Sister act Robyn & Ryleigh are starting 2016 with a bang!
The album is available now, and we’ve had a chance to give it a few listens (gladly) from top to bottom.
It’s a fun assortment of 7 tracks, with uptempo vibes that will make fans want to sing and dance along… in fact, I Found You may be doing just that to me right now while I try to write this.
In the middle of the all the excitement right now we caught up with Robyn & Ryleigh by email to chat about the album, secret things about themselves, what their listening to, AND about the cover in the middle of the album that took us back in time a little bit.
Thanks to the girls for playing along, we know that big things are coming, and we’ll be ready for them.
So, check out the Q&A here, and find By Heart on iTunes now!
A. It is very exciting! We are all so ecstatic to have new music for the new year. It’s such a positive start, giving everyone a feeling of being accomplished, even though it’s only the first week of the New Year! It makes us all very happy starting the year off this way, because it can only go up from here. So we’re looking forward for what’s to come and we’re glad to give our fans something new from us to ring in the 2016!
Q. Is there anything specific that you love or are especially proud of on the By Heart album?
A. To be completely honest and we hope this doesn’t sound like we are tooting our own horns, but we’re so proud of this entire album! We have worked so hard to make our album absolutely perfect, that when it came to us in the boxes the other day we all started crying with tears of happiness. This is where all of our hard work went. To be a little more specific there is one song on the album that was born and recorded in Nashville. It’s the song titled “Better Tomorrow” which is insanely cool and makes the song so unique. We wrote others in Nashville but this is the only one recorded in Nashville. So I would say we are especially proud of that song.
Q. We’ve asked some other acts this question before, and we’re always interested in the answer… what is it really like working and traveling and creating together as siblings?
A. It is so amazing to always have backup. We both have each other’s backs no matter what. If we’re having to take a flight somewhere, to be an act at a festival, we never have to fly alone. We both love having a partner in this industry. We are able to lean on each other and if somethings hard we get through it together. If something is fun and amazing we have someone to share it with.
So the answer is, even though we are siblings and we fight regularly, it’s an amazing thing being able to work together, towards something we are both passionate about.
Robyn: Something about me that you wouldn’t be able to find on the Internet, hmmm that’s a tough one haha. Ryleigh and I post everything online from our favorite foods, to the workout gear I wear when I workout. You already know I like working on my car, things like oil changes and breaks. But something you don’t know is I’m currently learning Spanish. I’m learning it slowly due to lack of free time (obviously I’d rather be picking up my guitar any chance I get) but I love the language, I’ve even started writing a song in Spanish. Wish me luck! Haha .
Ryleigh: This is Robyn, answering for Ryleigh, because I want to say that Ryleigh is an amazing cook. She cooks us dinner all the time and it’s always super good and healthy. We are all thankful to have such a talented cook in the house. Haha after this I will ask Ryleigh to make me some of her famous spicy prawns with zucchini noodles.
Q. We remember the song California since Wave released it in 2001, what drew you to it 15 years later as a cover on the new album?
A. We loved that song from the beginning! We were in elementary school when the song came out and we remember singing along to it with our friends. We had a writing session scheduled with Dave Thomson and it was such a coincidence that he had written one of our favorite songs from back in the day. So after we left Nashville and we’re working on the new album we got to thinking… We should ask him for the rights to record it. Sure enough he thought that was very flattering and said go for it! So we did!
A. Break up with him by Old Dominion is an awesome new song! It’s so cheeky and flirty. That’s the kind of stuff we love!
Carrie Underwood released Smoke Break and as soon as she did, we decided to learn it. It’s super catchy, Ryleigh plays guitar on the song and I picked up the mandolin for it, sounds pretty cool!
Ryleigh has an addiction to Phil Collins… It isn’t any one song, It’s all of them!
Miranda Lambert will always have me as one of her biggest fans forever. I love her, I love what she stands for and I love her music so so much!
Dixie Chicks, I know every word to almost every song
Taylor swift, she is an amazing songwriter and is so beyond talented. She is one in a million.
Ellie Goulding is another one of our favourites. It is honestly really cool that you can hear her accent even in the music, normally accents disappear in any English language music, so that is really cool. Also her song “On My Mind” is in our heads all the time.
Q. Okay, 1 more – is there anything else you want to tell everyone before we wrap up and they start listening to the album?
A. Haha are we sure this is the real last question? These have been really fun questions to answer, so we don’t mind at all, lay em’ on us!!
When y’all listen to this album, all we ask is…. CRANK IT UP! Seriously, It sounds way better loud 😉
