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Meet Amanda Palmer Proteges Evelyn Evelyn

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Last week, it was announced that Frances Bean Cobain, daughter of Kurt and Courtney, will make her singing debut on Evelyn Evelyn’s forthcoming album (due out March 30).

Evelyn Evelyn, in case you’re not familiar, is a music and art project conceived by Amanda Palmer, who is best known for her work with the Dresden Dolls, andexperimental musician Jason Webley. Palmer and Webley perform and record as Evelyn Evelyn.

When we contacted Palmer to get more info about the project we were told that Evelyn Evelyn are the “world’s only conjoined twin singer-songwriter duo” and share between them “three legs, two arms, two hearts, three lungs, and a single liver.” (Their only “official” photo is posted above.) They turn 25 this year.

When we asked to interview Evelyn Evelyn, we were told that “the twins are shy and do not do interviews.”

So we emailed our questions to Palmer, who returned the responses below, in which “the twins” explain their early days playing ukulele in the circus, their musical influences Guns N’ Roses and the Andrews Sisters, and why they prefer to collaborate with each other than with other musicians.

When did you first discover your desire to write and perform music?
We were in the circus and they gave us a ukulele and we played it then, but we didn’t know how and now we are better — we learned chords on the computer. We play the piano and the guitar and now the accordion too.We wrote our first song about an elephant, but they are dead now.

Who were some of the artists whose music influenced your writing?
Our favorite is Jesus Christ Superstar. We also like Joy Division and the Andrews Sisters and Guns N’ Roses and our friends.

How did you first meet Amanda and Jason? Were you fans of their work?
Okay, don’t tell anyone. We found them on MySpace and we liked them and they are friends and we wanted them to help us so we made a email (it was a fake email, did you know you can do that?) and wrote to them saying you should listen to this band. And they wrote to us. And they helped us. Don’t tell them.

What was the most difficult part of bringing the album to life?
We had to make so many decisions about how many times to sing some parts and what will the words be forever. It is hard because it is forever and what if you choose wrong?But it was fun too, and now it even sounds better than Jesus Christ Superstar (in some parts.)

You have a very special guest star on the album, also making her debut: Frances Bean Cobain. How did she get involved, and what was it like to work with her?
We don’t know her. Amanda knows her. We hope she likes the record. Her voice is pretty and we want to meet her and eat sushi.

Tegan & Sara also a made guest appearance. Did you swap stories about being twins?
Amanda knows them too. They sang with us but they weren’t with us when they sang with us — they were on the computer. But we watched them on YouYube. They are so pretty. Maybe it is not fair to trade stories because our stories are probably different. But we hope they will meet us too and we will eat sushi.

With whom did you most enjoy collaborating?
We collaborate best together. With other people, it is hard. Jason is nice but his songs don’t make sense sometimes and he has a beard. So, we guess, Amanda.

Will some live appearances be scheduled?
We are going on a trip with Jason and Amanda and another man. All of our friends will come and see us!

LISTEN: Evelyn Evelyn, “Have You Seen My Sister Evelyn?”(DOWNLOAD MP3)