Carmen & Camille are participating in VMTV’s Battle of the Bands contest. They won the first round and have gone into the finals. They took a moment to tell Savvy about their act…

Savvy: Do you have any stories about touring?

Camille: When we toured in Eastern Europe we had to drive a van from Budapest to a gig in Transylvania. We were told the trip would take 5 hours, it ended up taking 14 hours! The worst part that our bus driver spoke very little English. All he seemed to know were cat calls which he would yell out the window at every girl we drove by.

Carmen: Not to mention the fact he was watching out the window for ladies while going at least 90 miles an hour.

Savvy: That’s funny! You are in a Battle of the Bands contest, right?

Camille: We have been fortunate enough to have the support of MTV, which has been amazing. We were chosen as one of six bands entered in their Battle Of The Bands Contest in their virtual world at VMTV. It’s promoting their new hit show Kaya and has been an amazing opportunity. We made it to the finals and now need everyone to help us win it all!

Savvy: What are your hopes for the short- and long-term future?

Carmen: Short-term would be to win this VMTV contest we are in. The final round begins December 12th. As for long-term goals we definitely want to do more touring. We love playing live. We just shot a live DVD of us playing with our band and we are hoping that will help us get on the right tour in the New Year.

Camille: And of course, we’d love to win a Grammy!

Savvy: Describe your music for those who are unfamiliar.

Carmen: We have our album ‘Two’ that you can get on iTunes. There’s a style for everyone - it ranges from pop to rock to rootsy.

Camille: I think our album covers a range of emotions which hopefully will appeal to people. I know that appeals to me as a record buyer. I like when I’m listening to a full an album and not just a few good songs and some filler.

Carmen: This is our first album. Some of the songs were written right before we went into the studio and some go a few years back.

Camille: We’ve definitely learned a lot in the past year dealing with people in the music industry more. We have tried to stay positive and true to ourselves. It’s a tough business!

Savvy: Are you going to stick to singing or try to get into acting or dancing too?

Carmen: We are putting 100% of our energy into music right now. That’s our main focus – our passion- but who knows what we may do in the future. We’ve done some work in TV before and it would be fun to revisit that down the road.

Savvy: When and where can our readers see you perform?

Camille: We post our shows and touring schedule on our web site and MySpace. We are hoping to do a lot more of that this year so stay tuned.

Savvy: Do you now or have you ever had a mentor or role model who helped or inspired you? Who did you grow up listening to?

Carmen: Our parents have always been an inspiration to us. They did the music thing themselves when they were our age. They have some pretty good tunes from their music days! I’d love to cover a song of theirs one day. We grew up listening to a lot of Heart, U2, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. Our parents had good taste in music.

Camille: People we have been compared to range from The Cranberries, No Doubt, The Dixie Chicks, and a modern day Heart. One of our biggest influences growing up was Sheryl Crow. We’ve see her perform several times and she continues to inspire us.

Savvy: Where do ideas for your songs come from? Do you write any yourself?

Camille: We have done co-writing in the past but take pride in the fact that we wrote all 13 of the songs on our album ourselves. In this business people often don’t encourage people to write their own music but we are as much songwriters as we are performers and musicians. We enjoy it and it consumes our daily lives.

Savvy: How important is the image part of being a performing artist these days?

Carmen: There is no denying that style and image play a big part in the music business. Camille and I have so far taken a pretty hands-on approach to our image. We have experimented with different looks and used a stylist for a couple photo shoots but at the end of the day it has to come from us. I want to feel authentic in what I’m portraying to the world.

Savvy: Any embarrassing footage out there of you two that may surface when you become super-mega-stars?

Carmen: We have a tape our parents have saved of the first song we ever wrote when we were five. It was called ‘Bobby’, named after our grandma’s cat. The lyrics went like this…“Bobby… B-o-b-b-y” repeated over and over while the other one of us who wasn’t singing tinkled on the piano. Thank heavens we have evolved since then.

Savvy: Anything you want to share that we haven’t asked you about yet?

Carmen: I’m two minutes older and I don’t let Camille forget it… I’d be shattered if I found out we were switched at birth.

Camille: No kiddin’.

_______

On the Web:

myspace.com/carmenandcamille (Myspace Music Page)

carmenandcamille.com (Official Web Site)

http://content.vmtv.com/kaya/botb.html (VMTV Link - Vote Today! Requires registration using Internet Explorer)