The melodic instinct. The insane harmonies. There is something almost unnatural, yet very natural, about the musical connection between siblings. The Cains, an Alabama trio made up of sisters Taylor and Madison and brother Logan, have that unexplainable bond. And not only are they talented vocally, they are also skilled musicians as they play, but are not limited to, guitar, piano, harmonica, mandolin and drums between the three.
Taylor, Madison and Logan recently took some time to answer a few questions about their career goals, their most recent music video, song covers and their time spent touring the UK.
TCN: For those country music fans who may not be familiar with you yet – and I stress yet – What are your aspirations for your career?
Madison: In music it’s easy to never find true contentment because success is such a fluid concept because once you get to the level of success you thought would make you happy you need more success to feel like you’re a true artist so what we’re focusing on now is just being happy every day. It’s kind of a lofty goal but just to focus on the music, focus on reaching your fans and touching them and make it more about what you do rather than how people respond to what you do. So that’s kind of our goal right now.
TCN: Your current single “Knock Knock” was released last month and the video just premiered last week. What was the idea behind the video?
Logan: We’re kind of big Sam Hunt fans, so when he did his video for “Take Your Time,” you got to listen to that song for an extended amount of time and of course you’re thinking you know it’s just some guy trying to pick up some girl, and then when you watch the video and it was just this very striking, you know, strong story you weren’t expecting. It just made the song something different. And so, I think for me at least, I thought that it was important….Our first two videos they were very much like an introduction for us. Our first video was basically a video of a day of a live show. Kind of “Hey, meet us, this is what we do.” Second video we had some home video footage—still people may not know us. But with this third video I felt like we were completely in character of someone else and we just trusted that people understood that we’re not some Hunger Games cover band, but that this was us trying to be artistic and trying take a song and tell a story in a different direction than what was expected. So I’m excited about it. I thought it turned out really well.
TCN: On your YouTube channel you have various covers of songs from different genres and artists – Fleetwood Mac to Adele to Chris Stapleton. Who are your strongest influences and who are some of your favorite groups and songs to cover?
Logan: Our plan right now is to continue to try to do at least one cover song every month, so that’s cool that you’re asking because that’s something we’re going through right now. But I think we try to play to our strengths and play to artists – like I feel like I have a kind of grittiness to my voice like Amos Lee would have or NEEDTOBREATHE or somebody like that. So I like to cover songs like that just because I think it suits me well. But our influences – We love The Civil Wars. We love Coldplay. We love Johnny Cash. We love Dolly Parton – it’s like a wide scatterplot kind of interests and artists but I think that what we decided for ourselves is that we love music that makes you feel something, not matter what the genre is. And that’s another big goal and aspiration for us is just to be “feel something music.” Feel something country music, that no matter whether you feel like it’s a little more rock and roll or more traditional, when you listen to music that we make, it makes you feel something.
TCN: You recently opened for Sasha McVeigh in the UK. How was it touring in the United Kingdom?
Taylor: We had such a good time. The first time we went to the UK was for the C2C Festival and it was insane. I feel like the minute we rolled up with our suitcases everyone thought that we were a huge deal. And I’ll tell you we had not showered in two days so we did not feel like a huge deal. But we have never felt more accepted and more loved for who we are then in the United Kingdom. It’s just been so awesome.
Madison: I think that we met a different type of fan of over there that it makes you kind of spoiled and you want that out of everywhere you go because we played a bar our very first show over there and it was completely silent and all eyes were fixed on us and we are not use to that level of attentiveness at just sort of a restaurant or bar. You expect to be background noise and to be completely silent and then a roar of applause. And then we would sell just as much merchandise as we did ticket sales. So it just made you so hungry to go back over there for people that they want to know who’s up and coming and they want to be in on it and they want to be friends. So we ended up meeting some fans and they would like come back and be like “You can come stay in our hotel room!” you know and it felt like we made instant friends and an instant connection so this definitely no matter what direction our career goes, I’ll never forget what’s going on over there and we’re going back this summer.
TCN: That was my next question – when will you guys be going back over there?
Logan: So we will be back in June, we don’t have the specific dates. We know the Boots & Buckle Festival in Manchester is the main thing we have booked. And we’re just in works with other promoters over there. That’s another thing – the people there have been so helpful with us about “we want you to come back and we’ll work with anybody that we can to get you shows because we want you to come back,” and so they’ve just been extremely kind. Being in the UK has done so much for our career because…I don’t know like the first time we were there we shared a stage with Sam Hunt and Aubrie Sellers, people that are making it big now so it just helps you feel like “Ok cool like is this my crew? Is this the way we’re perceived?” That was just a huge confidence boost for us at a really big time in our career.
The Cains have a show this Friday in Las Vegas (2/26) and will be hitting Tulsa, OK and Rock Falls, IL in the near future before heading back to the UK. They will also be a part of the Royal Caribbean – Brilliance of the Seas cruise in October.
For more information and tour dates visit www.thecainsofficial.com
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