They’re the sisters from Indiana with the voices beautiful enough to break hearts. Lily & Madeleine first made it big when YouTube videos of them singing together went viral on Reddit. Since then they've toured the world and released their self-titled first album. At 17 and 19 though, Lily and Madeleine are super young - in fact Lily hasn't even finished school and she's even missing her prom! We talked to the girls about what it's like to try and be normal teenagers when you're living out of hotels.
The Debrief: Have you been singing together your whole lives?
Lily: I would say yeah pretty much our whole lives. Our mom is really musical, she plays piano and guitar and she sings, she’s been in some choirs and she always sings around the house. So we kind of just picked that up from her.
DB: You guys got discovered on YouTube…
Madeleine : Yeah. We just made some very simple songs and we put them on YouTube and then our neighbor put one of them Reddit and it went viral. It was a total surprise! And then we decided to release the EP on this wave of attention that we’d gotten through Reddit. So it was pretty crazy.
DB: Has social media been integral to your career?
L: Yeah definitely. Its so easy to connect with people. Sometimes it’s bad because you could overexpose yourself. You know like when something’s trending on the Internet everywhere and then nobody wants to see it anymore?
DB: You’re 17 and 19 do you find being on tour rough?
M: It is hard because we’re still in school. Or we should be! Lily is taking online classes so she can still graduate from high school in time and I should be in university but I'm taking a semester off.
I think Miley Cyrus has honestly just nailed it – what she’s doing is really offering up who she is to her audience.
DB: Have you had any pressure to focus more on the way you look?
L: For young women there’s a lot of pressure to be beautiful because sex appeal is a big part of music. There’s a pressure when taking pictures or shooting videos because you want to look you know beautiful – but we’re really lucky to be surrounded by people who really support our music and our musical abilities. You know, we’re not out to be pop stars. We don’t really feel pressure to be sexualized – that’s definitely rare.
DB: How do you feel about pop stars that strip down to get noticed?
M: I think Miley Cyrus has honestly just nailed it – her image is not something that we would personally go for but what she’s doing is really offering up who she is to her audience. I found actually that in the UK I feel less pressure to look really polished. I’ll dress up and try and look nice for a show because who wouldn’t do that? But less pressure here. I feel like people are more interested in the message.
DB: Is it weird going between being in college and on the road?
M: Yeah our friends are really supportive but I feel like they just don’t really understand what we’re doing now. We have different priorities from our friends – like, because Lily is in high school her friends are really focused on prom right now and getting a prom dress. Lily is focusing on playing a concert in London. And I personally feel a little bit nervous about going back to college because it’ll be like starting over again. All my friends will be have moved on and I don’t know what I'm studying yet exactly. I think we’ll just figure it out as we go – it’s ok.
DB: Lily will you miss prom?
L: Yeah I think so – it’s not until April but I think I’ll be in a different city the day before so I’d have to drive five hours to get to prom. All my friends have a Facebook page so all their friends can post pictures of their dresses so no one else gets the same. Yeah it’s weird.But I mean whatever. I don’t care that much about prom anyway!
Lily & Madeleine's new single I've Got Freedom is out 24th Feb.
Follow Jess on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.