Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hanna x Madge. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hanna x Madge, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
Growing up in our house, Saturday mornings were made for family breakfast and watching music videos. What we ate was arbitrary—it could be waffles or scrambled eggs or plain old cereal. But sitting down after the meal while one of our parents cleaned up the kitchen and the other helped us search for music videos was almost always a given. Our childhood was full of music despite neither one of our parents knowing how to play an instrument or sing. Even before we could play instruments ourselves, we were parading around the house clanging utensils on pots and pans or pretending our tennis rackets were guitars. We couldn’t wait for a car ride somewhere—anywhere—because it meant listening to music. Between Hilary Duff, Vanessa Carlton, Taylor Swift and our parents’ selection of 70s R&B and 90s alternative, we were fed a balanced diet of genres. As we grew up, both our parents encouraged us to lean into our creative passions, fostering an environment where we could learn instruments, get involved with our local theater groups, and take time to dream of a future where pursuing a creative career could become a reality.
As we approached our teenage years, we noticed our friends being encouraged less and less by their households to continue exploring the outlets that utilized our imaginations in childhood. It was time to turn a blind eye to the things that set our hearts on fire and begin planning for a practical future as early as the age of 12. It felt like a setup. For the first decade of life we can respond with astronaut or painter or mermaid when asked the illustrious question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” , and adults smile and cheer on our responses no matter how wild. Then one day, the smiles turn pitying—creative pursuits are abandoned for extracurriculars that look more preferable on college applications. While our parents openly communicated to us about the drawbacks and unpredictability of pursuing a career in a creative field and encouraged us to simultaneously go after the college degrees we have since earned, they also continued to help us find opportunities to grow in our passion for music and songwriting.
We wholeheartedly believe we would not have half the grit and determination we do if we had not experienced being told ‘no’ to playing a venue, knocking on the doors of labels and publishers to invite them to our shows, or being the only women in the room during a recording session. We wouldn’t know the rush of being terrified of doing something and then doing it anyway if we hadn’t gone on countless stages or cold-called music executives or approached our music heroes after a show. While the times we’ve been told ‘yes’ feel incredible, it’s all the times we’ve been told ‘no’ that make the wins that much sweeter and show us how strong we’ve become to keep reaching for our goals in the face of rejection. These opportunities our parents encouraged us to seek out have not only given us knowledge and experience, but have also become the setting for some of our most precious (or at least most entertaining) memories as a family. Whether singing in a centuries old pub in an English village or the time we booked a show at a tattoo parlor solely to play for the parlor owner’s mom, we feel lucky for the weirdness and wonder and interruption music unfailingly provides us from the day to day routine. These opportunities to explore our dream of being touring musicians would not be possible without our parents’ choice to not dissuade us from them or their help in creating the opportunities themselves. It is already challenging enough to pursue a creative life, but we can’t imagine doing so without the support and encouragement our parents have consistently shown us. They have never made our dream feel small or stupid, and to this day it’s rare we don’t see their faces in the crowd at all of our shows.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
We are a Nashville based singer-songwriter sister duo who have been playing and writing music together since we were kids. We create most of our songs in our string-light-covered home studio between laughs, snacks, and story swaps. Our music has been described as the lovechild of Taylor Swift and Simon & Garfunkel and some of our other musical influences include Beck, Cake, the Indigo Girls, Hanson, and Haim.
We have played hundreds of shows all over the world, from performances in Nashville’s famed Bluebird Cafe to the historic Crane Bar in Galway, Ireland and venues in Portugal, Scotland, England, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and more.
In 2020, we started TeaTime & Tunes, an Instagram livestream series dedicated to celebrating storytelling in all its forms through conversations with acclaimed authors and songwriters. Since its inception, we’ve hosted more than 100 episodes of the show and have spoken with special guests such as New York Times bestselling authors V.E. Schwab, Holly Black, TJ Klune, Marissa Meyer, Jenna Evans Welch, and Stacey Lee as well as Grammy-nominated folk singer Mary Gauthier.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative is witnessing someone else embrace our work and getting to watch it transform from a piece of our hearts into a piece of theirs. When we write a song, we pour our souls and quirks and personal stories into it. For something that feels so intimate and unique to our lives to also be accessible to someone else…it just reminds us that we are not alone. It’s the most magical, connective feeling when we are playing one of our songs at a show and we look into the crowd and see someone’s eyes glistening. You just know that it’s not our story they’re hearing anymore, but their own, and for us to be able to give a voice to a feeling or experience someone is going through but struggling to communicate is such a gift. Our drive to create comes from the gratitude we have for our favorite creators, songwriters, and authors. It feels holy to hear a song or read a book that feels like its narrating a part of our own lives; to be able to share that feeling with someone else through our music is everything.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
In many songwriting workshops and within the greater songwriting community we would often hear that if there is someone more successful or with more experience than you in the room, your role is to listen. While we believe listening is incredibly valuable to furthering knowledge and experience, there are situations where it can be detrimental not to speak up, especially when the advice you’re being given directly affects your art. We had a situation where we were in a recording session with some incredibly talented, very experienced musicians. We were working on recording a handful of our songs and the musicians had a lot to say about how our music should sound. While we welcome collaboration and the flow of ideas between creatives, in this particular situation our ideas were being quickly dismissed and swept under the rug. We ended up wasting time and money for a project we ultimately felt did not accurately represent us or our music. Just because someone is successful or highly respected in their field does not mean that their opinion can be applied as a blanket statement or that their advice is necessarily going to resonate with you and assist you in pursuing your goals. Constantly prioritizing someone else’s advice over your own gut instincts can confuse your true vision for your work and steer you down a path that leads you farther away from where you are meant to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hannaandmadge.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannaxmadge/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hannaXmadge/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpHPpx989PsNA4xxAi9wRVQ
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2onFduq6O2OX69CcV0NVUM https://linktr.ee/hannaxmadge