Exposed Vocals Interviews Spencer and Sequoia

Spencer: I grew up in Seattle, and my musical journey began on trumpet. Sequoia grew up in New Zealand, which is much more exotic and interesting. She was one of five kids, all homeschooled, and all encouraged to study music. So she learned piano, violin, guitar, and sang ever since childhood. That included songwriting too!

Sequoia: Our name isn’t very creative. We are thinking about changing it, at the same time though, I am not too crazy about ‘hipster formulas’ especially for bands (random color/adjective + random animal =band name). Spencer: I’ve been in enough bands with terrible names that I’m very cautious now…so until we really find the right name, that we’ll stick with, we are going to be Spencer and Sequoia.

Sequoia: As much as we all love the idea and look of record players, people love soundtracks to their lives as they go about even the most mundane things. Online sharing allows that so I am all for it. We give our music away for free because its more of a passion we love sharing as opposed to a business with fees imposed. Our music can be found at http://www.soundcloud.com/spencerandsequoia

Spencer: Sure! I think the most important part is to practice. Hone your craft, become proficient. Whether that’s singing, songwriting, playing guitar, drums, or whatever. Just do it, and do it a lot. Also, be open-minded, and seek out other opinions. Listen to criticism, and learn from your mistakes.

Sequoia:I believe your process will depend on your motive for writing. Because I always wrote for therapy and pure self expression, I usually have the song in my head, so I would play around on the guitar to find a riff that suits, and then sing away. I draw inspiration from the things we feel but never get around to finding a way to express in words. That fascinates me.

Spencer: We are working on our own independent website, but for now our Reverbnation site is our main one…Reverbnation is an awesome platform for new, unsigned bands. There are very good opportunities on there. Other than that, we use soundcloud and YouTube and Sonicbids. Pretty standard stuff.

Sequoia: Buy a house in New Zealand with a mint studio, and just record some awesome tunes.

Spencer: I think it has to be a combination of live performance and internet presence. We love performing live, especially in new places and in front of new people. I still feel like there’s nothing quite like building a fan base organically, connecting with real people face to face, and then watching it spread through word of mouth. That said, there’s gotta be an online part to it as well.

Sequoia: Currently recording some new songs and working on an EP.

Sequoia: Thinking about making music:-)

Sequoia: We try to work as a team to allow us to do music, but not for us to lose the passion because our practical lives are falling apart. It’s important to be practical, and also because we’re married and are a duo, we don’t always want to be talking ‘business’. We try to still just have fun jams and not feel like we’re constantly practicing for something specific.