Twin sisters Lisa and Jess Origliasso have had more than their fair share of gossip thrown around about them in their native Australia and in online gossip blogs since their band, The Veronicas, made its debut in 2005. At the heart of it all they’re just your average prank loving, Michael Jackson adoring, karaoke singing 23-year-old Aussies with killer style and more talent in their perfectly shaped eyebrows than most people have in their entire bodies.

The girls will be hitting the road with another sibling set, a little band called the Jonas Brothers this summer before joining yet another brotherly trio, Hanson, on tour this fall.

The blogging Gods smile on me and allowed Jess to call in from New York to chat with me during a small break in rehearsals to talk about the tour, their brand new album Hook Me Up,  the all-too-present practice of yellow journalism, and fighting with her twin. She also answered some of your burning questions.

Prepare to be hooked up…

TJ: I think it’s awesome that you guys are going on tour with the Jonas Brothers! I’m like so jealous!

Jess: Oh, I know! They’re such sweet boys. It’s gonna be such a fun tour. I mean, I think it’s like one of the biggest tours in the world right now and I guess just to be involved is such a cool thing for us. It should be so much fun and it’ll be pretty insane.

TJ: So, I guess it’s pretty safe to say that you guys are excited?

J: Oh absolutely excited! It’s gonna be so cool and we’ve toured with them before and we know them really well. They’re just such fun boys to be around. I think it’s going to be the best tour.

TJ: How do you think their fanbase is going to react to your music. They’re pretty young and you guys have some pretty risque lyrics at times.

J: [Laughs] Yeah, I mean obviously…In Australia we have fans just as young as them. I mean, we have fans starting from the ages of 5. A lot of super young fans that come to our shows. I guess over here because it’s kind of seen as a bit more underground but it’s mainstream over here so people automatically think like, “Their fans aren’t as young,” but we actually have fans just as young as theirs in Australia. But obviously we’re gonna pick songs for the tour that fit in well with what they do as well and the whole vibe of the tour which is very kind of fun, and light, and not get too deep into the adolescent themed songs. [Laughs] You know, we’ve only got 25 minutes and we only get to do 5 songs, so we’re pretty much gonna do the hits. We’re going to do “Forever” from the first record and “Hook Me Up” and “Untouched” and ones the kids will hopefully know.

TJ: So Jess, you weren’t feeling very well in your youtube video a couple days ago. Are you all better now?

J: No! I’m on antibiotics still and I’m trying not to think about it. I’m not letting it get me down. I’m gonna try and think positively and meditate and hopefully by tomorrow night I’ll be fine.

TJ: Is Lisa taking good care of you?

J: Aww, she is! [Laughs]

TJ: How did you guys land the opening spot? Was it a conversation since you already know the guys or management?

J: Yeah. I mean, obviously we’ve always spoke to them about doing something again because they opened for us 2 years ago before they got huge. They’ve always said that we’d all love to tour again sometime and I guess the opportunity to do a bunch of dates on their tour, so it all worked out perfectly. We release our album on the 26th, so, yeah. It’s quite exciting!

TJ: What’s your favorite Jonas Brothers song?

J: Australia. [Laughs] We love that song. We sing it all the time. I have like a car [mix CD] when I used to drive around L.A. and that [song] used to be on it with like Muse and The Cure and then the Jonas Brothers would come on and all my friends would go, “Uuuumm, okay!” and I’d be like, “Dude, you gotta hear this song. It’s awesome,” and all my friends loved it. They’re all like, “Yeah, this is rad!”

TJ: [Laughs] So, Nick is underage and we hear Joe may be dating Taylor Swift. Any chance you’d hook up with Kevin?

J: [Laughs] Aww! You know what? They’re all such beautiful and good looking boys but we’re all just mates, so I think we might just keep that as that, but we’ll be hanging out with them for sure. That’ll be fun.

TJ: Gonna pull any pranks on them?

J: Probably. We’re gonna see how mischievous they get first and kind of let them set the guidelines and then go for gold I think.

TJ: Well, that’s ok if you don’t hook up with Kevin because your new bass player, Sherman, is pretty hot!

J: Isn’t he sweet!?

TJ: He is so cute!

J: [Laughs] It’s so funny because when we did our youtube video we were just like infatuated with him and his amazing bass playing. He’s so cool. On the video you didn’t see how amazing he is. He’s so good and I was just like, “I love him,” and all of a sudden people are like, “Jess has got a crush on Sherman!” What I obviously didn’t convey is that I just bought a bass that day and I wanted to start learning bass and I was just completely infatuated with his, like, bass playing style. I was just like, “He’s so good! He’s so good! I wanna get him to teach me!” So, I was like, “I love him! I love him!” I honestly don’t have a crush on him in that sort of a way. but he’s very good looking.

TJ: Sure, I believe you Jess.

J: I actually have a huge crush on his bass playing skills. [Laughs]

TJ: [Laughs] How is he transitioning into the band so far?

J: He is amazing! He fit in–I don’t know how we ever did it without him. Obviously Paulie, our old bass player, is amazing. We’re like best friends and we’re so proud that he’s gone on to do his own thing. Sherman just came in and he fits in so well and made the dynamic even stronger than before and we don’t ever want to let him go. He’s awesome.

TJ: Aww. Is Paulie coming back or is Sherman permanent?

J: Yeah, Sherman is permanent for now. We’ve got a lot of tours coming up and he’s on board for all of them, so, it’s exciting.

TJ: Awesome! So, you guys are actually going out [on tour] with Hanson after the Jonas Brothers?

J: Yup! We are! From one set of brothers to the next. [Laughs]

TJ: [Laughs] Right? You guys just love the brother teams, don’t you?

J: I know! We are, we are. We’re very excited. We’ve never met those guys before so it should be exciting and I heard their tours are always, like, awesome, like, so much fun. The guys are great and the fans are awesome so, you know. What more could you want? We get to do a longer set on that tour as well, so that will be cool.

TJ: Oh, that’s awesome! Do you guys already know what songs you want to put into that set or still working on it?

J: Yeah! Kind of. It’ll be some more of being able to mix in some more of the new [songs] because the album will be out then, so we’ll see how it goes.

TJ: The new album will be out Tuesday.

J: Uh huh!

TJ: Are you very excited?

J: I know! We’re so excited! We can’t wait to finally have it out.

TJ: Do you have any expectations for the album? How has the response been to the new sound from the fans?

J: I mean, you know what, we’re obviously very excited to have it out and the thing is most of our hardcore fans over here–it’s quite a few of them–they’ve already got the record. They either imported it from Australia or they downloaded it from iTunes. That was cool ’cause on the Natasha [Bedingfield] tour, the amount of kids that knew all the songs was astounding and the album wasn’t even out yet–not even on iTunes. So it had to be either hear it illegally or import it from Australia, so that’s a cool feeling.

TJ: So, the response has been good overall?

J: It has. It definitely overwhelmed and surprised us a lot. It’s just nice that they’ll be able to finally have the American hard copy which will have some extra bonus tracks on there.

TJ: Speaking of the fans, we took to your message board to get some questions from your fans. We like to keep it in the hardcore fanbase area. They always have the best questions and they know you guys the best so we wanted to get a few in there.

J: Okay!

TJ: So….Do you regret any of the tattoos you have?

J: [Laughs] No! I look at tattoos like, almost like a photograph, a moment in time that I’ve chosen to put on my body permanently. Sometimes you think that you want to rethink them. Obviously, there’s a couple that don’t make much sense anymore, but I don’t believe in regretting things.

I do encourage everybody to wait until they’re at least, at the very least 21 before they get anything. I got my first tattoo at like 19 and I don’t regret that at all, but, I just think that now having so many that I would encourage people to wait until they’re at least 21. Definitely don’t do it before you’re 21.

TJ: Lots of fans want to know the story behind some of your new ones.

J: Oh, really? I mean, I just always wanted a half sleeve and they were just things that grabbed me at the time, and I think it’s important with self-expression. Tattoos are a big part of self-expression. They were just things that I really related to at the time and wanted there.

TJ: Are you guys careful about choosing your friends now that you’re in the public eye?

J: It’s one of those things where you–it does make you reassess a lot of people in your life. The people we trust the most we’ve been friends with since we were really young; since high school and stuff like that. And obviously, there’s friends that we’ve made after we’ve been in the public eye as well that are very close to us and we trust as well. So, I mean, yeah, you do get a lot of people who might have a different intention than just wanting to be your friend. Lis and I, we like to pride ourselves on having a very good judge of character, so we weed those people out pretty quick. And we have eachother to like back us up.

TJ: Do you guys read any blogs or newspaper clippings about yourselves? What’s your response to a lot of it?

J: Yeah, of course. We like to get on and read things like that sometimes. A lot of the time if it’s stuff that is not necessarily….we can laugh at ourselves and we can laugh at things like that. That’s all you can do. If you don’t laugh at it, then it’s just going to bring you down. So, we like to just laugh off things like that or we’ll ignore things, or sometimes take things into consideration. It kind of just depends on what it is. There are some things we’d rather not read and then there are some things that we think it’s funny or cool or we think, “I wish that wasn’t out there,” or whatever. [Laughs]

TJ: Have you pulled any great pranks on eachother while on the road?

J: No! We’re a team! I don’t usually prank eachother. It’s usually us against the world! [Laughs]

TJ: [Laughs] Your fashion sense is crazy! Who’s like your fashion icon? Who do you look up to?

J: There’s not really one person. We’re very influenced by a lot of different things. We love Japanese pop culture. A lot of Japanese street wear stuff. We grew up in musical theatre. We love the dramatic costume stuff. We love over-the-top things. We love glitter and sequence. We love big dots, we love leopard print, we love bold statement things. Lis loves wearing her cut-off denim shorts and her Raybans and, like, a ripped up white shirt with a leather jacket as well. I mean, it kind of depends on our mood.

I’m very inspired by a lot of men’s fashion. I love the whole androgynous thing. I love punk culture. A lot of British fashion. I guess we like vintage and catwalk wear stuff as well. We kind of like to mix the two. Like street-catwalk. That’s kind of like what we’re into. We love kind of glamorous make-up and things like that, and we also love grungy wear.

TJ: So no one particular person?

J: Not one particular person. We love Dita Von Teese’s style, to the Olsen twins when they’re not wearing fur. The just like Blondie, Joan Jett, you know. So many different people. We love Michael Jackson and love how he used to dress.

TJ: That’s funny because that’s the next question. Michael Jackson is like a huge influence on you guys.

J: Yeah!!! We love him!

TJ: Which song of his would you remake?

J: Oh, remake!? I wouldn’t touch any of his songs I don’t think. It would just be blasphemy. But, I’ll tell you my favorite Michael Jackson song–that’s a lie ’cause maybe we will one day–but I love “Dirty Diana.”

TJ: Would you ever remake “Dirty Diana”?

J: We do that song every time we go to karaoke. So, maybe we would. Maybe we would. I’m not sure.

TJ: Definitely do a little something on youtube. That would be awesome.

J: Oh! That would be cool! That’s a good idea! [Laughs]

TJ: Have you ever felt pressure to be anything that you aren’t in the beginning of your career?

J: Yeah, definitely. I mean, there’s a lot of people with a lot of opinions especially in the music industry. I’m sure when I started getting tattoos our record company wasn’t overly excited about it. I remember one of our first times we had to make our EPK and they were running through their ideas and they were like, “We’ll put you guys in bikinis by the pool singing your song and blah blah blah blah,” and we were like, “Whoa whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. No no no no no. Um, no no no no. We’re not going to do that, um, at all.” [Laughs]

TJ: [Laughs]

J: So, I mean, I think–obviously now we’re a bit older. We were 18 or 19 at the time and now we’re 23 and obviously, your tastes change. You grow up and maybe things that we were a bit against we’re a little bit more for now in our own way and in our own style. But at the time, a lot of people had a lot of opinions about how we should kind of come out or be perceived by the public. But we knew exactly what we wanted to be and we ended up getting our way because no one can make you–I mean, people can make you do things because, you know, “I’m the head of blah blah and I know best and this and this,” and you do get a lot of pressure put on you, especially at the start. We’ve really learned to stand up for ourselves, you know, in making certain choices we wished we hadn’t, or even just wearing something we wish we would have just went with our gut feeling. Now we’re older and wiser and we know better. That’s why we always tell our fans to just do what they want, trust their opinions and know that their opinions matter just as much as anybody else’s and not to let anybody intimidate you regardless of whether their “Mr. Head-of-Whatever” or if it’s a friend trying to intimidate you on what you’re wearing. Be happy with yourself and your style and your thoughts and your feelings and that’s all that really matters.

But then don’t be against everyone’s opinions. We always like to listen to other people’s opinions. We’ll make our choice. Making an informed decision. It’s better to be, like, having your options open then making a choice from there.

TJ: Have you guys ever played a show when you were really angry at eachother?

J: Yes! A couple of times. Yeah, I wouldn’t even make eye contact. Not one single eye contact with Lis.

TJ: Wow!

J: For like 45 minutes, I wouldn’t even look at her on stage.

TJ: Do you think the crowd could tell?

J: No. I mean, you know, we still have a good interaction on stage. There have been times when we [fight] then we go on stage and we sort of make up on stage. Like we’ll just look at eachother and smile. Most of the time that’s what happens. There’s only been one time that I wouldn’t look at her, but we have a really strong connection on stage and I don’t think that the crowd would have been able to tell that one time–I don’t think they can usually tell because we keep it together. We try not to be too unprofessional. [Laughs]

TJ: Have you guys ever said anything in an interview that you wish you could take back afterwards?

J: Yes! Actually, that’s a lie. No. I’ve never said anything in an interview that I wish I could take back. Ooh, once, actually. I’m not gonna say what it was, though.

There’s a couple of times when we say things and people take it completely out of context or they’ll ask me a question and I’ll answer it and they’ll put that answer for a completely different question. It’s almost like slander and it’s terrible. I’ve read a couple of interviews where they just completely misconstrued my words and it’s very upsetting when that happens because you look at them and go, “I never said that or I answered a completely different question with that answer and they put it in referring something else.” It’s extremely frustrating when that happens and it is upsetting. A lot of times we’ll call and we’ll either want to get those interviews pulled or there’s nothing you can do about it when it’s in the paper the next day and everyone’s already read it. It’s one of those things you gotta live with and it actually happens more than not.

TJ: Aww, that sucks.

J: I know. It does suck.

TJ: So, last one because I know I’m running up all of your time and people will kill me if I don’t get this one in. Do you guys have any plans to tour the UK and Europe after the US tour?

J: You know what, we would love, love, love, love to more than anything. We loved Europe when we went there. We absolutely fell in love with it. And of course Lis and I have massive plans to go over to Europe and Asia as well. Right now we keep getting offered tours in America and then we have to tour Australia again as well. Then, hopefully, next year if we can get our European and Asian teams on board–tell the European fans they need to write in to Warner Brothers and tell them that they want us to release [our album] over there. We can’t go over there until we get a confirmed release and right now Europe and Asia aren’t releasing the album until they decide to. It’s kind of useless for us to tour over there, so we would love to. Hopefully–fingers crossed–if the album does well elsewhere, maybe those two teams will jump on board and we’ll get a release over there. We would love that more than anything.

TJ: Awesome! Well, I’m sure the letter writing campaign will start.

J: [Laughs] I hope so!

TJ: Jess, it was amazing talking to you!

J: You too!

TJ: Thank you so much! You two are so cute I can’t stand it!

J: Aww, you’re so sweet!

_________

Hook Me Up is in stores everywhere in the US August 26.

Learn more about The Veronicas at their official myspace page: www.myspace.com/theveronicas

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