sure! For the past few days we’ve gone and gotten massages just because Asia is so awesome with that. So, I’d definitely go with the masseuse.
Noah: I’d go with a masseuse.
Sydney: That’d be awesome! I seriously was just talking about bringing one on tour with us. It’d be so cool. Then they can travel the world with us.
Thanks for the chat, you guys! We hope you’ll find that masseuse some time soon. And also thanks to our friends from Warner Music Malaysia for making this interview happen 🙂
We’ll leave you now with our favourite Echosmith song, also their chart-topper, “Cool Kids” (but of course):
For more information, hit up their official website or Facebook page.
