pureNRG - May 31, 2008

Bonnie: Talk to me a little bit about your first year, your first album, your first time on the road and all the transitions that go a long with it.

Jordan: Our first tour was the Jump5 Tour, and that was a blast for us because they went through the same things that we are going through now. They really taught us a bunch of lessons, and that was just a blast—a good first tour. Then we went out on a tour called Winter Jam, and that was really great too. We played a bunch of arenas and hung out with all the people from Skillet, Mercy Me, Barlow Girl. Everyone on that tour was so cool. Now we are just doing a bunch of one-offs—going out on the weekends to play for churches and venues like that. This Christmas we are actually going on a tour with Casting Crowns, and we are excited about that.

Bonnie: What kinds of transitions did you go through with your friends and your family as you went from being just normal kids who went to school and did what normal kids do to working in the studio and going on the road for long periods of time?

Carolyne: It really wasn’t that different because our friends were mostly from dance, so we were all like a big family. When we would leave, we would keep in touch with our friends. They don’t treat us any differently, and they are really supportive. It is the same with our families. They are just really supportive and happy that we are getting to travel and do what we love to do along with spreading God’s name. The transitions weren’t that big, just the transition of having to sleep in a bed on a bus. That was about it.

Bonnie: Caroline, what was a high point for you this last year?

Caroline: Probably our photo shoots and video shoots because it was just so fun to get to have that experience of what we did. Also just traveling to all the different places and getting to perform and do what we love to do.

Bonnie: Was there a low point that you can identify?

Caroline: When we were gone for two weeks it was hard because we really missed our families, and we were used to just going out every weekend or just three or four days at a time and then coming home. So when we went for two weeks straight it was kind of hard. Otherwise, I think that rehearsal was probably the lowest point.

Bonnie: How often do you rehearse?

Carolyne: We rehearse Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays most of the time for four hours on those days. We feel that rehearsal is a low point sometimes, but then when you turn around, you make so many memories there. Like when you first learn the dances or when you first learn how to do a back-tuck all together. When we were at rehearsal one time, our coach started crying because she said that it was the first time that she felt like we were actually together as one group rather than three individuals that are just singing the same songs and doing the same dances. So we make a bunch of memories there, and that is probably where most of the memories from pureNRG, other than the traveling, come from.

Bonnie: Do you feel that all of your experiences over the past year have made you different from other kids your age?

Caroline: Sometimes I feel like that, but sometimes if we are home for a while, I feel like I am still that kind of kid who plays in her backyard and rides her bike everywhere and just has fun. Other times I am still focused on performing, so it kind of depends. I can be the serious “work woman,” or I can be the “fun kid.”

Jordan: I guess we are different from other kids because we do work, but we also have a lot more fun than those other kids because we travel and have great experiences. When I’m on the road, I don’t feel like I have to be “worker man” or whatever. I can still be a kid, just doing a job at an early age.

Carolyne: For some kids who home-school, it is more demanding than going to regular school, but in our situation home-schooling is a way of freedom. We still get our school work done just like other kids, but we get to spread it out. We get to go to other places and have fun during the day, not that school isn’t fun, but we get to do our school work and also travel and stuff like that.

Bonnie: You have all said that you feel that you are different than you were before, so how can your audience relate to you?

Carolyne: I think they can relate to us because most people in our audience are kids, and we are still kids. We still love to do what kids do, and they see us up there having fun and dancing around and singing—that is what most kids love to do! When I share my testimony, I talk about when I got embarrassed about sharing that I was a Christian and I got embarrassed to lift my hands in worship and close my eyes during prayer. [Kids] relate to that. A lot of kids in our target audience start trying to find out who they are, and when they start trying to make friends, they get embarrassed over silly things like that, so they can relate to us through that.

Caroline: I think it is really important for fans to see that we are normal kids, so if they look up to us then they don’t feel like they have to sing and dance and do that kind of stuff just to be cool. You can be normal just because God is watching over you and protecting you, and as long as you believe in Him, you are cool and you are popular.

Bonnie: Carolyne, how does it feel to now have a sister who is involved in music as an artist in the group Cadia?

Carolyne: It is a lot better for me because now that she is on the road, she fully understands. When I come home and tell my family these stories about what happened on stage or about some technical difficulties, they don’t always fully understand. When [my sister] is on the road, we can call each other since we are usually on the road at the same time. It’s great because we understand each other, and we can talk about the things that have happened. We get to spend a lot of time together in the music stuff like for festivals, so that is cool. I think it is actually an up side rather than down because we get to spend more time together talking about how we feel about being on the road. I like it a lot.

Bonnie: Caroline, since you have been out meeting lots of new people who you would never have met otherwise, have there been any female artists or people in the industry who have stood out to you as positive role models?

Caroline: On our Winter Jam Tour, we met Group One Crew. We had met them before, but we really got to know them on the Winter Jam Tour. Carolyne and I really looked up to Bianca because she was also an artist who was living the same life as ours, and she was on our record label. We looked up to her because she is such an amazing singer, a really good Christian, and just a great person. She has really been an influence on us.

Bonnie: Jordan, tell me about some of the relationships you have formed over the past year.

Jordan: Everyone one the Jump5 and Winter Jam Tours were really cool. Sammy Ward was kind of like my mentor on the [Jump5] tour, and if I had a problem I would go to him and ask him to help me. When we were going on the Winter Jam Tour, it was people like John and Ben from Skillet, people from Mercy Me—they were really cool guys. I looked up to a bunch of the male artists as well just so I can see how they do things.

Bonnie: Now that you are starting on your second year of being on the road and your second album, how has your approach been different than the first time around?

Caroline: It has been different because last year it was a whole new experience, and it was a learning process. This year we will kind of know what is going on, like what we are going to do when we get to the venue and what to do when we are getting ready for a show. So now that we have all that experience in our heads, it can just be fun now that we are on the road again.

Bonnie: Tell me about how recording in the studio was different this time.

Carolyne: It was different because the first time we went in, we had only recorded two songs, and we just had four days to record the last two demos. That was all we had for experience in the studio. So when we would go in for the last CD, we would go in not knowing what to think, and then we would just play it by ear. Whatever our producer told us to do we would do it. This time we knew how [our producer] worked, and we knew how we worked together, so it went by a little bit quicker. We knew what do to, so we could just get in and get it done. It was a learning process, and it had a good ending.

Bonnie: On your new album “Here We Go Again,” you recorded “Ain’t No Mountain High.” What fresh approach do you bring to the classic song?

Jordan: We definitely made it more modern and high energy—sped it up a little bit. It is kind of the same thing we did with “Footloose” [recorded on debut album]. I think people are really going to like it.

Carolyne: I loved “Ain’t No Mountain High,” and when we needed one more cover song we wondered what we should do. They were asking for all kinds of suggestions, so while were on the Jump5 Tour we were trying to write down as many ideas as we could. I thought about “Ain’t No Mountain High” because my dad used to play the Michael McDonald CD all the time. So I knew “Grapevine” and “Ain’t No Mountain High,” his version. I loved that song, and when I found out that we actually go to do it, I was so excited. We added in a little bit of the old version and a little bit of our own style, so it is just a good mix.

Bonnie: When you are on the road, how do you keep in touch with your “BFF”?

Carolyne: We all have cell phones to keep in touch with our families, so we also [keep in touch with our BFF]. Caroline and I are each other’s BFF, and so it’s not that hard to keep in touch with each other since we are always together. Even when we’re not on the road she is always at my house or I’m always at her house.

Caroline: We text with a lot of our friends. We communicate through text message chains like “If you are my best friends, then you will send this back to me.”

Bonnie: How have your friendships within pureNRG changed?

Jordan: I went from kind of liking them to not liking them at all! Haha!

Caroline: Carolyne and I were always best friends from day one when we met because we had the same name, so we didn’t really change. We just got closer. We knew Jordan, kind of, but weren’t really friends. He was friends with my brother, and he was in a group called Next Generation, so I knew him through that. When we got in this group, we became closer.

Carolyne: Jordan and I were in a duet together, so we bonded through that.

Jordan: I think we came from being friends to being more like siblings. I think of them like my sisters that I care for.

Carolyne: We argue like siblings, and we reason like siblings do. We are siblings without the blood.

Caroline: We pretty much are siblings. We just don’t have the same last name.

Bonnie: A huge part of your live performance is the dancing. How is that going to be different in the second year? Any changes?

Carolyne: We are making changes, and now that there is a new CD out, our rehearsal coach is really trying to push us toward getting new tricks, and we are trying to get fresh choreography from people. We are trying to make it a little bit different for people so that they are not seeing all the same things that we did with the last album.

Caroline: When people come to our shows, they can see the old songs, and think “Oh, I remember that,” and they can sing along because they already know them. They can also see new choreography, so they won’t be bored with stuff they have already seen.

Bonnie: Do you contribute to the choreography?

Carolyne: When it starts, it is just from the choreographers, and then when we start doing it for a while, we kind of get bored with some of the moves. We think about what we can do with it, and we talk about it with the other people in the group and with our rehearsal coach and see if it works. We do make up some of the dances, but we also have the choreographers’ dance in it.

Caroline: Sometimes we have to change some of the choreography because we are singing or we are on the wrong side of the stage. Sometimes Jordan will have random ideas, and we try to save those until we have one of those days when we have to change something and try to make it work.

Jordan: The girls have a lot of great ideas too, so we try to incorporate all of our ideas along with the choreography. Then we get to make our dance breaks, and I think there is actually going to be a new one for the new album.

Carolyne: Even though our dance break is really fun, we have to practice it over and over again. The whole thing is dancing, tricks, and tumbling, so we have to practice that more than we usually do for the dances that are in the songs. We are really ready for some new choreography, and we probably put a new step in every time we go to rehearsal. We don’t even know the original.

Jordan: There is only one move left—one 8 count—left in the whole dance that is original.

Bonnie: Well, I want to congratulate you on your new album and wish you well!

Jordan, Caroline, and Carolyne: Hi Tommy2! Hey Erma! Hey Elias! Bye!

Check out their new album “Here We Go Again” in-stores now or at Itunes. For more information go to www.purenrgonline.com