We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brothers Koren a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brothers , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
As brothers, we were co-leading our rock band, The Kin and touring the world, opening for artists like Coldplay, P!NK and Rod Stewart. We played to over a million people in our final year of touring, over 60 arena shows and it was exhilarating. We were signed to Interscope records and living in NYC.
We decided to relocate to Los Angeles on a gut feeling that we were also meant to write conscious pop music for young female artists in the music business. We quickly found ourselves writing and submitting songs for top artists, like Rihanna and Justin Bieber, but something in us felt dissonant. Our values were at odds with what we were being asked to write about and one day, between sessions, we asked each other, “are you enjoying this?” We both agreed that it wasn’t what we felt called to do and so in a vulnerable moment, we asked the air between us, “if it’s not this, then what are we here to do?”
We both lost sleep that night and the next day in a drive through Beverly Hills to another writing session we had a download, “what if we got to know the artist like we were their brothers; their story, their unique voice and the music they’ve always loved. Then from that place of connection and curiosity, we write songs that bring out their biggest gifts. We thought, “imagine that!” And put the idea on a piece of paper.
Two weeks later, a seventeen year old fan of ours from Washington DC wrote to us on Facebook and simply said, “would you ever consider working with a first time artist?” It struck us that this was our opportunity to offer this new way of big brothering and creative mentoring that we had downloaded. We offered it to her and she said yes! We spent the next three months getting to know her and she flew out to record a four song EP, that went on to win the John Legend Songwriting Competition and she got a showcase at SXSW.
It snowballed from there, as people we knew started asking if they could do the process with us and today, ten years later, we have co-written almost ten thousand songs and journeyed with hundreds of artists and first timers from around the world, in what we now call The Songwriters Journey.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
We are all uniquely and naturally very musical and we each have a distinct voice. From a young age, we are touched by songs, that become the safe space for us to go through life’s journey.
There is a lot of cultural mythology and misunderstanding about the role of music in our lives. We often think we should leave singing up to the professionals.
However, we find that great vitality, satisfaction and joy can come to us when we unlock the transformative power of music, song and voice in our lives.
So many of us are walking around with a song in us that we don’t know how to access. We make it simple, practical and cathartic for a person from any walk of life, to unearth the music inside them and capture it in our studio.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
We had to see that the comparative and competitive nature of the music business completely over looked the possibility that music and song is for all voices and can be used as therapy for mental and emotional well being.
How’d you meet your business partner?
We are brothers and business partners and creative collaborators. We have an unusual amount of harmony in our relationship, which can be both confronting and inspiring to others who have siblings.
We are told that from day one we had our own language and simpatico. We’ve always been thick as thieves and look to complement rather than compete.
There’s always going to be natural competition but that spurs us on to be best we can be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Brotherskoren.com
- Instagram: @brotherskoren
Image Credits
Brendan Willing James
James St Vincent