radionotes podcast episodes

078 Fionn

by | Jul 19, 2020 | episodes | 0 comments

078 Fionn

Fionn are twin sisters from Gen-Z out of White Rock BC with music that reflect both their observations and experiences.

Following on from the Singles Get Stoned, Mattress on the Floor and Modern Medication they’ve have just released Everyone’s A Critic (out thru 604 records).

From seperate locations across Canada, Brianne and Alanna spoke to radionotes about the tracks on the release, ‘social media’ addiction and their life through music…

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IMAGE CREDIT: Lindsey Blane

Their debut Skeleton made it to the Top 5 of the CBC Music charts and praise for their “undeniably seasoned” harmonies from Billboard.

SHOW NOTES: Fionn

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 Feature Guest: Fionn sisters speak about Everyone’s A Critic

Next Episode: Shane Adamczak

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[Radio Production – notes: ]

CREDITS

Theme/Music: Martin Kennedy and All India Radio   

Web-design/tech: Steve Davis

Voice: Tammy Weller  

You can make direct contact with the podcast – on the Contact Page

TRANSCRIPT

First version provided by REV team member Marc B – check to audio before quoting wider

John Murch:
Alanna and Brianne, thanks very much for joining radionotes.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Thank you for having us.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Thank you for having us.

John Murch:
Let’s talk about the current single from this EP called, “Modern Medication.” It’s not a connection to a previous single, “Get Stoned,” which is legal in your part of the world. So let’s talk about the modern medication you were talking about, and that is the obsession with social media. Coming from Generation Z, as you call yourselves, how does that actually affect you?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Well, I find that for me, social media, it’s really good to promote, especially if you have a brand, it’s really great for that, but it can be very toxic to your mind just because you’re constantly seeing the best version of everybody else. It can make you feel what you have in your life is not enough. And so then you’re trying to promote the best version of yourself as well. It’s like, everybody’s a product almost. Everybody’s trying to promote themselves in this way that’s really unrealistic. And it can just be toxic in your brain. Having expectations that are almost too high for reality and for life.

John Murch:
The wonderful play that you have with your lyrics is you’re talking about as a medication, but in fact, it’s a very toxic medication.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
It’s like a drug. It’s like it just makes you feel so good when you’re getting those likes. So you’re getting that satisfaction from it. But it’s really, at the end of the day, quite toxic for your mind and for your everyday life. It’s an addiction.

John Murch:
Let’s now talk about both of you as people, as twins. Australia has a very famous pair of twins who are in the musical industry. When did you decide that music was the thing? I’m going to Alanna first.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
We’ve always been into music ever since we were born. Ever since we were little kids, we were always singing together. Long as we’ve been alive, we’ve always told our parents that we wanted to be singers. And they’re actually both professional piano players and now piano teachers. So growing up, we were just always surrounded by music. Yeah, that’s how it all started. And then we started busking when we were 13 and that’s when we started getting into it professionally, because we started getting gigs out of busking. Yeah, it all started there.

John Murch:
Being twins you will get that double take and everything else the twins get. So being 13-year-old buskers on the road, was it an advantage being twin to get that extra second or two of the passerby’s attention?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I would say so probably. Now that I think about it, it probably was strange seeing two people who looked exactly the same standing together on the sides of streets. But people do a double take when they see us singing and they don’t know who we are.

John Murch:
Musically speaking, Brianne, has that been an advantage as well, in terms now getting to the songwriting process and the harmonies that you can do being so well known to each other?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
We’re very in tune with each other. I think it’s a result of spending so much time with another person that you just can almost read each other’s minds or just read each other very well. And especially with harmonies and stuff, we can really lock in quite well just because we spend so much time doing it together. And also we live with each other. We’ve always lived with each other, always have rehearsal time, so it’s great. I think it’s been a really great advantage.

John Murch:
Today, I’ve got you on two different boxes in front of me, which is weird, because I imagine you would normally be stuck together and I’d be going from left to right, left to right, instead of going up to down. So it’s a little unusual for you, I think?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah, usually we would be together, but I’m just away on a little vacay right now. Today, we’re separated.

John Murch:
Obviously as twins you’ve vacayed before together?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
This time last year, we were traveling the UK, me, Brianne, and my boyfriend. And it was a lot of fun. And it’s sad now thinking about it, especially since times have changed so much. We went to England, Scotland, Ireland, and we were there for six weeks. So that’s the last big trip we did. It was really fun. And yeah, traveling with a twin is a great experience, because I feel like we always want to do the same things.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah, that’s true. We don’t argue about who wants to do what? We’re just always pretty much in sync with what we want to do when we travel. Really fun.

John Murch:
I have the latest Australian Rolling Stone here and on the cover is a lady called Tones and I. You’ve recently done a cover of that epic song from the Queensland lady herself called, “Dance Monkey.”

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Well, that song, I think it just connected with everybody, because it’s very different. She’s got different voice. She’s also got a very cool aesthetic that I think is pleasing to Gen Z and the TikTokers and all that. That song did well because it’s so different sounding and also so fun. It is a great song, great melody.

John Murch:
And what were you bringing to it yourself? Because obviously whenever you do a cover, a re-interpretation, what were you bringing to it?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
We slowed it down a little bit and made it a bit more, well, very much more acoustic, because the actual version isn’t acoustic at all. And we made it a little bit more melodramatic or something, a little less lighthearted even though the song itself is extremely lighthearted. Yeah, just to make it our own a little bit, change it up a bit.

John Murch:
A bit of a Lorde feel to it?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I love that comparison. We love Lorde.

John Murch:
Typically relating to this record. So the influences on both of you, but particularly that were in the back pocket for this record.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
The last record was a bit of a different style. So I think our influences have changed since then. Definitely channeled a bit of Lana Del Rey in this one. I think maybe her just very … She just this very, she doesn’t care what people think vibe to her. And I think we wanted to infiltrate that into this album, Everyone’s A Critic. And who else? I don’t know. Who else would you say that we’ve channeled Alanna a bit for this one?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I feel like for, well, for my song, “Everyone’s a Critic,” for the title, it’s the title track. When we were writing it, I was thinking about this one Amy Winehouse song called, “You Know I’m No Good,” except that one is a little bit more melodramatic. But taking songs like that. I was listening to a lot of melodramatic ecstasy songs, but then trying to think in my head of ways to make them more lighthearted and more that Lana Del Rey vibe, not really caring what people think. I feel our influences are a little bit all over the place, but it’s just usually separate songs from people that we really enjoy.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
We were also listening to a lot of Phoebe Bridgers’ because we’re very into writing lyrics. Lyric writing is our favorite part of song writing. So just listening to a lot of artists that are more lyrically inclined. A lot of Lorde, I was very inspired by her record, Melodrama. And when we were writing a lot of the songs for this record, we were listening to that one a lot. Just pop music with fun, interesting lyrics. That’s what we were inspired by.

John Murch:
Have you had a chance to listen to the new Phoebe Bridgers? And if so, are you blown away like many have been?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah. Actually I’ve been listening to that album on repeat right now. It’s so good. Especially, I think my favorite song on it is, “Graceland Too.” That one, I just hit on repeat so many times. It’s very beautiful melody and great lyrics. I just love it.

John Murch:
“Everyone’s a Critic,” leaning back into that idea that everyone is keeping an eye on everyone else these days, what are we talking about by, “Everyone’s a Critic?”

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Well, the song itself, it was just a song about me making fun of myself at past parties. Because I feel like when we were entering our early 20s, we were going out a lot and maybe being a little bit ridiculous. And I was just looking back on some of my past experiences and making fun of myself a little bit. But then also wondering, because I feel definitely at our age, you do feel the eyes of judgment or the judgemental stares or looks for being … I feel people judge, but then they would do the same thing.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
So I don’t know. I think that it was hard but at the same time, just the idea that everybody’s always got an eye on you, no matter what, even on social media or yeah, anything. I feel these days, no matter what you do, it’s going to be documented and people are going to remember it. So Everyone’s A Critic idea for the whole album is more that, everybody’s got an eye on you. But for the individual song, it was just a song about me making fun of myself.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
We chose it as the title track for the album because it feels like it ties in pretty much into every song. Yeah, it ties in with every song, just that phrase, Everyone’s A Critic, whether it be with social media or just at parties or just in general, people are usually looking for reasons to criticize each other. We just wanted really not caring what people think vibe throughout the album. Just like, these are our experiences, blunt, but also tongue in cheek a little bit, as you said, making fun of ourselves a little bit.

John Murch:
It brings us to that key question of how much value do we then put on those that criticise us and how much we then value ourselves. Is that a theme that comes across the EP?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
There’s only one pretty serious song on the album and it doesn’t really go into that, but it is funny. Because another thing that I would tie in with the album being called Everyone’s A Critic is that when you start releasing music, you realise that everybody has their two cents that they want to put in. And it’s, and we found out with our first album. And at first, sometimes people can say things that will hurt your feelings a little bit. And then you learn to just really take it with a grain of salt. You have to really love what you’re doing. Because there’s going to be people that like it, there’s going to be people that don’t. And that’s just the fact and you just cannot let it bother you.

John Murch:
Where do you get that strength then from to cut through that? Because it is a very engaged world these days, as we mentioned with the social media, how do you cut through that? How, or even protect yourself from that?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Really at this point, it’s just more experience, because we started in this business when we were pretty young. We started recording our first record right after we graduated high school, so we were 18. Now we’re 22, and I know that doesn’t sound like a huge age gap, but I feel like it is. It’s just from meeting different people that we’ve worked with and their attitude towards the whole thing. Lots of pep talks from friends and everything. And I just think that now, I think we both have finally come to the conclusion that we don’t really care anymore, which is a good thing. It’s actually a very liberating feeling, and I finally feel it now. So it’s a great time to release this record, Everyone’s A Critic, because yeah, we don’t really care anymore.

John Murch:
I am a huge fan of 604 Records for which your album comes out on. Particularly one of the artists, Shirley Gnome, she’s got a record that has just been released. What is it like to have that professional relationship with the record company like 604 Records?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I would say it’s wonderful because we have a project manager that we work very one on one with and it’s just great we’ve built such great relationships there. We really feel we have a team that has our back. And that’s a really good feeling to have in this industry and that can be very cut throat sometimes. And it’s just nice to have your team of people that are trying to lift you up and believe in you and want to help you. We feel very lucky.

John Murch:
The label mates that you get to share with.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
It’s fantastic. Yeah, even we featured on a song with some of our label mates, Fake Shark, a couple of years ago, and we’ve become good friends with them now. And the lead singer of that band, Kevvy Maher actually produced, “Everyone’s a critic.” So I feel like everyone in the label is intertwined and we’ve co-written with a few of the groups from the label. Yeah, and then our new record, some of the songs are produced by Josh Ramsey. He’s from Marianas Trench. We’ve always loved them. It’s actually really cool to have our names up there with such talented, amazing people.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
And it feels really good. Yeah, just the fact that you have this creative pool of people that you can work with and it’s just a really great community to be in. So we feel very lucky. We feel very happy about it.

John Murch:
Alanna, can you pick another song off the EP for us to have a chat about.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I’m trying to think of one, because a few of them have already been released, but we can talk about one that hasn’t been. I think that my favorite song that hasn’t been released is one called, “Let Me Be a Flower Child.” It was actually written by Brianne. I think it’s my favorite one because it’s really the only ballad of the record. Brianne actually, you said that you wrote it on a local bus from our hometown to the city. So all the lyrics written on the bus. Yeah, it’s my favorite one just because the lyrics are all about escaping this reality we’ve created with social media and just modern life in the city, just about being, I don’t know, going back to our roots.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I can probably explain a little bit more about that one. I wrote the lyrics on the 351. It was one of these experiences where, and that’s my favorite song that I’ve ever written. I’m very happy with this song. It started, and I had to go somewhere that day. I think I was going to work. So I got on the bus. I just continued writing the lyrics. And they haven’t changed since I first wrote the notes. Because usually you’d go through rewrites and stuff, but for this one, it didn’t. And yeah, it’s definitely about wanting to escape this world of social media and romanticising the 1960s flower child idea, but then also realizing that your idea of that comes from movies and media, it’s still fake.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
It’s still not even real, yeah.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
It’s not even real. Yeah, so it was a very just escapism ballad. I’m pretty happy with that one as well.

John Murch:
Were you guys separated during high school or were you always class together? What was the learning environment like during high school for the twins, the identical twins at that?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah, for our high school, we weren’t usually in the same classes. It’s nice though, because then you get to build a different identity. You can have different friends. Because people always assume that twins are just always wanting to stick together and just always wanting to be with each other, which we do. But it’s also nice to develop our own identities at the same time. So we never had a problem with that in high school, but it might be different for some twins.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah, I think the first year we separated, but then we … I don’t know. I guess we realised we really just wanted to share a friend group. So now even to this day we still share a friend group and yeah, we’ve always been very close in that way.

John Murch:
I can appreciate you getting a lot of the twin questions. So I really should move on from that because that’s just going to be what everyone wants to know. But because we do have The Veronicas in Australia. Have you ever heard The Veronicas’ music?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yes. I remember, “Untouched.” That was a huge song and that song, it’s a bop, it’s a jam.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
It’s a good song. I haven’t really heard their recent stuff, but I know that was the really big one that internationally blew up, right?

John Murch:
Yeah, the recent one drops this Friday. So you still have a chance to hear the recent stuff from them. It’s been a little while between. Final question regarding being twins though. If we’re talking about image, we’re talking about twin sisters, there’s only one role in musical theater that you could really be playing. Can you talk to us about Cinderella?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I guess … I know you’re right. The ugly stepsisters, right?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yes, we played the ugly stepsisters in our high school.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I think I was Mattie and she was Hattie, and she wore a fat suit, and we had a pie fight, and it was really fun. It was really fun. But of course, they had to cast us. There was nobody else they could cast.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Exactly. But we were totally okay with that, because I think that’s really what we wanted to be.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Who wants to be Cinderella? That’s kind of boring. That’s so basic.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I think it was so fun.

John Murch:
Let’s take us back to that day, be very quickly just to give a sense of history for our listener today. And that is back to 2017. The debut was called, “Skeleton,” stylistically changed between A and B.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I wrote skeleton when I was 17. So it was, I think that at that point we really felt, even both of us felt our songs were a lot stronger than they had been previous to that. And yeah, stylistically, we changed a lot. We actually started in the first place as a country folk duo. So changing our style to what Skeleton was even a bit of a leap for us. That was a bit weirder than anything we had ever done before that. So it was, yeah. I guess it’s more like a folk rock song. And I guess decision there was, I don’t know, we just felt that it was a strong song, so we wanted to release it first. But it is quite different than our recent songs.

John Murch:
Robert was then moving on through that. There was a sense of maturity coming through.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah. Well, that was a song that I wrote about my first love. And of course that’s going to bring out, I guess the more mature story. I don’t know. That’s almost very much like a story, very specific details and just very right from the heart. So that was the little ballad on that album. And it was still going with that folk thing, which we still love folk and maybe we’ll go back and do something more folky again. But I think that now we have more of a solid idea of what we wanted stylistically. Just because for the first record we were like really keen on the song writing aspect and stuff, but image wise and sound wise because we were making the transition from a country duo, we were a little bit confused about what we wanted.

John Murch:
Very much I get a feeling that these luscious ballad tones that we’re hearing still under some of the louder indie pop vibe is from you. So why so attracted to the balladeering? Is that just something that’s about you in the group? The balladeering, the longer ballads?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah, I would say that I’m the more angsty twin. Would you agree with that?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I would agree with that, yeah.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
It’s always been that way. When we were kids, my favorite character in Winnie the Pooh was Eyore.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Mine was Tigger.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
If that tells you anything, if you know the character, okay? I think it explains a lot. I’ve just always been a little bit more of that, I like to listen to sad songs and cry person. So I like to write sad songs and cry as well.

John Murch:
Alanna, how hard was it to console such an angst-ridden twin, the younger twin at that by 45 minutes?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I don’t know, I guess just give her a lot of hugs. I feel sometimes the release of emotion, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. So I don’t feel like Brianne you often need me to hold you up. It’s not really that much, but I feel like she’s just a little bit more ready to shed a tear than me. But then when she does, we just hang out, and I don’t know, we talk each other through everything. It’s not foreign to us to …

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
When you’re a twin, you feel like you, I know this sounds cliche, but you do feel like you are one person in two bodies in a way. So it’s interesting. It’s like having a conversation with yourself. Would you agree Alanna?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I don’t know. That sounds a little bit creepy, but I think it’s … Yeah, I do know what you’re saying. It almost feels like the two of you would make one person. But then we do have very different personalities. So that’s …

Brianne Finn-Morris:
It’s like different sides of yourself honestly.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Talk us through, “Mattress on the Floor.”

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah, so that one is one I wrote a little while ago. I wrote it around the time when Brianne and I first moved into our apartment, which was our first apartment. And that was a scary thing to do because we were moving into the big city from our smaller town outside the city. And I remember for some reason for the first, I guess months that we lived there, we didn’t have a bed. Because I think we were waiting on somebody to give us a bed.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
So I remember what I did for the first couple nights was I just rolled out carpet, multiple carpets on the floor with carpets underneath my head, and I think Brianne’s head as well. And then, when my boyfriend came over, and he thought it was absolutely ridiculous, and he gave me a mattress. So then we had a mattress on the floor in the apartment for the first month. And I just remember feeling lost and scared and confused and existential, the whole works, I don’t know, just, I guess the metaphor of the, “Mattress on the Floor,” that is through the song was that mattress on the floor, our first mattress on the floor and our first apartment floor.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
But then it also has the meaning of, the mattress on the floor being feeling like you’re at rock bottom almost, but having the time of your life at the same time.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Which we were, because yeah, it was a blessed, optimistic song. Because it was like, because at the end of the song it says, “From the floor, I feel free.” I feel liberated, at least for us, because we were finally out of our parents’ house and we were just feeling liberated, and young, and free and …

Brianne Finn-Morris:
We were doing it on our own for the first time …

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah, exactly.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
… like adults. It was a fun. It’s still going on, but it was, that first year especially it was such a fun time of life. But it’s like, I have nothing figured out, but I’m okay with it and I’m having a great time kind of thing.

John Murch:
It’s also good when you’re lying on the ground. At least from that perspective, you get to see the stars. Do you rarely get to see the stars on a mattress?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
That is true. Yeah, we actually have stars that we project on our ceiling as well. That all ties in. It also, as in we have a little in-home planetarium. You only put little star slides in it and then you turn on the light and it projects the stars on your ceiling. There are many nights where we would just lay with our friends and look at the stars on the ceiling.

John Murch:
When did the fascination and how far does the fascinations of space go? Would the twins want to go there one day?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Oh, that’s a good question. I think I would. I think that I would definitely love to go to space. If they start doing where regular people can go to space, then I’ll definitely want to go to space. I feel it would completely change your perspective on life and just reality in general, to be able to fly around the earth and see how small it is. It was really put in your place kind of thing.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I feel it’s nice. I’m the scaredy-cat of the two of us. There is the scaredy-cat twin that is definitely me, even though I am the more talkative. Once we will assume for some reason that Brianne might be the more scaredy-cat. I would go to space, but it would take a bit more convincing for me. And it would probably be Brianne convincing me. Brianne wants us to both learn how to scuba dive. And she’s been trying to get me to do that for years and I’m terrified of that idea. But then I feel like eventually she’ll convince me to scuba dive and go to space. It’s probably going to happen. If she does it, I’ll probably be there too.

John Murch:
Where’s that spacecraft going to make it worthwhile?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
To be honest for me, realistically, orbiting the earth would be my best option. I’m not the kind of person that would want to go to Mars or actually I’d probably go to the moon if that was ever a thing. If humans, if regular Joes like us could go to the moon, that would be pretty cool. But I wouldn’t go anywhere further than that. Not that that’s even an option at all, but yeah, some people that say that they want to be the first humans on Mars, I really respect those people because that would not be my thing. But yeah, I think the moon definitely, or even just an orbit, I would find fascinating.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I would love to go to Mars if it wasn’t for the fact that you could probably never come back. Yeah, I don’t think I’d want to be left on Mars. I think earth is pretty nice. I would definitely do the moon thing. I’d love to just jump around on the moon. Maybe I can write a song about it.

John Murch:
How is Generation Z keeping memories? I know you’re Instagramming, you’re TikToking, you’re putting everything online, but how are you actually keeping memories?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
It’s interesting because sometimes I think about it and I find that if I spend too much time taking pictures in a scenario, I almost feel it tarnishes the memory because there’s no living in the moment. So I almost have a problem where, because I think I used to, when I was younger, take lots of pictures, because I just really wanted that Instagram, that perfect Insta pic. Nowadays, I almost don’t take any pictures because I always want to live in the moment. Now I find that I have the opposite problem. I am not keeping any memories. I looked through my phone the other day and I can barely find any pictures of my life. I was like, “What have I even been doing for the past?”

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I know.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I guess we’ve all been in quarantine, so that’s what I’ve been doing. But in general yeah, I feel there’s a balance there. But I guess it just depends on who you are, because a lot of people, a lot of their memories would just be their Instagram feed, but I don’t know. What do you think about that Brianne? Are you … You’re the same as me.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Instagram almost works, the thing about Instagram is it’s your scrapbook, I suppose of pictures, but your scrapbook put on display. So it’s you pick the best ones and the ones that make you look the best. So I think it’s good in that way, in that you can keep your memories.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
But we went on our trip to England and Ireland and Scotland last year. And I think I only have four pictures from that trip, because I was doing the same thing. I really wanted to live in the moment and just enjoy everything and be free from social media, and look out the window of the train, and contemplate the meaning of life, and all this stuff. So there is a balance because I think that I missed having some pictures though. I was like, “Oh,” every time I go to look, I’m like, “There’s only like four, I wish I had at least a few more, just a few more.”

John Murch:
Do you have the confidence that you’d still remember those times that aren’t on the gram?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Absolutely. Yeah, I can close my eyes and I’ll just be right back there. We both have really good memories.

John Murch:
Let’s talk about the songwriting process for which you both are a part of, particularly across this release. What is that song writing process for you? And I guess talking about memories in line with that as well. How do you record your songs?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
We usually first off write separately. That’s what we’ve done in the past, what we did for this current record, that’s coming out. So we write separately. And I think we both write in different ways. So the way I would write is I think I’d usually come up with a melody first and a title, and I sketch out what the song was going to be about, and do a stream of consciousness to see what words would come to my mind as to what having to do with the topic that I want to cover. My writing is a bit structured in that way. And then usually I would record melodies into my voice notes on my phone.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I used to write a lot more on acoustic guitar, but these days we’re both writing a bit more on Logic Pro, so we can play around with sounds and that kind of thing, and get the vibe of the song, especially since we’re writing a bit more pop. Yeah, because before we just wrote on acoustic and then turned the songs into pop songs, but I think Brianne yours is a little bit different.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
If I’m in a room and I’m writing with other people, I can really go with the structured writing and it works for me. But in my own head, I’m just far too disorganized to be that structured pre-writing. I just write whatever comes out and I would prefer myself to write on acoustic guitar. I can just be more creative that way, because I’m really familiar with the guitar, and I feel it’s like alive or something expect really weird. It’s like my friend, and we’d go on a journey together.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I write streams of consciousness all the time in my notebook and I’ll just go through. And some of it’s just, and then some of it’s actually insightful, and so then I go with the insightful parts and then I just build around. The way I would describe it is, I get movies in my head of these random images of things, and then I write, and sow it together in my brain, according to the images and the colors.

John Murch:
When you’re talking about those streams of consciousness, are we talking pen and paper still?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yes, I write pen and paper. I wouldn’t … I don’t like looking at my phone for longer than I have to. And also I get distracted easily on my phone, [inaudible 00:29:13] clicking and checking Instagram or TikTok or something like that, just because they are meant to be addictive and they are very addictive, these apps. So I just try to put my phone somewhere I can’t find it and then go and sit and do this, because I think it destroys creativity.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
We both are still into the whole notebook, pen and paper things, so.

John Murch:
Is it a moleskine? Is there a particular pen? Eg, does it have to be the same notebook every time and the same pen?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yes. Actually, not the same pen, but the same notebook. Usually, I always want to finish a notebook. I don’t like starting new ones if one isn’t finished yet. Yeah, I think Brianne’s probably the same there. Right?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Yeah. It’s usually a case of, but then I’m like a notebook quarter and every time I see a pretty notebook in a store, I want to use it, and so the other one, so I go between maybe three or four at the same time.

John Murch:
Regarding that, not wanting to look at the phone, you may have meant during the songwriting process, or do you mean that even more generally, that you’re making a conscious decision not to engage with that in your hand?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I mean that generally, and because I think that social media can be very toxic. And I use it a lot for our band. We continue to use it because it’s, again, a good way to promote yourself. It’s really the only way these days to promote yourself and get yourself an audience and people listening to your music.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
But personally, I try not to engage in it more than I have to because I will start to get really addicted and I won’t get anything done. And then I’ll just be … It starts to make you feel bad about yourself because you’re seeing the best version of everybody else. And it starts to make you think when you sit in there in your pajamas, eating your toast in the morning and you’re like, “Oh, this person looks so glamorous.” And then you realize that they’re probably in their pajamas eating their toast at the same time. So I just try my best to live in real life.

John Murch:
Do you get a sense there’s a bit of a counter movement to that though like the whatever Friday where it’s, no makeup or the messy, well, not messy hair, because that suggests that you don’t care, but maybe the unkept hair?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
But it’s still styled unkempt hair. Because somebody is doing like, “Oh no makeup Monday or something.” I don’t know if people do, actually, I don’t know if people do that anymore. I feel that was a thing when I was a teenager. It was like, “Oh, today is no makeup day.” But they’re still obviously wearing a little bit of makeup. Still not real. It’s still like you probably took 50 selfies to get that perfect no makeup one. But I’ve always told myself, “One day I am going to get rid of it.” The phone. I’m not going to have a phone one day or any social media in fact. It’s going to happen. I just have wait until we’ve seen this music thing through and then I’m going to disappear one day.

John Murch:
What steps you would suggest. I want to get you on this Alanna in a moment as well, same question. What steps to take to get a step away from that toxicity based upon what you’ve already done?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I think that you just have to see social media as what it is. It’s hard, because when we were younger, especially when we were on it, because we used to spend a lot more time on it. It was easier to feel bad about certain things that we would see online because we just weren’t aware of what was actually going on. The fact that everybody that was on social media, they were all spending hours to try and get the perfect look. And some of these pictures were highly edited and they were professional photo shoots. But now that we’ve done more professional shoots ourselves and have done lots of research on what, on the marketing capabilities of social media, now I understand what it is.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
And now that I know I’m armed with this information, I feel like social media doesn’t hurt my feelings as much as it used to, if that makes sense. The only problem I think I have with it still is maybe it’s addictive quality, because sometimes, I’ll just end up being on Instagram. I have no idea why I’m on it. I just checked it five minutes ago, but for some reason, my thumb just take me back to the app. That scares me a little bit.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
One thing I used to do was make my phone screen black and white. You can do that with iPhones, because part of the addiction apparently is the colors. And actually it’s true because when my phone was black and white, I did not go on the app as much. So that’s how I’ve combated social media, but what about you Brianne?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I would completely agree with you about as you get older, and especially after you’ve done professional photo shoots yourself, and then you get the picture back, and you’re like, “Is that really me?” And then it shows you that there’s a lot of editing and a lot of fixing and lighting and things that are done to make it look perfect. And nobody looks that perfect, generally in real life.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Once you see it happening to yourself and you see this picture of yourself and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, that isn’t me.” Then you start to realize, “Oh, it’s the same with everybody else.” And then it makes you realize that it is fake.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I honestly worry about people that are teenagers or kids that are growing up in this environment of social media. When we were kids, there was social media around, but it was mainly Facebook and it just wasn’t the same as it is now. It’s more now. And I just, I feel I’d be afraid …

Alanna Finn-Morris:
There are so many apps to get addicted to now. For us, it was just Facebook for most of our adolescence.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
[crosstalk 00:34:31] following people that are always in your face with their perfect pictures and stuff. It’s I think it’s troubling to the minds of young people.

John Murch:
It brings us back to the EP that Everyone’s A Critic. Once those images have been done professionally and posted, there’ll still be comments, there’ll still be critics. So, my direct question to both of you, and I’ll start with you Alanna is, how do you deal with the critics?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
To be honest, I feel I just genuinely don’t care anymore. That’s a lie, not a lie. I think everybody is human. So, at first it will hurt. If we get a mean comment, it feels like a slap across the face that stings for 10 seconds and then it’s gone. It’s not like a broken leg or anything. I think when I was younger, it would have been, but now, I feel we’re experiencing that same thing because we’ve been on social media for a long time, we’ve been out in the public for a really long time, and now it’s just, it doesn’t really matter anymore. That’s what I think. It just doesn’t hurt my feelings. I think that I’m confident enough to not let it bother me. Yeah.

John Murch:
Brianne?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I’m going to say something that’s really clichéd when everybody’s mom tells them. Really the people that are writing the mean comments just feel bad about themselves. Especially if it’s commenting on appearance or something like that. Let’s say somebody hates our song. Okay? You really don’t like it. I think that somebody who feels good about themselves is happy with where they are in life will just move on. Just like, “Oh, stop listening to it.” I don’t like it, I just stop listening to it.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
But the person who’s writing, “This has been the crappiest song I’ve ever heard, blah, blah, blah.” That person is not feeling good about where they are in life. And you just have to realize that it’s a them problem, and it’s not a you problem. To them, you are a blank slate. They don’t know you. They’re projecting their own insecurities. They’re projecting their own problems onto you. For either you make them feel insecure or they just want to take out something that’s in them on you. And when you realize that, it’s hard to get offended by what they say.

John Murch:
One more track that we haven’t heard of, which we would have by the time this chat goes out fully?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
It’s one called, “Forgive Me.” And I wrote that one. And it’s a funny one because it’s just like, I was listening to a lot of Lana Del Rey, and I was wanting to write this sexy dream world song. It’s a sexy song on the album. And I’d never written a song like that. So I was like, “Okay, I’m going to give it a go.” I just pictured myself being in LA in the 60s and then wrote this song. It was just fun for me to experiment with writing a song that’s a little bit more raunchy, but it’s my parents’ favorite song on the album.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah, the words.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I like, the words. Come on guys. But no they love it. So, it can’t be that raunchy is what I’m trying to say. Maybe it’s just more raunchy in my own head.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I feel Brianne always is distinguished. She writes really poetic lyrics that in her mind are very raunchy because she knows what it’s all about, right? But then nobody else understands. So, it’s quite funny because she’ll be nervous in front of certain audiences to sing her raunchy songs.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
We had another song, on our last record called, “A Pagan’s Prayer.” It was even more poetic I think than, “Forgive Me,” this one on Everyone’s A Critic. And, “A Pagan’s Prayer,” every time we were about to play it in front of a group of people that were older people, Brianne would be like, “Oh, we can’t sing that one.” And then they just change up the set list. But I always say, “Brianne, no one’s ever going to be able to tell.” And then our dad tried to get us to sing that song in front of our grandma in Ireland. We were like, “No, no.”

John Murch:
How much of the Irish Catholic I guess, how much of that has gone through the family line to you two?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Not a whole lot because our dad grew up very Irish Catholic, but then he was in a band, and then he came to Canada. And he was band guy, but then we did get into a Catholic school, which I don’t really know why that happened because it wasn’t promoted in our family at all but we’re very familiar with it now because of going to the school.

John Murch:
The lyrics will actually be available, one would think because you’re releasing it on Vinyl, even EP, you’re taking the time to release it on Vinyl. How are you rolling with Vinyl?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
It’s going to be two-sided. I think three on one side and three on the other. We really wanted to do Vinyl for this project because it has that vintage aesthetic. We’re referencing the 60s a little bit and just get being free of the modern day social media thing. And we wanted to have the Vinyl as a part of our merge. And Vinyl also is so cool because you can get really artistic with it. You can choose a color for the Vinyl and then also design the cover and you get all the lyrics on the inside. We’re really stoked to release that into the world.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah, we have Glass designing it. For our last record, we only made CDs. I just feel these days, people want, if they’re looking for a collector’s item, because that’s what merge really is these days because obviously of we have so many streaming platforms that we can choose from, but I just think the Vinyl is maybe, it’s a cooler collector’s item I believe these days than a CD.

John Murch:
What was the first record that you guys bought with your own money?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
I’d say one of the first ones that I bought with my own money actually Marianas Trench CD when I was 12 or 13. And I think when I went to the CD store, I bought a Marianas Trench CD then a a Beyonce Halo album. What was that called? Sasha Fierce. About Sasha Fierce. I think those were the two that I chose.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Okay. Right when Brianne told hers, I totally remembered mine. Mine was Lady Gaga because I was a huge Gaga fan back in the day. And it was The Fame Monster, the record that had, “Telephone,” and, “Bad Romance,” and all that stuff. And that stuff still holds its own. I still love that record. It’s very nostalgic for me. So it was that one and I think it was the Black Eyed Peas, which I don’t know how I feel about it now, but back in the day I was a Peas fan. So yeah, I was about 12 or something.

John Murch:
It’s often true that musicians are thinking about their next project by the time records are produced, made and pressed and everything else. So what next for Fionn?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
We have…

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Well, actually we’re … Oh, sorry.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
We have actually already started on the next record. How many songs do we have done? We have probably seven done.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
I think it’s eight actually.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
We’re hopping into a bit more of a pop phase. Especially during COVID and stuff we’ve been writing a lot of more upbeat happy pop songs, which has been fun, because we’ve never tried that before. And I think everybody has multiple sides to themselves, right? And I think that there’s a side of me and Alanna that loves pop and loves just something a little more lighthearted and fun.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
And then we are also, it sounds so silly, but we’re planning this record and then planning the record after that as well in our heads. And that record, I feel we’d want it to be more like old pop, like Arcade Fires’ or something is what we are thinking. So we’re jumping from thing to thing that the next record I’m getting way ahead of my career.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Way too far ahead.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
It’s going to be pretty pop. We’re very happy with it. We’re having fun with it for sure.

John Murch:
What’s that feeling to have stuff to take to producers?

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Oh, it feels great. We’re always writing. We’re very used to it. When we were in high school we would write every day after school. And so we’ve really just built it into our routine. So, we always have material coming. And I think having a body of work ready like right now behind the album that we’re currently releasing is actually, it’s really nice. It makes things a whole lot less stressful. At least we don’t have any writer’s block. And there are two of us, even if one of us is having a little bit of writer’s block, then the other one takes the wheel for a bit. It’s nice. We’ve never had a patchy spot where we’ve had nothing to release. So no ideas. Yeah, it feels good, but you can relax a little bit.

John Murch:
You’re at the front of it. You’re doing a lot of the work, but there’s some other people involved as well. Who would you like to share and mention as we wrap up today?

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Kevvy Maher, who is the producer of Everyone’s A Critic. Basically, Everyone’s A Critic, the album that we’re currently releasing, was completely made by the three of us, me, Alanna and Kevvy. And then Alex Glassford played drums on a few of the tracks. Other than that, it was all a lot of time that was just the three of us spent working on it, which I thought was really cool. And so we have to give him so much credit for how the album came out and …

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
… we just are so proud of it, and so thrilled.

John Murch:
Alanna and Brianne, thanks very much for joining radionotes.

Alanna Finn-Morris:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.

Brianne Finn-Morris:
Oh, thank you.

 

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