The Sound of Sisters: The Pierces

We recently had the opportunity to sit down and get to know the sisterly duo of Catherine and Allison Pierce. If there is an award to be given for musical perseverance, these two deserve it. After three records and 10 years of making music together, the Pierce sisters were ready to throw in the towel and attempt their own solo projects. In the final hour, Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman stepped up and expressed interest in hearing their new demos. Berryman took The Pierces under his wing and produced their groundbreaking forth album, “You & I.” The ladies recently signed with Polydor Records and finally feel at home with a label that believes in them.

In the lobby of West Hollywood’s Andaz Hotel, Allison joked about continuously breaking her Kindle as Catherine told her somber tale of someone beating her to the house she had planned on moving into. The girls explained that listening back to their earlier tunes makes them proud of how far they’ve come and that being role models to artists who haven’t made it yet has it’s pros and cons.

Is it difficult to be in a band with your sister?

Catherine: It can be difficult but I think it’s difficult to be in a band with anyone. And we’ve been doing it for so long and we’re kind of forced to make it work because we’re siblings and we can’t say, “Oh I never want to see you again!”

Allison: Well we could…

Catherine: We could but we figured out a way to kind of work thru our differences and make it work.

Do you live together?

Catherine: We did for the past year in London but usually no.

Allison: We fight much less when we don’t live together. Right?

Catherine: Oh yeah [laughs].

Are you pretty similar or are you opposite of each other?

Allison: People that get to know us say that we’re really different but I think it’s hard for me to tell you how we’re different.

Catherine: But we definitely are different.

Allison: It’s the way we process things.

How old were you when you both started singing?

Catherine: I think 4 and 6.

Were you always singing together or did you ever have your own individual projects?

Allison: For a minute each of us has done something, but mostly together.

Is it true that “Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge” was going to be your last music effort?

Catherine: That was going to be our last effort together and we decided to split up. Then the bass player from Coldplay called us and wanted to work with us so we got back together.

What was your plan B if that didn’t work out?

Allison: Solo projects.

How did you guys hook up with Guy Berryman from Coldplay?

Catherine: I met him in New York thru an ex-boyfriend years ago and he heard our music and really liked it and we kind of stayed in touch thru that. Whenever he’d pass thru New York, he’d call and see what we were up to. He wanted to hear our new demos and he wanted to start a production company so we ended up making this last record together.

Was your record one of the first that he made with his new company?

Catherine: Yeah we were!

So you grew up in Alabama and moved to New York and now live in London?

Allison: We’re done with London.

Catherine: I think I’m gonna move to LA. I was just looking at houses yesterday and I got rejected for the house I wanted.

Allison: Did he say why?

Catherine: He said somebody had checked it out first or something. Oh my God the house was amazing and I loved it. I’m so so sad. I just found out.

Are you both going to move to LA?

Allison: I’m not sure yet. I kind of want to move to Nashville. I’m trying to decide if I want to split my time between the two.

What was the biggest thing you had to get used to with living in London?

Catherine: The fact that you can’t get great food whenever you want it. In New York, you can get whatever you want to eat at any hour or delivered to your home. In London you really have to search out good food.

Allison: But after 10pm, that’s it.

Catherine: Some of the food is so bad. It’s like they don’t have any passion for food.

Allison: It’s getting better. There is amazing food there but you have to find it. The fish and chips are good but not something like a sandwich.

Catherine: You go somewhere and order a sandwich and it’s like 2 dry pieces of bread with butter and a thick layer of cheese. And it’s cold.

Allison: Stay away from Ranch dressing there too!

Catherine: They have this thing called salad cream.

Allison: It’s like miracle whip but sweeter and like a dressing.

Catherine: Oh it’s so disgusting. You’ll order a salad and it’s covered in it.

Do you get compared to a lot of other sisterly duos like The Veronicas?

Catherine: Not really The Veronicas. We get compared to anything that just has 2 women in it – Heart, Fleetwood Mac, Mamas & Papas, The Bangles…

Allison: Bananarama.

When you listen back to your earlier albums? What goes thru your head? Do you feel like you’ve come a long way?

Allison: Yes, especially live – I feel like I’m most proud of how far we’ve come. I have a fondness for the early records…

Catherine: I don’t!

Allison: But you wish you could go back and know what you know now.

Catherine: I think we were just young and kind of naive and we would play out in coffee shops with a guitar and suddenly the concept of having other instruments on a record was foreign to us. Anything kind of blew our mind like, “ooh there’s a drumbeat on there.” We just didn’t know what we wanted and now we’re more specific and more aware of what we want.

Do you ever play any of those old songs live or are they locked in the vault?

Allison: We play some songs from the last record. The other songs are locked in the vault.

Catherine: I was thinking the other day about if we’d ever bring those out… probably not!

Allison: The only way is if for some reason they started selling again and people became familiar with them but not right now. It would probably be fun to revisit them and make them new.

Catherine: Especially the production.

Do you see yourselves as role models to other artists that have been at it for a long time and are ready to throw in the towel?

Allison: Yeah. I guess when you put it that way. There aren’t that many people that have been doing it as long as us without major success so yeah.

Catherine: But I do think we might give false hope to a lot of people too who might be like, “Oh look at them. They made it after 10 years!”

Allison: I remember seeing Behind The Music with No Doubt and they were doing it for 10 or 11 years before they had that first record hit. I was so inspired by that and that gave me a lot of hope. I think Lucinda Williams also did it for a really long time before anyone knew who she was. Justin Bieber – it took him so long to make it where he is now.

Catherine: Never Say Never! He seems like such a sweet kid.

Allison: And then that whole scandal came out about him possibly impregnating that girl and I was like, “I am going to be upset if this is true.”

I remember when Jessica Simpson had that promise ring and “wasn’t having sex…”

Allison: And Britney.

Catherine: We have promise rings too.

Allison: We promise we’re having sex.

Do you guys ever feel pressure from your managers to say that you don’t have boyfriends because it makes the fans like you less?

Catherine: Every once in a while someone will say, “Oh don’t say you’re in a relationship.” I’m like, “We’re adults.” It’s not like we’re teen heartthrobs where we need to keep the fantasies alive. Adults know that even if you’re in a relationship that it might not last so if they really want a shot with you to just wait it out.

Is there anything else that we should know about you guys?

Allison: We’ve given you all the information that you can handle right now so…

Catherine: We’re highly intelligent. We have great taste.

You break a lot of Kindles…

Allison: Well mine broke and then my mom stepped on the one that they replaced so then she gave me a new one for Christmas and I need a new case for it.

Catherine: Well the case obviously helped a lot!

Allison: I’m so upset. I live off this thing.

What book are you reading on there right now?

Allison: Oh like a million! But I think at the moment I was reading “The Heart of Tantric Sex.” If you must know…