[Mona Wagner]

You’re right, he’s one of the few “bigguns” left that we’ve never covered! This one is mainly on Lisa and her lead playing 😉

It sure would be fun to try and tackle the Hendrix magic one day but we’ll only ever do it if we think we can add something meaningful to a cover. Leave it with us, I’m sure we’ll figure something out once we’ve got the time to do a few covers again!

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the question! Since we’ve been asked this a few times already, may we be so cheeky to redirect you to this post where Lisa has answered the question before: https://test4.monalisa-twins.com/forums/topic/deciding-who-sings-lead/

Thanks! 🙂

Deciding who sings lead

[Mona Wagner]

Absolutely! It undoubtedly helped to have a rhythmic/percussive background when I first picked up an acoustic guitar. In my opinion, with rhythm guitar it’s so much more important to play in a steady and dynamic way than it is to play clean chords or fancy inversions.
Lose the beat and you lose everything, no fancy lead playing can salvage that 😉

[Mona Wagner]

Hi John,

We do get recognised on the streets from time to time, mostly when we go somewhere where there are crowds, like city centers, concerts, etc. especially if they are in Liverpool.
We love meeting the people that watch our videos and enjoy our music, so these are almost always very positive experiences. 🙂

When someone recognises us during sweaty runs or when we pop to the shops in our joggers it’s less ideal but it’s hard to predict! 😉

Our family and closest friends that have known us for years would treat us the same no matter what, thankfully. The only time “being known” can make things a bit weird, even at our modest level of “fame”, is when meeting new people or making new friends. Either they know from the start, then we don’t know if they are changing their behaviour towards us. Or they find out very quickly and then there sometimes is a short phase of excitement and confusion on the other side, haha. It’s all good though, there really isn’t much to complain about 🙂

We are sure it’s much more of a problem if you are Beatles-level-famous!

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Antonio!

Haha, we had our fair of fights when we were kids! They turned less physical as we grew older but to this day we bicker and argue as most siblings do. 😉

We are as quick to make up as we are to start shouting at each other, so our “fights” usually never last longer than a few minutes and we almost always end up laughing about it immediately afterwards.

In the end it’s always peace & love!

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the suggestion, it’s great to hear that John Ford Coley is still out there hitting the stages (well, if it wasn’t for the current restrictions).

We share the sentiment of “Love is the answer”, what a great message 🙂 Thanks for the suggestion, we haven’t heard that song in a long time!

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Bill,

I don’t remember much of our “music history” lessons in high school but I have some vivid memories of our teacher going over Chubby Checker’s “Let’s Twist Again” and “The Twist” with us. That must have been about 15 years ago but I hadn’t thought of that song since until you sent that link! 🙂

I’m not sure if we’ll ever adapt it for a cover but I thank you for that trip down memory lane regardless 😉

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Rick,

Tiger Baby isn’t built for fame and fortune, it prefers a more quiet way of living, right on my bedside table by my phone charger and the stack of books which I’ve started but never finished. Unlike Lampibampi it doesn’t need cameras and movie sets to feel fulfilled, it is content in its own squishy head.

Perhaps I can change its mind one day but for now that’s where we stand 🙂

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Rick,

I think you are talking about what’s in the photo.

This is a pick up switch – nearly all electric guitars have one, and what they do is they quickly switch the pickups on a guitar on and off. My Ricky has three positions: Top position = bridge pickup, Middle position = both pickups, Bottom position = neck pickup.

The pickups are the transducers underneath the guitar strings that pick up the sound of a guitar (with magnets and coils) which can then get amplified and recorded. 🙂 They sound different depending on where they are positioned on the guitar which is why there is a switch to control them, to change the tone of your guitar.

With the way I play I would often flick my pickup switch by accident when I touch it with my right hand. Usually that’s not a big problem – you just flick it back – but when we were recording the final set we wanted to make sure that it didn’t happen by mistake because it would be noticeable on the recording.

So dad took a thin black carbon plate and screwed two holes into it, one for the switch and one was fixed on the screw that holds the pickguard. It’s a bit hard to explain but hopefully it’s easier to see in the photo. It basically prevents me from flicking the switch so that it would always be in the middle position. I can still change the sound by using the knobs but I usually only move those when I actually mean to 😉

My red Ricky does not have that carbon plate installed so it might be that I just explained something completely irrelevant to you and you actually meant to ask about something else but please just let me know haha.

Have a groovy day,
Mona

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Roger,

That photo must have happened after the recording and filming for our “Wish You Were Here” cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUV9HqoKvo

It’s quite the emotional song so neither of us were in an overly jolly mood during the shoot (usually there’s a lot of laughing, stupid jokes and being silly) so perhaps that got captured in that photo … or perhaps I was staring into space trying to remember the next verse which is equally possible. 🙂

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Diana!

Surprisingly we still earn the most through CD and Download sales (especially the CD part is surprising to us) along with the regular contributions of everyone here at the MLT Club. But in the end it’s a mix of everything that keeps us afloat, really.

We’ve created enough streams to be able to focus on bigger projects which is a liberating feeling and one that has been years in the making. The Club is playing a major part in this and all of you (I am pointing the finger at you, Diana, and everyone reading this ;-)) are quite directly responsible for us being able to do this full time.

YouTube, streaming revenue, ticket sales, merchandise, licensing deals … is all nice when it happens but the MLT Club and music sales make the lion’s share.

It paid off to think outside the box here, and while it’s a lot of work it’s also so incredibly fun and satisfying to make our own journey happen in that way, also financially speaking 🙂

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Lynn,

You deserve a round of applause for sticking with it for 4 months alone, that’s great! Keep at it just a little longer and we’re sure you’ll soon fly through those chord changes like a pro. We’re looking forward to the day when we get to hear your cover of “I Don’t Know Birds That Well” but take your time 🙂

The longer you keep playing the more you’ll find those little tricks of changing chord positions and some you won’t even have to think about anymore.

Starting off, we struggled with barre chords as much as the next person. F was the devil!

These days we know enough to be able to modify any chord to a position that works with our hands and type of playing. Very rarely do you have to play a chord in a position that’s really hard. There are always many ways to play the same chord. 🙂

Hard chord progressions? The first thing that came to mind was our original “I Wanna Kiss You”. It recorded in a way where I jump all over the fretboard so whenever we played that live I had to spend a full day trying to relearn that pattern. It was more of a mental challenge than in my hand but I think that counts, too!

Good luck for the rest of your journey!

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Bill!
You are right, the bridge is quite often the tricky bit of a song, especially if we start working on it once the rest of the song is already completely finished. It’s a bit like “Alright, what we have so far is quite good, now we need to add another part without ruining it all”! 🙂

So yes, your guess is quite accurate there, and it sometimes takes us a few tries to get a bridge right.

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Bill!
You are right, the bridge is quite often the tricky bit of a song, especially if we start working on it once the rest of the song is already completely finished. It’s a bit like “Alright, what we have so far is quite good, now we need to add another part without ruining it all”! 🙂

So yes, your guess is quite accurate there, and it sometimes takes us a few tries to get a bridge right.

[Mona Wagner]

Haha, the horse story! Yes, we once were staying on a campsite in Croatia where they offered horse riding excursions through the countryside. We must have been 6 or 7 at the time and dad let us sign up for a trip which we were really excited about.

While we were getting the horses ready, for whatever reason, I got it in my head that the horse they assigned to me was evil. It had a certain angry look about it and it scared me to death.

So I talked myself into a panic attack of some sort, freaked out for about an hour for no real reason and refused to join the trip. Dad found it funny which only made me more angry. 😉 When I finally calmed down I joined a different riding group than Lisa (because they had already taken off) but still with the same horse – and as it turned out my horse was the sweetest, most well behaved horse out of the whole group!

So it turns out, I was wrong. Not my proudest moment. Maybe there is a “don’t judge a book by its cover” lesson in there or perhaps I just don’t know horses that well.

The “Hey Bulldog” story is funny. Thank god you didn’t dance to Helter Skelter or god knows what might have happened!

Always keep dancing! 😉