On July 26th 2024, Tim and Phil Hanseroth released their first album VERA under the moniker “The Hanseroth Twins”. A side project of sorts as the main band ‘Brandi Carlile’ appears to takes a bit of a recording break for a couple of years.
Produced by the twins and executive produced by Brandi Carlile (she has said that was right at the end of the process), the album features mainly the two on vocals, with a few guest musicians including Catherine Carlile and Brandi Carlile on backing vocals on a few of the tracks. The album was released through Electra Records, the bands home. The release of the album went to number one on the iTunes singer- songwriter charts within days. From their instagram: Vera is a Latin word mearing true, real, or genuine.
Credits:
The twins took to instagram to thank the whole team who contributed to the record. (note: we’ve ‘guessed’ roles here, until we can confirm). Many of the credited artists have worked with the Brandi Carlile band before. Pete Lyman has mastered several releases for them, Brandon Bell has mixed grammy winning albums for them, Jerry Streeter is their tour sound engineer, Sean Quackenbush is their FOH sound engineer. Matt Chamberlain was on their recent ITSD tour and performed on The Story album, Josh Neumann is a long time collaborater on Cello, Gibb Droll has been on albums including Give Up the Ghost, and Dave McKay has toured on keys with them.
Full credits:
Pete Lyman (mastering), Daniel Bacigalupi – (Mastering engineer) , Brandon Bell (mixing, engineering), Jerry Streeter (sound engineer), Nate Yaccino (mixing), Sean Quackenbush, (FOH, recording, mixing, engineering) and the musicians included, Matt Chamberlain – drums, Josh Neumann – cello, Gibb Droll – guitar, Dave McKay – keyboards, Jt Bates – Drummer. And of course Brandi Carlile.
Press interviews:
When announced back in March 2024, Chris Willman from Variety spoke to the twins.
“Brandi has put it so well,” says Tim Hanseroth. “She says our band is like a triangle, and she’s at the top and we’re on the bottom — and she wants the twin project to also be like a triangle, where me and Phil are at the top and she’s at the bottom, still supporting us, with production ideas and stuff like that.” (Officially, though, the brothers are self-producing their album, whatever outside counsel they might be taking.)
In the Variety interview in March, Phil told Chris Willman
“Remember Me” happened to be “just the one we got done with first” in the studio. “And then we let Gregg (Nadel, the president of Elektra Records) know that we’d recorded the song and we wanted him to hear it. I sent it to him and 15 minutes later, my phone rang and he said, ‘Elektra’s putting it out, and we want a record. Can you get it done in a month? Because we want to put it out at the end of summer.’ He’s the one that was really like, ‘OK, this is happening — like, right now.’ The timing just feels really right, because we’ve decided to take a little while off of any significant kind of touring — just doing a few shows here and there — so it leaves us with a lot of time to get in the studio and finish up.”
“We’re a good chunk into it now,” says Tim. “We’re probably about half a record in (to the recording process), even though we’ve only really mixed and mastered the one song; we’ve got a pretty good little body of work.” Adds Phil, of the late summer release date Elektra is projecting for the full project: “Sometimes you get those dates and they’re unrealistic, but in this case, I think we can pull that off very easily.”
In a conversation from September 2024 with Chris Willman at the Grammy museum with all three, Brandi shared her thoughts on the twins voices combination:
..as a producer and just a listener, I have never been able to abide the twins’ voice being separated in the speakers. You’ll never come to one of our shows and hear Phil out of the left side and Tim out of the right side. They’re gonna always be mixed together and coming out of the middle, because they’re just not meant to be separated, you know? And it’s the same on records …
When Tim mentions, how it was sometimes hard to find the harmonies without Brandi, Brandi responds with, ““Down Below” is the one I sang on, because I was like, it’s just not right having Phil down there…” -however there is no song on the album called Down Below. We think it’s either Under the Weather or the extra track that will appear on the vinyl when it’s released late November 2024.
The twins described VERA as a kind of ‘memoir’ and the songs very much speak to personal experiences throughout their life.
Speaking at Newport Folk Festival in July 2024, (they surprised with a couple of pop-up gigs), they talked about mental health, Phil said,
“Peronsally for me music has been a great healer, but i think that’s just in the ear and mind of the beholder”, and Tim added “I get healed by other’s peoples music, like Joni Mitchell.”
When asked about singing on their own now, they said
“It’s equal parts exciting and terrifying. Usually we are singing with Brandi, you have your own lane, your known harmony. Now it’s just us out there, naked, and singing about the truth…..We are able to get more personal with the songs, without having to view it through the filter of someone else singing it…That was the really frighting part of it, how truthful do we want to be, and ‘let’s go all the way!’.
In a Paste Interview from release week, Tim said
“I think this record needs to be about our truth and our story and everything needs to be personal and true to our lives. And so a lot of the songs were written in those last couple months once the record spelled itself out of what it wanted to be.”
They talked about going on the road in the new year in Spring 2025 with a small tour.
The day after the Newport Folk festival surprise appearances they jetted over to an industry only event at Warner Brothers music, where Chris Willman from Variety interviewed them in the courtyard. They sang a few songs, and took a few questions from the small standing crowd, that included Shooter Jennings and Amanda Shires.
The twins announced that there would be a vinyl release around Black Friday Record store day, and this was confirmed, when pre-ordering became available for release on November 29th. Although the vinyl was not confirmed in the released list of albums on the official record store day website, the album itself will come out on the same day.
Song notes:
Broken Homes: In the Paste interview they said about this song:
“We’re always encouraged to write personal songs, which we do a lot, but sometimes they get so personal that they don’t work anymore,” Tim says. “We pulled out ‘Broken Homes’ and were trying to get it to work, and Brandi was like, ‘You know what? I don’t come from a broken home.’ Everybody’s got their families that can be a mess or not but one thing she doesn’t come from is a broken home, so we ended up just keeping it. Which is great because it’s our truth, it’s our childhood. So it’s great that it ended up on this record.”
The following song notes are from their instagram feed the days and weeks following the release of the album. They were generous enough to share something about most songs.
9th August “Track 1: If Everyone Had Someone
There’s a lot to be grateful for in the world, a lot of love. The bad stuff is loud, it’s noisy – important to acknowledge, be we can’t forget all that we have to be grateful for in life and celebrate that. Let love be loud for a song. “
12th August “Track 2: Broken Homes
This song is our truth – it is the story of growing stronger through the gift of adversity. We’re standing tall on our own, because we come from a broken home.”
15th August “Track 3: I’ll Always Know I Do
The heart will always remember what the mind can’t ❤️” and Phil added “Nice song bro-Brandi’s part on this one is level 9000 as well!” confirming Brandi Carlile’s BVs on this track.
17th August “Track 4: Remember Me
This song is a love letter to our kids. We love hearing that this song means so much to so many people – is there someone you are remembering?”
21st August “Track 5: Counting The Days
This is a piece of the truth about life on the road. Getting to create art and take it around the world to people and have these amazing connections and experiences – it’s really something to be grateful for! Of course there are many gifts and plenty of highs that come along with this life. But when you decide on this path, there are sacrifices. For instance, we have missed almost every birthday, wedding, and funeral in the last 25 years.
Balance is a fundamental part of existence. Sometimes with all the incredible experiences, audiences, awards etc. you’re as high as you can get – but it can swing just as far in the other direction too and can you find yourself alone in a hotel room very far from home and the people you love – no one is clapping for you there and you will probably not read about this day of the tour in any interview.
The truth is it’s mostly beautiful all the time and I wouldn’t trade this life and its gifts for anything in the world. This song is an acknowledgement that sometimes the downside is just a little louder – and it tracks you down. What better opportunity to remember what you are thankful for.”
24th August “Track 6: Under The Weather
This song was born through the experience of living through the relentless ups and downs of mental health’s path. A reminder that solid ground is underneath you even when obscured by the fog of whatever you are going through right now.”
27th August “Track 7: A Little Respect
Erasure has always been one of my favorite bands – and even though they are giants I still think they are underrated and don’t get all the credit they deserve for their contribution to the musical world. This is us… trying to sound like Roberta Flack doing a Gordon Lightfoot version of an Erasure song. Thank you, Vince and Andy for all the beautiful music.”
30th August “Track 8: The Poor Side Of People
The guitar that’s being played on this recording is called Sonny. It was gifted to Brandi by her great uncle Sonny after he passed away and was used on tour for some years. Of course being a treasured gift it’s been retired from the road and hangs safely in our studio – but can still be heard on a lot of our recordings.
Uncle Sonny grew up very poor and played shows with his band around the farming community where he lived so he could save his money and buy this guitar: it was his prized possession. He grew up so poor In fact as kids he and his brother were booked to sing and play at a dance – they had to borrow shirts from the neighbor!
I think he would love knowing his old guitar is still alive and giving back.
When the rich men hit their knees at the еnd of the night
Do they falter in thе sway of what is wrong and what is right?
While they rock between the folds of the good shepherd’s hold
Does their faith fall slack?
Do they only dream in black and in white?
There’s a line running down
Through the center of this town
From the boneyard to the front door of the steeple
But, there’s no such thing as the poor side of town
Just the poor side of people
September 9 “Track 9: Somewhere Between
This is hard to write – it will never not be painful. Years ago my brother and I lost a very dear friend. We were in Oslo Norway on tour and the news came through that he had died by suicide. It was heartbreaking to be so far from home and to imagine what he went through alone. It wouldn’t be until many years later that I could begin to understand his battle through the lens of my own mental health struggles. A gift. This is a postcard to our beloved friend who you might know as Sugartooth.
So I lit one in your name
As it burned I let you know
That I understand your shame
It’s no easy way to go
You faded like a song
But your faith in God held true
Somewhere between the right and wrong
You did the only thing you thought you could do
Somewhere between the right and wrong
The unofficial archivist edit: Sugartooth referenced here is off their By The Way, I Forgive You album from 2018.
September 5 “Track 10: The Loyal Soldier
I was having a conversation one morning with my good friend, auntie, and spiritual advisor, Pam. She told me the story of a Japanese soldier, Shoichi Yokoi, who was found by local fishermen in the Guam Jungle 28 years after World War II had ended. Unaware the war had ended for some time, he had been living hiding in a small hole in the ground for nearly three decades in fear of the disgrace of being captured alive.
The other side to the story is that we sometimes create mechanisms in our formative years to help us cope or survive and get us what we need. They serve us in our time of need, but as we grow we no longer need them. These “loyal soldiers” can become unhealthy, even harmful to us.
The song is about Shoichi Yokoi, and those soldiers within us that kept us safe, but now need to go home. Thanks Pam, thanks Shoichi.
—
I have done my share of time
And my only wish now is to be free
I am no longer a child
And this armor that I wear is killing me
Take me to your leader
I want to go home
