Admin Mona Wagner
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Hi Brian,
What a flattering question, thanks a lot!
I’ll try to answer it as best as I can but I also feel like I need to emphasise that we are probably much less perfect than your post suggests. 😉 Especially on the internet, it’s easy to present yourself in the best way possible – you just don’t post the things that emphasise your flaws … of which we have as many as the next person.I also think that some of what you mention has to do with our upbringing. For example, we grew up in a family where looks, physical things and money were much less important than dreams, honesty and integrity, and we grew up on curiosity and an open mind which I think is the driving force for learning and becoming a better person.
We’ve tried to live by those values to various degrees of success over the years, but I think fundamentally a lot of the virtues you list stem from our upbringing as well as through learning by falling on our faces quite a few times. 😉
Anyway, thanks for the compliments, we’ll try to continue to make as many people’s days as best as possible and for as long as we can! 🙂
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At the time we shot this video we worked quite closely with a promoter and the dog was his. His name is Adrian Monk and he was being a really good boy helping us out in the music video 🙂
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Hi Ed!
The drums were the first instrument I picked up, quite a few years before I ever touched a guitar. It started off with a family friend giving me some lessons when I was around 10 years old and I absolutely loved it – it was definitely my first passion when it comes to making music. I just soon found out that it wasn’t ideal for singing (I’d drown myself out without a microphone) so I started taking guitar lessons too. 😉
I play a great Ludwig kit these days with mainly Zildjian cymbals but I started off learning on a super cheap £200 set which we bought from a supermarket chain back in Austria. I loved it just the same even though the cymbals were complete rubbish, objectively speaking. I couldn’t have cared less!
To answer your second question … Both of us have occasionally helped out on percussion in some brass orchestras and marching bands that were local to where we grew up. We’ve also sang with them a few times and were part of a choir that would do everything from contemporary to more traditional songs. Oh, and we’ve definitely learned and performed a handful of classical guitar pieces over our student years!
Jazz is something we’ve watched others play live many times but to do it on a high level, it would require a set of skills which we have never invested much time into learning. So we’d never dare jumping in with a jazz band but we like to incorporate elements from pretty much all genres into our original music.
Thanks for the question!
Mona -
You just had us re-watch that part of the video a dozen times ???? It’s hard to make out but from what we can tell it’s 20p, 10p. 5p and two coins that are either 1p or 2p? So that’s 37p or 39p … Drat! We meant to do 33 😉
Just kidding … We are all for adding deeper and layered meaning to songs and videos, and we have definitely done that on several occasions including “Waiting for the Waiter” but we don’t need symbolism and numerology for that. So no, there is no deeper meaning here, but we enjoyed the detective work and would love to know what you think it meant!
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Hi Jung,
That’s awesome that you get so many vegetables from your own garden – props to your wife! And props to you for donating your Mustang’s trunk to such a messy job! 🙂Last summer was only the second year of me trying to grow stuff so I’m really still just an enthusiastic noob about it all. Last year I tried to cover everything in flowers and the year before I was focusing more on vegetables. I had some successes and failures in both but in my first year I grew broad beans from seed and harvested enough for several “mashed pea” side dishes so that was probably my broadest moment, haha!
And here is my “flower corner” on a good day (photo attached)!I’m looking forward to this summer to see if I can make it even more colourful 🙂
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Hi Robert!
Since it’s nearly impossible to plan anything ahead at the moment we’ll continue putting our energy in studio projects for the foreseeable future. Governments and regulations have become quite unpredictable so we think it’s for the best right now to continue creating things that keep us flexible and can be enjoyed by our whole audience worldwide. 🙂
Of course it would be great to hit the stage again – we just doubt it will happen anytime soon. -
Hi Thomas,
England really is a gardener’s dream, and it’s been incredible watching all the gardens of the neighbourhood transform in just the last couple of weeks. Spring is well on its way and there are daffodils, crocuses and tulips popping up everywhere!The DIY planter video (which I think your post is referring to?) was filmed last year in August so don’t let that fool you – we’re still far away from consistent tank top weather and blooming Marigolds although we did have lots of sunshine and 21C today which was nice and unexpected.
I came across Ron Finley last year when I saw his ad for Masterclass and bookmarked it straight away, so it’s funny you bring him up here! I only watched a couple of videos back then but I’ll look up the TED talk when I’ve got a spare minute.
Our garden isn’t big or sunny enough to grow a lot of veggies but I currently have some garlic on the way and last year was able to harvest some tomatoes, courgettes and broad beans. It wouldn’t get us through Winter but it was a fun experience ????
Happy Spring!
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Steve!
We’ve never welcomed you back!Thanks for being here again, we are so glad that things are going better for you and send you big hugs. We hope you’re staying groovy and positive!
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Hi Ian,
Sorry that it took us so long to welcome you, we completely missed your post! WELCOME, it’s great to have you here! We hope you’ve been enjoying the first couple of months here in the MLT Club.
We share your positives of the past year with you! 🙂We’ve never explored so many local parks and paths and to be living as a family was a true blessing as we’ve been able to continue working, writing and recording as normal and could be there for each other.
Keep on keeping on and thanks for the support!
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Hello Daniel,
Thank you so much for that message, we are incredibly sad to hear about your twin brother’s passing and can’t even begin to imagine how that must feel like. We are sure he’s still with you in one way or another ♥To know that you had those years together making music and playing in a band is precious and we know how special that is. The fact that the Beatles made you drop the violin and piano for guitar and drums made us chuckle.
Lots of love from both of us and thank you for being so open and for supporting our journey,
Mona & Lisa -
Hi John!
Yes, we were lucky to see and meet quite a few musicians and bands like Micky Dolenz (The Monkeys), The Pretty Things, Clem Burke (Blondie), the Zombies, Donovan, …
All of them were great and it’s hard to pick a “favourite” but meeting Micky definitely was a highlight 🙂
In the audience, there would sometimes be Liverpool football players and quite a lot of local musicians came to watch us over the years. Of course, that’s always a thrill and an honour. We’ve been very lucky! -
Hi Bill!
A long time ago, shortly after the album came out we wrote a whole post about the title of the album, where it came from and what the inspiration for it was. You can find it here if you want to read up on our answer back then:
https://test4.monalisa-twins.com/why-orange/Basically, it was Stanley Kubrik’s “Clockwork Orange” that first made us think of the word, plus there are quite a few unique quirks about “orange” … it hardly rhymes with anything, for example. And yes, it’s a pretty colour, too! 😉
All the best to you and Maddie! -
Hi Eric!
It’s something that started all the way back in early highschool when we were allowed a dyed streak in our hair after a particularly good report card – that was all the rage back in the mid-2000’s. Lisa chose red and I chose blonde. From there on out things escalated over the years 😉
We’ve tried all sorts of things with our hair since then but always returned to those two colours, and ever since we’ve become more “public” with our YouTube videos and so on we stuck to it for the sake of consistency. And most importantly because we like the way it looks, of course!
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Our first couple of guitars all had names! Candy and Jack were the first two – a cheap Strat copy and a Gibson 335 copy. These days they are stored away in the back of the cupboard but occasionally we get them out and reminisce about the first songs we learned on them.
The guitars we play now are just the “Ricky”, “Gretsch”, “Martin” etc. …. Pretty boring but we are busy enough remembering chords and song lyrics, so anything on top of that is just asking for trouble 😉
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Hi John!
It came about a few months after moving to the UK in 2014. At that point we were looking for a residency spot somewhere in Liverpool – we wanted a stage where we could perform at regularly so we could get a good live band together and build a local audience here in town. We didn’t even think of the Cavern Club at first!
Just like “moving to Liverpool” felt to us initially, getting a residency spot at the Cavern Club seemed a bit “too perfect”, and it took us a good few weeks to even approach them.
Turns out, the owner has heard us many times on Billy Butler’s radio show on BBC Radio Merseyside, where we were performing every Saturday for a while. So he was well familiar with us and our music. He actually was excited that we reached out and offered us a weekend spot straight away (as a duo, at first) and things went from there!
It once again taught us the lesson that sometimes all you gotta do is ask and create your own opportunities.
It was a fun two years and we are glad we did it! 🙂