This month, Diet Cig run the gauntlet of our random, stupid queries.
Hello. How are you?
Alex: Hi! I’m feeling great! Snuggled up next to my roommate’s pup while writing this.
Noah: Feeling good! Just released the new single ‘Tummy Ache’. It’s been an exciting couple of days! Can’t wait until the record is out!
What have you been up to today?
Alex: Nothing super wild and exciting, but Noah and I are about to leave for Harry Potter Trivia at a local bar!!!
Noah: Just woke up, probably gonna make a mean plate of eggs after this interview
What’s your favourite thing about being a musician?
Alex: Dancing around like an idiot playing live! It’s honestly the most fun in the world! I feel like a cartoon character or Lindsay Lohan at the end of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. It rules.
Noah: The opportunity to get to travel is a really exciting part. Always learning something new and meeting new people. Also, to play music all the time! That’s honestly my favourite part.
What did you last dream about?
Alex: OMG this is so crazy, but I had a dream I worked in a diner and Eminem came in and held us up at gunpoint and demanding grilled cheese sandwiches, and after we had fed him, he set a grease fire in the kitchen and left! I saved everyone in the diner by smothering the fire instead of pouring water on it like everyone thought we should. I learned that trick on Chopped I think.
Noah: That our house cat Twig got out. It was a little stressful.
What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?
Alex: One time I crowd surfed off of a 15ft high monitor stack, and it was like a trust fall into a giant blob of drunk dancing people… somehow they caught me, but I didn’t realise how high it was until I was up there and there was no going back at that point!
Noah: Still get spooked when I think about this… One time on tour, we had a couple of days in Olympia, WA. We were staying with a good buddy of mine, Harry, from high school. Alex and I were invited by one his friends, Zachary, to check out his cool/super-secret/favourite place to go and hang out at night. We were game to check it out, sounded chill. Zachary drives us for a while, and we get to a meadow on the side of the road. We get out of the car and start following him through the meadow, and toward the woods. This is the point where Alex and I were starting to get a little nervous… He’s not giving us any information about where we’re going. It’s pitch dark, and we come up to this huge round object. He tells us to crawl into it. Alex and I are practically hugging each other in fear. Alex climbs in first (she’s a little more courageous than me…), and we stand up inside this empty water tank. It was insane the sounds it was making inside, and also very spooky. Everything outside sounded like it was right behind you. It turned into a cool thing for a bit. Then we spooked ourselves, ’cause we thought someone/something was circling the tank. We ran out of there real quick!
Have you ever won anything?
Alex: I win like every raffle I enter (hope this doesn’t jinx it!). Seriously please let me in on your raffles. I will win.
Noah: My brother and I won the youth league basketball championship one year when we were 13. That was pretty awesome!
What is the worst job you’ve ever had?
Alex: I used to work at a bakery which was awesome, but waking up at 5am and trying not to just stuff my face with cookies every day was HARD.
Noah: Stood in Times Square and tried to sell tickets to a comedy show. Very soul-sucking, quit the same day.
Who was your favourite musician or band when you were 14?
Alex: Oh god probably Fall Out Boy, haha. I also really loved Ben Folds and once convinced a boy to download me his entire discography and burn it onto CDs which I still have.
Noah: The Used! I listened to their first record every day at least 100 times a day.
What’s the best song you’ve written or played on?
Alex: Hmm it’s a song from our new record called ‘Link In Bio’. I don’t know if it’s the best, but we wrote it in the studio, and I’m so proud of it!! I’m also super proud of ‘Sleep Talk’!
Noah: There’s a couple off our upcoming album that I’m really stoked on!
What’s your favourite pizza topping?
Alex: Ooooh I love pepperoni and green peppers. When the pepperoni gets all crispy, I could cry it’s so perfect.
Noah: I like to keep it simple with straight cheese. Sometimes I’ll throw some pineapple on it for special occasions.
What was the last thing you broke?
Alex: On New Year’s Eve I broke the zipper to an amazing skirt I was trying on in a store to wear that night. I bought it because I felt bad (and it was so cool!) and ended up sewing it onto my body, only to have to literally rip it off at like 4am after the party. It was worth it (and I bought a zipper, lol.)
Noah: Broke my snare drum the other day playing a show. One of the lugs snapped off. Sounded more like another rack tom than a snare. It was ok, I think played it off well.
Which is your favourite member of One Direction?
Alex: Does Zayn count???
Noah: The one with brown hair…?
What’s the best music festival in the world?
Alex: Wrecking Ball was the most fun I’ve ever had at a festival, LONG LIVE MASQUERADE!
Noah: We’ve had the opportunity to play some good ones in 2016. Not sure what’s “the best” but I had a lot of fun playing and hanging at Wrecking Ball in Atlanta. Ran around drank with our buds from Daddy Issues the whole time.
What was the first record you bought?
Alex: It was actually a gift; N*SYNC ‘Celebrity’. I still listen to it all the time, it was very formative for me.
Noah: Linkin Park – ‘Hybrid Theory’.
Who’s your favourite new band?
Alex: I LOVE Martha like a lot a lot. I could also listen to Sylvan Esso forever and ever. Oh and the record Ian Sweet put out this year blew my mind! their music makes me want to be better at making music.
Noah: Been listening to Pinegrove a lot recently. Really feeling the last record they put out.
What is your most treasured possession?
Alex: Oh god I don’t know I’m honestly such a hoarder. Probably my guitar or a bobble head of my little brother he gave me when he was like six. It’s got his cute lil face, I can’t handle it!
Noah: It was my Honda Element, but we couldn’t tour in it anymore. Gave it to my brother, still get a little sentimental when he lets me drive it.
What’s your biggest accomplishment?
Alex: Hmm probably selling out our first three London shows ever last year! It felt so amazing and validating.
Noah: Probably that basketball game from before.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Alex: I had this plan that I was going to be the first female player on the Boston Red Sox… I was already trying to break down gender barriers in fourth grade!
Noah: Always wanted to play music and be a “rock star”. At least that’s what I would tell all my relatives during the holidays.
What do you do for fun?
Alex: I love to cook and read about cooking and pretend I know stuff about fine dining and restaurant culture… I really don’t know a lot, but I find it super fascinating. It’s like a bunch of outlaws who make incredible art that you can EAT. I think I’d try to be a chef in another life.
Noah: Like to work with my hands; build things. Play basketball. Maybe hit up a trampoline park.
How punk are you out of ten?
Alex: A New York 6, but an LA 9.
Noah: 7?