Megan & Liz are typical sisters. The 19-year-old fraternal twins overlap each other in conversation, one complimenting the other on her fake eyelash application mastery or nodding at the other’s affinity for sleeping in and going to the movies. What’s not so typical is that five years ago, the duo launched themselves from obscurity in a little village in Michigan to pop stardom via Youtube. Since then, they’ve released two EPs of all original songs, appeared in a national commercial for Macy’s and announced the nominees for “Best Female Video” for this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. We sat down with two and discussed their beauty channel, Katy Perry as a new feminist icon and the challenge of overcoming being “Youtube artists” — and then they performed an acoustic version of their latest single, “Bad For Me,” just for us.
Nashville’s a good town to be a singer in because it’s kind of like in L.A. when you’re an actor — people kind of leave you alone.
LIZ: Yeah. [In Nashville] I ran into Nicole Kidman at this place called Frothy Monkey, a coffee place. We both have on separate occasions. She’s just around all the time.
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But you guys haven’t picked up southern accents yet.
LIZ: No. We’re trying to work in y’all. Our Michigan accents have kind of gone away and now it’s kind of like a balanced tone right now.
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So you’re five years into your career and you started when you were 14. What did it take to be able to deal with success at such a young age?
MEGAN: I feel like doing the videos and everything was totally, like, normal. Like, nobody ever treated us any different. (laughs) Nobody, you know? We just kind of just went to high school, did our thing and then when we graduated is when we really got into it and things, like, started really getting legit. But, yeah, it was just kind of like a hobby back in the day but a really awesome hobby that built us up to an awesome job now.
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How did you develop that following on Youtube? Even in 2007, I imagine there was a lot of competition for that sort of thing and you guys have, what is it, 750,000 subscribers and 75 million views or something like that?
LIZ: I think we’re almost at 190 million now so we’re stoked on that. But actually we did start on Myspace.
MEGAN: And then we were the first people on Youtube, like, literally one of the very first. So I think that’s why we got the fan base we did.
LIZ: Because it was before everybody discovered that you could get discovered on Youtube.
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What made you guys say, hey, let’s take this to Youtube?
MEGAN: We saw one other girl posting videos and we were like, oh, that’s a good idea.
LIZ: That’s a great idea. Let’s do it, too.
MEGAN: So we kind of copied her.
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On Myspace, what were you putting up?
LIZ: We had really crappy recordings, like…
MEGAN: Garage Band recordings.
LIZ: …Garage Band we were so stoked on at the time but I listen back now and, like, (laugh) funny.
MEGAN: Yeah, I’m embarrassed that we ever put any of those up. I’m like, no. No.
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Can people still find them?
MEGAN: Yeah, they’re in the depths of places on the internet, yeah.
LIZ: People definitely saved them after we removed them.
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Speaking of, that was ballsy to put up a cover of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”as your first cover.
MEGAN: Why, thank you.
LIZ: Thank you. That song was our jam. We won a couple talent shows across our little region. We would just go to talent shows and sing that song. So that was a really clear choice for us to put it up on Youtube ’cause we knew it so well.
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In your review in the New York Times, Jon Caramanica said you guys don’t even have to do covers anymore.
LIZ: That was so nice.
MEGAN: Yeah, ’cause, you know, it’s hard to be an artist who kind of, got known for being cover artists, it’s like…
LIZ: It’s hard to transition.
MEGAN: …it’s hard to transition ’cause that’s not who we wanted to be from the start. We never got on Youtube thinking, man, I can’t wait to do covers the rest of my life. We always wanted to do original so to have somebody say, you don’t need to do them anymore? That’s the highest compliment anybody could ever give us so we were stoked.
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Especially in such a public forum. What are you guys working on right now?
LIZ: We’re working on our first full length debut album. It’s so close to being done. It was originally supposed to come out this year but it keeps getting pushed back because of events keeping us out of the studio and out doing press stuff so that’s kind of why it’s gotten moved but early next year is when we’re aiming for and we’re really excited for it and we’re just pushing our single to radio still.
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Yeah, with the Macy’s commercial and the MTV Video Awards, y’all are definitely…
MEGAN: We’re everywhere. (laugh)
LIZ: You can’t get away from us. We always joke about that. (laugh)
MEGAN: I can’t get away from myself. (laugh)
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And you also have a beauty Youtube as well — a beauty channel?
MEGAN: Um-hum. We do. It’s kind of like a lifestyle channel. We talk about how we do our hair and our favorite makeup and our favorite clothes. It’s more of a way for us to just be ourselves on camera and, get to know our fans better. But obviously we’re girls and we love that kind of stuff so it’s definitely not a challenge to sit around and talk about clothes and shoes and hair.(laugh)
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Okay what are three things you could buy at the drug store you can’t live without?
LIZ: Fake eyelashes. We love fake eyelashes.
MEGAN: Love fake eyelashes.
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You should tell me how. I cannot get them to stay on.
MEGAN: We have a video, and Liz is the master.
LIZ: Yeah, I do hers. That’s been my job description. Also, concealer. Lip gloss.
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What’s the biggest challenge you guys have had as far as coming up on Youtube and then transitioning into the industry?
MEGAN: That’s still a challenge to this day. It’s definitely still in transition. A lot of it right now is the struggle of not putting up videos every week because we did put up two videos twice a week, Monday and Thursdays and now it’s like, we don’t have time as much because we’re out doing artist stuff.
LIZ: And working on an original album.
MEGAN: Yeah. We don’t have as much time to sit and do Youtube videos every week so, you know, people are getting, you know, upset that there aren’t two videos every week and it’s like, we’re out doing, like, other things I promise that you’ll like better, you know…
LIZ: But you’ll have to wait a little bit longer for them.
MEGAN: Yeah. And I think also, there’s respect or not respect, but just credibility, you know? We don’t want to be considered Youtube artists because, I mean, we’re more than that, you know? Like, we want to be…
LIZ: Artist artists.
MEGAN: Yeah, we want to be artists that people see as real musicians and not just those girls who do covers on Youtube and that’s just a really hard stigma to shake. I think that we’re working on it and it’s going well.
LIZ: It’s a work in progress.
MEGAN: Yeah, it’s definitely a work in progress and I think it always will be, like, throughout our whole career.
LIZ: Yeah, it’s like the American Idol winner.
MEGAN: Like, you know, they will always have that stigma of American Idol. It’s like, I think we’ll always have that stigma. It’s just, like, getting to push it back further, that’s going to be the challenge. (laugh)
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How have you confronted that?
MEGAN: I think we just kind of go with it right now. Some people will walk into an interview and treat us like artists and some will do the Youtube thing so it’s like, it’s like a 50/50 chance. You know, you walk in and you’re like, I don’t know.
LIZ: Yeah. We try not to talk about, like…
MEGAN: Our last cover video or how to get each subscriber. We try to focus more on what we’re doing next, like, what our originals are sounding like. Youtube is a place that we’re so thankful for because it’s what got us our start.
LIZ: And we will forever love it but…
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When you say walk in and treat you like a Youtube artist, what does that mean?
LIZ: People will be like, so, like, who is your favorite Youtube artist? Like, would you collab with this Youtube artists?
MEGAN: Or, like, what’s your favorite cover that you’ve done? It’s just very frustrating. I mean, like, it’s something that we asked for, obviously because that’s how we got our start and it does sound kind of bad that we’re upset about it.
LIZ: [But] You have to outgrow.
MEGAN: Yeah, we have to outgrow it and we’re trying to outgrow it right now so we have growing pains. (laugh)
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I read somewhere that you were talking about Katy Perry being, like, an inspiration. I think of her as being this new sort of feminist hero for this new generation of girls. Y’all are 19 so…
LIZ: No, it definitely rings true.
MEGAN: She’s a very strong female role model, I think.
LIZ: Yeah. And she’s doing it, you know? Like, she’s broken records.
MEGAN: She’s a strong, awesome woman, beautiful. I look up to her so much.
LIZ: Um-hum. You can tell she, like, has a really strong point of view.
MEGAN: She isn’t afraid to stand up for her point of view.
LIZ: We were raised with kind of a feminist mother, like, that’s for sure. Single mom. I think we kind of always gravitated toward female artists and Katy Perry is on the top of the list.
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Maybe you guys will be the next generation’s Katy Perry.
MEGAN: I’d love to. That’d be amazing.
LIZ: I just want to meet her. (laugh)
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Megan and Liz were born on November 21st, 1992 (time of birth unknown) in (an unknown city in) Indianapolis according to http://meganandlizweb.com/autobiography/
November 21st, 1992
11 + 21 +1+9+9+2 = 53 = their life lesson = Forthright. Straightforward. Straight to the point. As a matter of principle.
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November 21st, 1992
21 + 1+9+9+2 = 42 = their “secret” number = Everybody loves Megan and Liz.
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November 21st, 1992
November 21st
11 + 21 +2+0+1+2 = 37 = their personal year (from November 21st, 2012 to November 20th, 2013) = Singers. Singing. Songs. Music. Musicians. Heartfelt. Pouring their hearts out.
37 year + 11 (November) = 48 = their personal month (from November 21st, 2012 to December 20th, 2012) = Touring. Rockin’ out. Megan and Liz rock!
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using the number/letter grid:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z
Where:
A = 1 J = 1 S = 1
B = 2 K = 2 T = 2
C = 3 L = 3 U = 3
D = 4 M = 4 V = 4
E = 5 N = 5 W = 5
F = 6 O = 6 X = 6
G = 7 P = 7 Y = 7
H = 8 Q = 8 Z = 8
I = 9 R = 9
Megan Mace
45715 4135 35
her life lesson = Perseverance. Hanging in there. Not giving up.
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using the number/letter grid:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z
Where:
A = 1 J = 1 S = 1
B = 2 K = 2 T = 2
C = 3 L = 3 U = 3
D = 4 M = 4 V = 4
E = 5 N = 5 W = 5
F = 6 O = 6 X = 6
G = 7 P = 7 Y = 7
H = 8 Q = 8 Z = 8
I = 9 R = 9
Liz Mace
398 4135 33
her path of destiny = 33 = Courage. Bravery. Loyalty. Putting on a good show.
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comprehensive summary and list of predictions for 2012:
http://predictionsyear2012.com/
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learn numerology from numerologist to the world, Ed Peterson:
https://www.createspace.com/3411561
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Sex Numerology available at:
https://www.createspace.com/3802937
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numerology behind the news 