At some point, probably everyone who is a Brandi Carlile fan has listened to the exquisite three-part harmony she does with the Hanseroth Twins and wondered: What would it sound like if that were just two-part harmony? Or, more plainly, would Phil and Tim Hanseroth sound as compelling as lead singers as they do as pretty much the most acclaimed harmonizers in modern-day pop?
Truth be told, that hasn’t remained a complete mystery. Carlile has sometimes ceded the stage to the Hanseroths during a concert for the identical brothers to perform a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” or the Everly Brothers’ “Love Hurts.” But not since the Brandi Carlile band took shape in the early 2000s until now have Phil and Tim stepped out as lead singers with a piece of original material. That changes with today’s release of “Remember Me,” a debut single that arrives ahead of a full Hanseroth Twins album that is expected in late summer.
Watch the Lyric Video HERE
This doesn’t represent a breakup of the longtime Carlile mothership unit — as is clear from the fact that, on Thursday night, they opened for themselves for the first time, doing a short Hanseroth Twins set before backing up Carlile at the first of two shows at the Anthem in Washington, D.C. Hours before taking the stage for that show (twice), they sat down for a Zoom call with Variety to discuss how they came to do a project under their own banner.
“Brandi has put it so well,” says Tim Hanseroth. “She says our band is like a triangle, and she’s at the top and we’re on the bottom — and she wants the twin project to also be like a triangle, where me and Phil are at the top and she’s at the bottom, still supporting us, with production ideas and stuff like that.” (Officially, though, the brothers are self-producing their album, whatever outside counsel they might be taking.)
“In our band with Brandi, I’ve never really had any desire to do the frontperson thing,” he continues. “You know, we were in a rock band for many years before we met Brandi, where we were fronting the band, and it was cool and fun… and a lot of work. We only started singing when we were young because the singer of our rock band quit and we had a hard time finding a singer. It’s always been such a utility thikng for us. With the Brandi Carlile band, I’ve always been really comfortable singing backup, because I’ve never really fancied myself a lead singer. But it’s a good place to go back into for us, that territory of like, ‘OK, cool, we’re lead singing again.’ Which is kind of daunting, for somebody who’s always — not out of just being humble — generally just considered myself (to be like), ‘Well, I don’t know if I’m good enough to sing in front of a band.’ But, we’re gonna try it, you know?”
Clearly, the brothers could still stand some braggadocio lessons. The humility is not for lack of being constantly told what great singers they are over the last 20-plus years — not least of all by Carlile, who’s been known to remark on how unusual it was for her to enlist the women of Lucius to sing a bit of backup on the last album, because the Hanseroth boys were perfectly capable of reaching a girlish range, if need be. But hearing the character of their voices up-front is still bound to come as a revelation — maybe even to themselves, from the sound of it — after a couple of decades of complementarity.
The forthcoming album is taking shape in something of a hurry, after 20 years of not being in a rush.
Read the entire article from Variety HERE.