Hanseroth Twins on Stepping Into Spotlight as Duo, Sans Brandi Carlile

Fans have long understood it: “Brandi Carlile” isn’t just the name of a singer — it’s really a band, too, one that has included identical twin brothers Phil and Tim Hanseroth as mainstays and full collaborators for close to a quarter-century. But now we’re getting to see and hear that group without the tip of the triangle, as the Hanseroth Twins step out as a duo with a side project, their just-released debut album for Elektra, “Vera.”

“It’s almost a memoir of sorts, the album,” says Tim Hanseroth. “It’s our truth, it’s our story, it’s just us. And that’s what brings us to the name ‘Vera,’ which is a Latin word meaning true, real, genuine, actual. In the writing, in the performing, the singing, the production, we just wanted it to be authentic and like real.” Of course, Carlile’s two decades of records have been about nothing if not truth-telling, and the Hanseroths have been a big part of that, having a hand in the writing of most of the songs. But there was some of this actuality that felt like it applied more to their lives than something she felt honest in singing herself. And that, along with Carlile wanting to take a year off from the recording/touring cycle herself, led to the brothers re-learning what it felt like to specialize in two-part harmony — or do actual solo lead vocals — instead of their usual three-.

Variety spoke with the Washington-born-and-bred brothers during a recent promo stop in L.A., where they sang for Warner Music Group employees and invited members of the “Bramily” fandom at a showcase, not long after after debuting at the Newport Folk Festival.

You did have your own band, a very long time ago, before you met Brandi and formed the band with her. So, being frontmen is not totally foreign to you, but it is very distant. So how does it feel to be resuming the role of frontmen?

Tim Hanseroth: Equal parts exciting and terrifying, to be completely honest, because it’s been so long — it’s been maybe 30 years since we’ve fronted a band. And it’s sort of like relearning how to sing, without being able to hide behind somebody. You’re just out front; you’re naked; it all comes down to you. Also, with our old band — this goes back 30 years — we were a very loud, Seattle, grungy punk-rock band, where we were really loud and had very little to say. And now we are pretty quiet and we have a lot to say. You’ve got to lean in for it, but it’s there.

Phil Hanseroth: We get to write very honest lyrics all the time with Brandi in that band, and she sings the words, and we have the luxury of being back in the shadows while she sings those, so we don’t have to be revealing our emotions and truths. She does it for us. And it hit me when we were singing our first set [under their own banner]: Oh man, we can’t hide behind our big sis right now. We wrote these words, we gotta sing ’em now — we gotta mean it, and we gotta feel ’em as we sing them. I didn’t realize that was gonna happen until we got out there and did it in front of people.

You self-produced, but Brandi has a credit as executive producer. Did she get very involved?

Tim: The thing about Brandi, she’s always right. She’s been our biggest supporter and champion with this project, and she’s the one that really encouraged us to make the album. She helped with song selection; she rustled up some musicians at the last minute; she helped us with mixing suggestions, mastering, sequencing the record. She was really quite a big part of this project, not to mention singing harmony on a song.

At least one of the songs on this album, “Broken Homes,” we know was considered for Brandi’s last album. Was that sort of an impetus for doing something on your own?

Tim: Yeah. We always are encouraged to write from a very personal perspective when writing with Brandi, and we do just kind of bare all, and up to a certain point that works really well. And then when you cross a certain threshold of being too honest or too personal, then it gets where it can fall into the category of Brandi not relating to it as much. There’s been a couple times where we’ve tried to bring a song that’s really personal to us, that just is not working, maybe because on our end it’s like, “Oh man, no, you can’t change that lyric.” This particular song, “Broken Homes,” we brought to Brandi for “In These Silent Days.” And we actually went down the road of recording that song; we might have done a couple different versions even, and it just wasn’t working for Brandi. She finally said, “You know what? We all have these wonderful, weird families, but I’m not from a broken home.” It was just so directed towards our lives, and she saw that, and she loved the song but no amount of tweaking the lyrics couldchange that. Fast forward to what turned out to be a blessing, because it is our truth and where we come from, so that song ended up being one of the first pillars of support for the record.

The chemistry you have with Brandi fascinates all your fans. Your hooking up with her feels like it has some kind of divine providence or destiny to it, in the same way that it’s hard to imagine a lot of the great rock bands coming together without some kind of divine hand guiding it…

Tim: I think there is some divine thing going on, because when we met we had almost no common ground musically, and we still don’t have a ton. But we met, and Brandi was a fan of our old punk-rock band, and she’d push our amps and speakers in and help us load in so she could stay in the club for the night, because she wasn’t 21. When that band finally imploded and died a very loud, ugly death, Brandi called me five minutes later and was like, “Hey, why don’t you come play guitar on my record?” I thought it was a terrible idea because I had never really played acoustic guitar or anything like that.

But there’s a lot of bands that are based on their musical compatibility, and then, as a result of that, they spend all this time with each other and they have these careers. And our band was, and really is still, founded on our friendship and love for one another. We hit it off as just friends: “Oh my God, this is our people.” We meet this girl with her shaved head at the time, playing pool and spitting, and we’re like, “Oh my God, I fucking love this girl.” And we actually just hit it off as just friends. You know, you find your people once in a while in this life, and so everything that has happened musically is just a result of that friendship. I do think it’s just kind of a magical, lucky thing. None of us are virtuoso musicians, but whatever we have is so special, it can’t be really arranged.

When I went up to her house to interview her five or six years ago, she wanted to introduce me to you guys, and at some point she blurted out, “Where are those bald bitches?” That sort of flipped the image of this super-earnest image I had of you all.

Phil: And that’s not even one of the worst nicknames we’ve got from her. It’s very on-brand for Brandi. It’s like she’s our sister, and so like any family, we constantly give each other shit. And that is Brandi’s way of showing affection, too.

There was a moment when you all did the show with Joni Mitchell at the Hollywood Bowl last fall, and she called one of you by the wrong name, and then laughed and said that was the first time she had done that in all your years together. She blamed it on being flustered from working so hard to make that show come together and be great. Was that really the only time she’s done that?

Tim: We’ve been playing with Brandi for 25 years. That is the first time she’s ever looked at Phil and called him Tim. And it threw her, yeah. I wouldn’t even have mentioned it.

Phil: There was one time we were playing a show and she did a song by herself, and me and Tim went backstage and we traded shirts, and then I grabbed his guitar and he grabbed my bass and we went back out there and did the next song. And about halfway through, she was looking back and forth, and then she comes off the mic and was like, “What the hell are you guys doing? Did you guys switch sides?” And we’re like, “Yeah — it’s funny.” And she goes, “Never do that again.”

You are identical twins but, of course, you don’t have identical voices. Can you talk about how your voices differ and where you find your spots in the harmonies?

Tim: When it’s just the two of us, usually I would take the lower harmony and Phil will take the higher harmony, and that’s kind of the only rule we really stick to. There is one song where we did the opposite of that, though, on this record. But we kind of follow the model of… I guess Indigo Girls would be a good example, with Amy being a little more of a lower, steady voice and Emily having the higher, brighter parts. I know my strength is in the lower notes and Phil can do the high stuff with comfort. So the only philosophy we really adhere to is, I’ll stay low, you stay high.

I don’t have the volume or the high range that Phil has when he sings, so my voice really complements what Phil has, which is a little more harsh and bright of a voice; mine’s a little more smoky. But Phil has a much larger range. He can sing lower and higher, and louder projection. I have kind of a quiet, pipey voice. I love my voice, but it doesn’t have quite the range or power his has. Phil can sing like an octave or two octaves higher than me, somehow, even with the identical DNA. Brandi always teases him that he’s got low testosterone and that’s why his voice can get so high.

Phil: By the way, she calls me Bitch Lips.

Tim: Bitch Lips, yeah, because he can sing the high parts. But our voices being different is a good thing for singing harmony. Because if everything’s the same, whatever the science is behind frequencies, if you have two of the same frequencies competing for each other… Even the Everly Brothers have these little subtle differences in their voices that make ‘em fit together really well sonically. I think our voices being different is probably a strength in the long run.

Is there a big difference in difficulty between doing three-part and two-part harmony?

Phil: When you’re singing the third part, you’re just sort of singing the part that’s left over. Not in a bad way. You’re just singing what’s there, and it usually isn’t in your ideal range, so you’re sort of having to fit it in there. It’s a little more of an art — you’re chasing around vowel sounds and syllables and little timing things. Two-part harmony is a lot easier to find your way around. And with a lot of this record, we’re taking turns singing by ourselves, so that should be even easier. But somehow, that was the trickier part for me. It was relearning how to sing without anything else, with just a guitar, and without the training wheels of Brandi’s voice. When you’re singing harmony, you’re concentrating on chasing around the timing and notes of somebody else singing, and you’re trying to stay present in the lyric. But when it’s just you, man, you’re naked. It’s a whole different ball of wax.

Let’s talk about a few of the songs on the new album. We already mentioned the origin of “Broken Home,” and that is a very emotional song, about being a child of divorce. I was struck by the line about how, growing up with rancor, you “learned how to go to sleep angry.” Evoking that is striking, because the two of you have such an amiable presence, you seem like two of the least angry guys in rock ‘n’ roll.  But there’s obviously a lot under the surface. And a lot of therapy, probably, to get to the seemingly placid state we see today.

Tim: I’m a huge fan. I’ve done a lot of therapy the last couple years. But yeah, that line, it just popped out. Because I just remember my father’s house, and I remember the chain link fence, which is still there, and the shag green carpet that is still in part of the house, and how every time you shut the door, the window would go boom, boom, boom, even if you were just shutting it lightly. I go home now and the window still makes that noise when I shut the door… But yeah, being angry … You have one family up to a certain age, and as a kid you just accept your life for what it is, you know? And then we had two families and they didn’t get along. And I remember going to bed and being like, “Wow, I’m not tired. In fact, I’m angry” — falling asleep angry, and just being an angry little shit for many years.

There is a lot of family on this record, including songs not just to do with your parents, but your own kids now. “Remember Me,” the first single off this album, has to do with your children, obviously. And then “Counting the Days” is about having some ill feelings about being away from them…

Phil: No one wants to hear a complaining rock star. But you have these high highs in your career, with success and awards and playing Red Rocks and the Gorge and Grammys. And then the other side of that is, you miss every birthday and wedding and funeral. There’s these days off when you’re in the hotel, and you’re alone and you’re far away from your family and your home, and the New York Times isn’t writing an article about it. It’s just part of the balance of in the world — as high as you can get, you can swing back the other way too. And the bad stuff tends to be noisier than the good stuff sometimes. But the truth is, life is amazing.

I had a hard time coming home from tour the last couple summers. The last summer in particular, we were opening for a very big artist in these stadiums and I got burned out really badly. And when I came home in October, I just crashed and crumbled up and went into depression and anxiety and everything. And so it kind of forced me to look at myself and take care of all that, which I realized is a work in progress. It kind of set me on this journey to mental health and led to a lot of the writing on this album, which ended up being a blessing.

There’s one cover on the album. Why Erasure? (They recorded “A Little Respect.”)

Phil: I love Erasure, man. They’re in my top three— I think they’re underrated, and probably a little ahead of their time, and just beautiful melodies and words. We got down the road of making this record and, after a handful of songs, we were like, “Man, this thing needs a palette cleanser. There’s so much real-life shit, it might behoove us to put something on here that’s just a little more lighthearted.”

The first song on this album reminds me of Simon & Garfunkel, even though it’s a solo lead vocal on that one, so it’s really just Garfunkel there, maybe. Haven’t you covered Simon & Garfunkel in concerts with Brandi where you she leaves the stage to just you two, for a song?

Phil: Oh, yeah. We’ve done “Sound of Silence.” We’ve done “Homeward Bound.”

Tim: We’re huge Simon & Garfunkel fans. We had read somewhere a long time ago that, in the early days when they were still going by Tom & Jerry, they would sit across from each other in two chairs and watch each other’s mouths very closely and work up their harmonies. And we still do that. We still get close and see if we can lock into the vibe and the lyric and make it perfect, but not too perfect.

Is there something primary you feel coming to the fore in these new songs as far as influences?

Phil: We were listening to a lot to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and the Neil Young album “Harvest” was on heavy rotation for the last several months. Gordon Lightfoot. This is kind of an embarrassing one, but have you heard of the band Bread? I’m sure you’ve heard of Bread. We don’t win any cool points for mentioning them, but we love the band Bread. Just their sound, their great melodies, their big, warm, low end, and the beautiful David Gates vocals — they were always a big one for us, I think. We had a “Best of Bread” record in our house growing up, and since our record collection was limited to what our parents had, it’s cool that that was in there along with CSNY. Every time we mention Bread to my father-in-law or something, it’ll be like, “Oh, Bread, boo.” But, I just think they’re so great, I can’t imagine why anybody wouldn’t like them. David Gates, that voice, the golden voice… man, it doesn’t matter to me.

Indigo Girls, too — we love those guys and we love their harmonies. We did a lot of touring with them early on, so I always keep them in mind when we’re doing harmonies, because they have such an amazing, seemingly effortless way of singing harmony. It’s not just their harmonies, though — they’re weaving their parts in and out of each other in an almost supernatural way.

Tim: They’re in harmony, and then one will break off and say a tagline… What they do is really cool.

And Joni Mitchell, long before we were ever anywhere near her orbit. Somebody turned me onto the record “Blue” many, many, many years ago. And we tried to get Brandi involved in that for many years, which she had nothing to do with. We had Catherine [to help convince Carlile of Mitchell’s worth] eventually. But Joni Mitchell was a big influence for me too, and I love Cat Stevens — maybe one of the biggest influences.

So while Brandi was being resistant to Joni all those years, you were just biding your time until she came around.

Tim: I tried to get these guys on board. They wanted nothing to do with it. Every time we’d fly somewhere, I’d put on my earphones and cry back by the toilet on the jet listening to Joni Mitchell.

Of all the other people besides Joni that you’ve gotten to play with, does anyone stand out?

Phil: Dolly was awesome, just to watch her work. (They backed her at the Newport Folk Festival in 2019.) Being on stage with Tanya (Tucker, who they wrote songs for as well as backed) is like watching Elvis Presley perform. We did a couple shows with Kris Kristofferson, just as his band, and we learned 25 of his songs and that was amazing. That was like standing up there next to Shakespeare or something. That’ll probably go down as my favorite thing we’ve ever done live, for sure.

We’ll see you on stage at the Hollywood Bowl later this year for the next public Joni Jam, right?

Tim: Yeah, end of October, we’re doing two shows at the Hollywood Bowl with Joni, who is now stronger than ever and walking around on her own and just singing like a total badass. We’re actually having a Joni Jam tomorrow. Every time we’re in LA, we try to get up to her house. And she’s adding songs to the set list and some really kind of avant-garde (things), and from the ‘80s, ‘90s… That’s going really well. Eevery time we see her and hear her sing, it’s crazy, man, she’s getting so much stronger, with everything from her voice to the way she tells stories.

You played the Newport Folk Festival as a duo, and then did a few private showcases, including in Nashville and L.A.. Do you foresee a Hanseroth Twins tour?

Phil: We actually do want to go out and play some shows. We don’t have a timeline yet, because we’re waiting to see what our next year looks like with Brandi. Once we figure all that out, we’re gonna find a way to make a little tour happen. This whole thing is so portable because we can just go out with a couple guitars and a couple microphones and we don’t need a semi and don’t need a humongous road crew.

Tim: It’s a wide open road. With Brandi, there’s so many expectations, there’s a lot of pressure, and it’s like high stakes poker — it takes a lot to upkeep that many people on the road. Pressure to deliver, pressure to be good, pressure to not be sick! With our thing here, this is a space where there’s no pressure. We didn’t want to put out something and have to be worried if it’s gonna be a big commercial success. We wanted to just put something out from our hearts into the world, and if it resonates with some people, then we’ve done our job. It’s almost a memoir or something of sorts, the album — it’s our story, and that’s what brings us to the name “Vera,” which is a Latin word meaning true, real, genuine, actual.

And we’re very excited about the record. We don’t want to sell it short. It’s just that we see it as an endeavor that’s not really instead of Brandi as much as more in addition to what we do with her. We’re very fulfilled with that career of ours, and we see that as our band. This is something else to do right now, and maybe we’ll do it again.

Phil: Yeah. We already talked about making a Christmas EP. The record has just been out for a matter of days, and we’re like, “Fuck, we need a Christmas record.”