Twist is a new musical project by BB Guns’ Laura Hermiston and Holy Fuck guitarist and songwriter Brian Borcherdt. The duo quietly released their first track online at the end of February. Their release, called Where to Lie, features a chilled out, hazy, guitar and is led by strong vocals. The photo paired with their SoundCloud file is blurry and cold. It shows Laura in a high fur lined collar wearing white sunglasses. A ghost image of the glasses can also be seen resting on her forehead, as if the image is a double exposure. It really captures the feel of Where To Lie: interesting, attention-grabbing, and subtly trippy. I met up with Laura and Brian before the their first show at the Oz Studio last weekend during Tess Parks’ Take Care of Your Soul photography show.

Andrew Weir: How did Twist Come to be?

Brian Borcherdt: Well, we were already working together on BB Guns. I was producing the new record along with Laura’s brother, and Laura came to me with some new songs. As soon as I heard them I got really excited and started thinking about all these things that would sound good with them. It was really a genuine enthusiasm.

Laura Hermiston: It happened so organically. Two days later we went to the studio and recorded with my brother. It had the same vibe as BB Guns because it had me, Brian, and my brother a lot of the time. We worked together on BB Guns for two years and I would always bring Brian songs to get his opinion.

AW: Two days is pretty quick.

BB: Well it was two days until we went to the studio, and then it was like four hours in the studio. Laura’s brother didn’t even know what he was getting into. He thought he was just coming in to do a song or something and I was still buzzing from the excitement of doing it. I think he was a little overwhelmed.

LH: The songs are all pretty much done. We wanted to stay minimal and … grainy. And include a drum machine. It’s pretty easy to record with a drum machine.

BB:  So you can fuck up all you want but you don’t really fuck up. I had it easy, I was just pushing a button a lot of the time.

AW: When you wrote the songs, did you know that the feel would eventually be quite different from BB Guns?

LH: Some songs I had originally brought to BB Guns but it didn’t work out. The band Love and Rockets have a song called “No Big Deal” – and I KNEW I wanted to write a song that like would be kind of like that – a really driving rhythm with ‘80s drum machine. Annnnd….

BB: And I had an ‘80s drum machine in my basement.

LH: He’s not joking

BB: The rest is history.

AW: Does the Where to Lie vibe come naturally between you guys?

BB:  She can take all the credit on that song.

LH: I actually didn’t want to go forth with that song originally because Brian doesn’t really play anything on it. But the blogs picked it up, so I said okay.

BB: That’s alright. I’ll just come into the picture later. I refer to myself as the Lee Hazelwood — I just come in every now and then and am like, “Hey… What’ s up?”

LH: [Laughs]

BB: And then I’ll step out again.

AW: What sort of release schedule are you looking at?

BB: Yeah I think it’s all sort of weird, I’ve started to move really slow and Laura’s decided she wants to move fast. We’ve seen really good results from what people have heard with just one song.

LH: I think your way is the way to go, but I’m very anxious, always.

BB: I’ve put out enough records where I was really excited and enthusiastic just to have the record label sit on them for year and me being like, “I CAN’T STAND THIS.”

LH: But my anxiety comes from, you know — what if someone comes out with something that sounds just like what we’re doing?

BB: Yeah that’s true.

LH: That’s my nightmare.

AW: What do you guys have planned for tonight?

BB: I wanted to go buy a little martini case. There are a couple songs where I’m not really doing anything, so I thought I’d mix some drinks. But I thought also it might be a bit too loud.

LH: You could leave the stage to get a drink though.

BB: I’ll get you a drink. Anytime I leave the stage I’ll get you a drink.

LH: That’s kind of cool. Like a hype man.

BB: Yeah sort of like a Flavor Flav.

AW: You guys are pretty busy in your other bands right now. Like both Dusted and BB Guns are doing stuff in the next two weeks, right?

LH: Yeah BB Guns is releasing a video and we’re producing a record.

BB: Dusted is working on a new record, as is Holy Fuck. It’s all happening right now. … and LIDS.

LH: LIDS is like the coolest new band. LIDS is Alex from Metz, Doug from Constantines and Brian. They have this one song that’s fucking amazing… when people hear it it’s going to blow up man.

Photographed by Gemma Warren