It’s only two days into the Lemon Twigs’ 2017 North American tour when Westender catches multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Brian D’Addario on the phone, but things have already gotten a bit shaky for the group.
That’s not to say that the shows haven’t been well received. The previous night’s performance in Philadelphia had the crowd fully embracing the psych-pop sounds of D’Addario and younger brother Michael’s recent Do Hollywood album. Instead, the teenage prodigy explains that the Long Island outfit’s bass drum is currently missing a couple of legs, and thus keeps bouncing off its mark during each song. “We just made a stop at Home Depot to get a sand bag. Did we get the sand bag? No. It was a failed attempt,” he says with laugh, from inside a van en route to Boston.
Despite the group’s onstage plight, it’s fitting that their equipment is acting somewhat unruly. Released last October, Do Hollywood is an ambitious and awesomely all-over-the-place affair. Though full of sweetened sounds, the album takes multiple left turns through the annals of rock. Take “Those Days is Comin’ Soon,” which conjures flapper-jazz whimsy and the Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” force-filtered through the prism of ’70s glam. The Brian-sung “These Words” offers AM-radio softness before upping the eccentricity with beer-parlour piano and grin-inducing xylophone solos. Michael’s “As Long as We’re Together” is a Big Star-sized rock ballad built for making out in the back of your grandparents’ Dodge Polara.
Though performed on record almost entirely by the D’Addario brothers (keyboardist Danny Ayala and bassist Megan Zeankowski fill out the live band), there wasn’t much collaboration on the songwriting side of Do Hollywood. Instead, the siblings worked out the arrangements of their respective tracks on their own before bringing them into the studio. “[Michael] likes really to-the-point lyrics, and I like lyrics that are dressed up in different ways,” says D’Addario. “I don’t want to give too much away about my life.”
While the elder sibling may keep things oblique in song, he and Michael are more than comfortable with being in the public eye. Before hitting stages as the Lemon Twigs, the pair were child actors racking up IMDB credits in CSI: NY (Brian) and horror flick Sinister (Michael). The pair also occasionally upload staged basement and backyard brawls onto YouTube as part of their Miz Rules Wrestling collective. Brian “fights” as The BumbleBee, a self-described “nutcase” who has beefed with a guy in an Easter Bunny costume (fittingly called “The Bunny”) and a million-dollar minor named Cash W. Smellington. “We’ve just watched wrestling since we were really little and love how ridiculous it is,” says D’Addario. “There’s a certain aspect of wrestling that’s kind of lost because they try to be subtle, like it’s real life or whatever. In the ’80s, it was really over-the-top and crazy.”
While a trash-talkin’ wrestling event, filmed over the holidays in Long Island, is expected to go online at some point, the D’Addarios have even more in store as the Lemon Twigs. A follow-up to Do Hollywood is in the works, and will be the first to find the brothers writing material together. (“There’s going to be a unifying concept that ties it together,” D’Addario teases). Until then, they’ll be treating their steadily growing fan base – referred to as Twiglets – to more concerts. That is, if they can find a sandbag.
“Now we’re in the parking lot of Walmart and we’re going to give it a shot here,” D’Addario reports as the conversation comes to a close, adding dryly, “And if they don’t have it here, then I guess we’re not going to play tonight.”
The Lemon Twigs play the Cobalt on Wednesday, Feb. 1.
