“This one’s called ‘Awesome Unicorn,’” says Jordan Smith, lead singer of Omaha band Twinsmith, while holding up a bright pink, tie-dyed, large T-shirt of a unicorn.
When I walk into the band’s practice house, just south of Omaha’s Field Club, instead of stumbling upon musical equipment, I see the four bandmates sitting on the floor folding their 25 new, free T-shirts from The Mountain: home of the big face animal tees. They’re all wearing their favorite big animal face, and multitasking by doing some “light dusting.”
“Grab a duster and help,” they tell me.
I do not. Instead, we make our way over to the living room to chat about the new band for Smith and Matt Regner, former members of Betsy Wells, as well as their bandmates Bill Sharp and Oliver J. Morgan. We talk about their newly released song “Big Deal” and, of course, their affinity for animal tees.
The switch from Betsy Wells to Twinsmith primarily occurred when the band lost its former drummer and gained a new one, Morgan, and decided to rethink aspects of their music.
“Jordan and I were the only original members of Betsy Wells,” Regner says. “We wrote six or seven songs and the sounds are a little more upbeat compared to Betsy Wells.”
The band describes the difference between the two bands as a rollercoaster, in that some songs on the upcoming freshman self-titled album are very similar to Betsy Wells, and some deviate from the original sound.
“Betsy Wells is more Americana-rooted no matter what, and we still have those elements, but now it’s just more American pop,” Regner says. “We’re not stuck to any genre. We just play what we want to play.”
As for what name they’d stick to their music, the band say the decision took a few misfires. They make fun of Sharp for his past name suggestions, Acid Wash and Better Than Better Than Ezra.
Smith explains the final result in Twinsmith, though, saying, “I really like the Minnesota Twins, and my name is killer.”
“What I like about the name is you can describe where you got it in a single sentence,” Regner says. “In almost all of our interviews before, it would be like, ‘Oh, Betsy Wells. Well, how’d you get that?’ and it was just the same story, and it got old.”
The newly released song, “Big Deal” from Twinsmith’s debut album, works toward the break away from Betsy Wells.
“When I was first being asked to join the band, they gave me a recording (with their previous drummer) of all of the songs for the album,” Morgan says. “I think ‘Big Deal’ was four or so songs in and, I liked them all, but ‘Big Deal’ was the first one to truly draw me in. I liked the tasteful opening riffs, and the lyrics are so simple and easy.”
The band also compliments the listenability of the record, which was mixed and recorded by JJ idt at Fuse and Little Machine Studios and mastered by Doug Van Sloun at Focus in Omaha, but assert that, they are able to put character into the individual songs onstage.
“We like to play loud and have fun,” Smith says. “And if people are not into it, then we’re still having a great time.”
Enjoy the first sneak peek into Twinsmith’s freshman album set to release sometime in July (fingers crossed) by listening to “Big Deal" below. Also see Twinsmith live at their next concert, Friday, May 3 at O'Leaver's with Universe Contest and Her Flyaway Manner.
Ingrid Holmquist is a Hear Nebraska intern. She’s jealous of the free Mountain T-shirts and wishes she owned the sea foam green Tyler The Kitten tee. Her birthday is in December. (Hint hint.) Reach her at ingridh@hearnebraska.org.