Photo by Marco van Rijt
Were you afraid of being a one-hit wonder?
E: I remember the first time we played in L.A. It was our first sold out show and we started with our hit Twice. The people were screaming so loud after the first verse. It felt like the expectations were so high. I started shaking a little bit and thought: ‘Now it can only go down’. But we carried through and the people were really enthusiastic. They were not just into Twice.
So you are under less pressure by now?
E: Now we know that being us actually works, at first we were not really sure, we didn’t feel defined. But now we can stick to this and do our best.
Now that you are a quite successful, do you have to separate your friendship and your professional working relation?
Y: No. We are still friends. Of course now we are in a situation where we are kind of dependent on each other because we want to do this and we spent a lot of time together. It’s a little more like a family. You hate and love each other. All that what comes with it, mostly good stuff, though.
Living in times of social media, is it an advantage that you can easily communicate with your fans or a drawback because the people may expect constant updates or posts?
Y: In our case it is an advantage. We grew up with that. I mean we don’t answer all the tweets and comments but it’s nice that we are able to communicate with our fans and that we can let them know what’s going on. We are not like THE KNIFE or some band that is super mysterious.
No masks?
Y: No masks, this is us.
E: We tried playing with masks once. We couldn’t see each other, it was the worst experience ever. (All laugh)
So it didn’t make you feel more secure because nobody could see you?
E: No, it made it worse. It felt like people could all of a sudden see me. It was weird.
What are the first things you associate with the words ‘hope’ and ‘passion’?
Y: Sounds like Nelson Mandela.
H: That’s the force behind our band. We hoped and we have a passion.
F: It reminds me of Yukimi’s dad. He always says that you have to have passion and he is always talking about it.
Y: It’s his favorite word. ‘Follow your passion! Think about your passion!’
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