So & So is Amie Miriello, Brandon Rogers, Bana Haffar, Adam Hanson, and Jay Dmuchowski – who prefers to be called Raisin Higgins. The band came together when Amie, an established singer in the Los Angeles area, and childhood friend Jay teamed up with producer Rob Wells to form the ultimate songwriting team. It wasn’t long after that the duo sought out the perfect partners in crime and the project matured into a full-fledged band. With the addition of American Idol Season six contestant and soulful singer Brandon, Adam on drums, and bassist Bana, So & So came to fruition in September 2010. The feisty five and I sat down for some laughs as they discussed their new album on the horizon and big tour plans for 2011. In between interview questions and technically off the record, the band and I bonded over intimate descriptions of their colons and jokes they have painfully refrained from saying in front of Mormon audiences.
I’ve noticed some interesting nicknames in your bio. What is the background on those?
Raisin: Wait I have to tell you something really super quick. My name in this band is not Jay. It’s Raisin.
Brandon: Oh here we go! (Rolls eyes)
Amie: There are no nicknames anymore. They are just for us.
Raisin: I’m the only one that has one. Mine stays! I have to have it. It’s not a nickname anymore. It’s my name.
What was the inspiration behind starting the project?
Amie: We had worked with producer Rob Wells on some of my solo stuff in the past and we really loved working with him. So when the other projects we were doing kind of fell through, we decided we really wanted to do a project with him. First it started as a writing team, then it became a band, and one by one we found all the members and that was it.
This one’s for Brandon. How has you experience on American Idol influenced your career?
Brandon: You know, I was working as a background singer for years and then I decided I wanted to go out on my own. I wrote an album and the second I put it out I auditioned for American Idol and then I immediately had to take it off the market because I had made it onto the show. It was a great experience on the show and when I got off, a lot of people knew me but I still had to do the footwork. It helped but it didn’t help amazingly. It didn’t change my life in the sense of being famous all of a sudden, but it did allow me some opportunities that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Are you still working on solo stuff or is So & So your main project?
Brandon: No, actually right now this is my main focus. This is all of our main focus.
Amie: We all have other projects that we want to pursue but we’re obsessed with this, so this is taking up our time and energy so we’re cool with that.
Amie, you actually met Brandon, when he was opening for your solo project at Molly Malones…
Amie: Yeah and we sang together and were like, “Oh wait. That sounds awesome!”
Brandon: We’re like “Hmm, that’s interesting.”
Tell me about the upcoming album.
Brandon: “ASAP.”
Amie: It’s just a great album. It’s a compilation of songs that Jay…[Laughs]…sorry – Raisin, and I wrote with Rob.
Raisin: I’ve known her for 18 years and she still won’t call me Raisin.
Amie: I won’t do it. [Laughs] I just f*ckin’ can’t. All of us fell in love with the record. It’s fun to play every night. It’s called “ASAP” because we need it to get out there right f*cking now and we need people to hear it right now.
Are you guys doing a lot of live shows?
Brandon: Yes we’re doing a lot of shows – as many as possible!
Adam: Yeah we did a lot over the summer. We did like every other week at Hotel Café. We did Molly Malones, one at King King in Hollywood, and we’re going on tour in February. We are gonna tour up and down the East coast, on college tours.
Brandon: Supported by Red Bull. Thank you Red Bull!
Any crazy American Idol Stories? I’m going to be done with the Idol questions after this one…
Brandon: You know the craziest thing that ever happened to me in my entire life happened after Idol. I got to go to Afghanistan to sing to the troops out there and that sort of stands alone in my mind as the dopest craziest thing that happened to me after Idol. It was me, Justin Guarini, Nadia Turner, and Gina Glocksen from various seasons of Idol. We just went out there and hung out with the troops and flew around in helicopters with shotguns. It was amazing. It was terrifying and awesome at the same time.
Was it high security and people with machine guns escorting you around?
Brandon: Yes we felt safe as eggs – safe as babies. It was crazy. Simon was usually nice to me. The way I got voted off – maybe that was crazy. I forgot the lyrics to a song.
Raisin: No you got voted off because of Howard Stern.
Brandon: You know what…people like Sanjaya…little kids like Sanjaya and Howard Stern loved to vote for him.
Amie: That’s the funniest shit ever that Howard repeatedly voted for Sanjaya.
You guys recently had a So & So song placed on One Tree Hill. That’s exciting!
Amie: Yeah Jay and I have had songs placed on like every show and it’s mother. But this project is so new. The fact that we’ve had one on One Tree Hill is premature and awesome. And we have another one coming on One Tree Hill for this 8th season so we’re really excited. As soon as the record is out and available on iTunes we are going to slam the placements.
Brandon: Our ultimate goal is to take over the world.
How do you guys describe your sound?
Brandon: That’s the toughest question. I tell people, “You listen to it and tell me what you think.” It’s driven by Jay – I mean by Raisin.
Bana: It’s like Indie pop and country.
Brandon: It’s like indie pop folk soul classical heavy metal…I don’t know. It’s a rainbow of fruit flavors.
Amie: It’s soulful radio rock that could be played on the radio.
Brandon: Radio, radio,….radio
Amie: We’re not scurred of success.
Brandon: We’re not too cool for school where we’re like; “You can’t use our song for a Target commercial. Please use our song for a Target commercial!”
Amie: Yes, please. Use our song for a tampon commercial, I don’t f*cking care.
Brandon: I don’t know about that…
Amie: I don’t care. Bring it!
What’s on the agenda for 2011 aside from the tour?
Amie: We just want to play – all the colleges, all the festivals. We’re doing South by Southwest…We want people to see us so much that people have to recognize us and know who we are.
Brandon: I think the music, the writing on it, the singing on it, the musicianship is just all strong enough that whoever gets a taste of it will want some more.
Raisin: You can’t deny it. Even if you don’t really love it you can’t say it’s not great.
Bana: I think one of the most interesting things about this band is the fact that there are two lead singers and they’re both very strong singers but they don’t overshadow each other. They do a really good job of staying out of each other’s way but complimenting each other and that’s a very unique aspect of the band.
Raisin: And we’re all friends too. It’s very easy to be in a band if we’re all friends.
Since you guys are all friends, have you had any big fights yet?
Amie: We fight ALL the time
Raisin: We argue about music and some other things but Amie and I really go at it because we’re like brother and sister so our fights are way deeper and basically everybody in this band besides the two of us knows that they just have to deal with that.
Brandon: Witnessing their fights is something special.
Amie: They are all based on what’s best for the band.
Brandon: As far as personal arguments we have the ability to be honest and to take it. It’s all about making the band and making it better.
Amie: And then when someone’s feelings do get hurt we all get upset and are like, “We didn’t mean it.”
Amie: when Jay on I are on tour though we actually don’t fight, it’s weird. It’s almost like other people are so annoying that we feel we have to team up against everyone else.
Brandon: This will actually be the first time of me going on a tour with people I’ve actually known before. Usually it’s like you meet them when on tour and you’ve got to learn how to live with somebody on a bus instantly. It’s a good practice but I wouldn’t recommend it to everybody. So this is gonna be great.
I heard a rumor that one of you is a former Abercrombie model.
Adam: Oh Jesus. [Blushes]
So I’m guessing that’s you Adam?
Amie: He gets so mad!
Adam: I’m not mad. I just always looked at it like a job. I didn’t search out being a model. A friend of mine asked me if I would do a few jobs and I got signed quickly in Boston and I did a few shows. It was good. It was fun. It was no different to me than painting a house.
Raisin: I think it’s different. The guys you see painting houses definitely look very different.
Adam: But I was actually a painter in high school.
Brandon: I can see him actually painting a house with his overalls open, all “Yeah…look at this house.”
Were you ever the giant picture right when you walk in the store?
Adam: Somebody in Florida – one of my aunts, said they thought they saw me but I don’t think so.
Raisin: You think your aunt would know who you were.
Adam: I don’t know she’s old. [Laughs]
Any plans to come out of retirement as an Abercrombie model down the road?
Adam: They did offer me the senior package at one point.
Raisin: it’s called the classics
Amie and Jay were high school friends; Brandon and Amie met at Molly’s…how did Adam and Bana officially come into the picture?
Adam: I met Amie because I was working with songwriter/producer David Ryan Harris and she was doing a session with him and he told me to go and see her live. So I did, twice. I thought she was amazing so I offered my box Cajon services. She didn’t know what that was, I said awesome and ever since then…
Amie: I thought they were cajones.
Brandon: Cajones means balls and Cajon means box
Well it is between your legs…
Adam: It is…it’s right under my balls.
Amie: It’s like he’s playing his balls
Adam: I hit just before the balls. Anyway, the strength of the songwriting was just amazing and just the presence of Amie and Jay’s comments were amazing.
Amie: They are all about sports. He will stop a song in the middle of the set and be like, “This song is kind of like football.” Talk about the source of fights…
How is a song like football?
Raisin: How is it not like football?
Amie: Don’t open that up!
Brandon: He’s gotta do it once so it can be documented.
Raisin: The way I feel in this band is that we are all on some kind of offense where there are two offensive stars like a quarterback and a star running back (points to Amie and Brandon) these two. Right? And we are their offensive line behind them -blocking for them and stuff like that. After the show, pretty much you’re gonna walk off stage and say, “OK they are the stars,” like you would say a running back or quarter back, but they couldn’t get there without the actual offensive line that nobody actually watches on the field.
Adam: That’s amazing
Raisin: It’s just the funny thing is comparing Bana to an offensive lineman.
Bana: I don’t even know anything about football but I joined the band when Brandon called me one day to sub for one of their shows because their bass player quit a day before the show.
Adam: We called Bana the day before the show and she learned everything and she was amazing.
Amie: Yeah, she’s great. Bana’s from Lebanon. She just found out about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the other day. She came to rehearsal she’s like, “You know what’s really good? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.” We’re like, “Duh!”
Brandon: We’ve been having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches since infancy.
Bana: And now I have one every single day. I swear to God.
Brandon: She’s been awakened.
Any pre show rituals?
Amie: A shot of Jameson usually, but I’m on a cleanse.
Bana: Yelling at management
Amie: While smiling
Brandon: For me, my ritual is no drinking, warm ups and I generally try to stay away from people.
Raisin: I’ve gotten a bottle of water from Stew before every show since 2005.
Adam: We probably will develop more when we don’t have to set up our own shit.
Brandon: I’m guessing the drinking before a show thing will go when we get out on the road. If I drink too much before a show I’m a complete, to use an Amy term, ‘shit show’
Amie: I drink before every single show, during, and after. But I’m on a cleanse right now and my life is f*cking terrible.
How long’s the cleanse?
Amie: Ahh… it’s till Sunday.
Brandon: You do realize this is being recorded Amie.
Amie: Yeah but they’re not playing the tape on this thing. And second of all, I don’t give a shit if they do. This is how I talk.
[The conversation then took a turn into the ins and outs of cleanses with a round table discussion on that state of each band member’s colon, which I was nicely asked to refrain from publishing but was thoroughly entertained by]
Brandon: And that’s the only word that I thought we wouldn’t get to in this interview, but somehow we got to… “colon.”
Words by Nicole Pajer. Photos by Zoetica Ebb.
