The Tiny Masters of Today could be just another New York band, were it not for the fact that the members, siblings Ada and Ivan, are just 11 and 13 years old. The child rockers (and their dad) talk to Tony Clayton-Lea
Kid rock - it's either a huge mistake or, as David Bowie said about this band, "genius". Whichever way you look at, rock music made by people who can't make cheese sauce, sign cheques, drive a car or wear training bras is hardly an edifying treat. And yet pop music has been littered with kids from the get-go: in the early 1960s, you had 14-year-old Helen Shapiro scoring a Top 3 hit with her debut single, Don't Treat Me like a Child, and 15-year-old Lulu making it big with Shout.
Then you had the family outings of The Jacksons, The Osmonds, Five Star and Hanson to contend with; each had their moments of glory followed by internecine strife and varying levels of post-success trauma.
And now we have Tiny Masters of Today, a two-piece sibling act from Brooklyn who are a world away from the sleek and sheen of any other child act you can think of. Ada (11, vocals, bass, keyboards, percussion) and Ivan (13, vocals, guitar) blend Art Brut punk rock with anti-folk; their debut album is called Bang Bang Boom Cake (an anti-adult title if ever there was one) and on it they are helped out by the likes of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Russell Simmins, Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O and Nick Zinner, B-52s' Fred Schneider and former Moldy Peaches singer Kimya Dawson. The album is one you might listen to no more than twice; its naivete and amateur-hour aesthetic bears little resemblance to a fully formed sound.
Yet Ada and Ivan are cool kids - polite, a little bit mystified as to why adults would ever want to talk to them about The Stooges and New York Dolls, a little bit tongue-tied when they either don't understand or misinterpret a question, and ultimately aggrieved that precious hanging-out time is taken up by conversing with a stranger.
Their father, David, is overseeing the interview, unwilling to place himself in the centre, but close enough to make sure that Ada and Ivan are neither embarrassed nor compromised (indeed, family policy dictates that their surname is not released - "it would take one bad phone call or creepy guy to change everything," says David).
The kids are, explains dad, just back from summer camp, "so things are a little bit . . ." Enough said. Ada is first to speak. It would be quite fair to say that Ada isn't the most talkative of 11-year-olds. Here is the first section of our chat.
TCL:You've just come back from summer camp - was that fun or quite boring?
Ada:It's fun.
TCL:Was there much music played there?
Ada:I dunno.
TCL:The style of music on Bang Bang Boom Cake - is that the kind of music you would normally listen to?
Ada:That's the sort of stuff, yea. I like different things, too. I like some quiet stuff - my favourite band is Belle and Sebastian. They're from Scotland.
TCL:Is Brooklyn a good place to live?
Ada:It's pretty. There are places here where kid bands play. It's a cool place to live in. Our first show was at the Liberty Heights Taproom; it had a show for undiscovered bands. It's a really small place. Depending on who is playing, the bands are really young or old. But it's amazing to see some really little kids play. Sometimes teenagers, sometimes a mixture.
TCL:Which is better - the little kids or the teenagers?
Ada:It's hard to judge.
Ivan is next; at 13 he seems slightly more used to talking to adults and definitely has a more developed sense of what the band is about.
Unlike his little sister (who, in justifiable deference to her age and sensibilities, just seems to want to slink off and compare make-up tips with her friends as she hangs upside down on monkey bars), Ivan is the semi-serious type. You can sense that he has more than an inkling of what is happening with the band, and has, equally, more of an idea what might happen if/when the red carpets are returned to storage, the fanfare silenced.
TCL:How have the lives of you and your sister changed in the past year or so?
Ivan:It's been good and bad. We have interviews every day this summer, and it's getting kinda crazy. Interviews aren't as fun as photo shoots but they're not bad. All the media attention has, I think, changed our lives so much it's hard to explain it. Everything has changed, for better and for worse. For worse, it's when you want to hang out with your friends, but you have to do an interview. It gets annoying. For better, it's having the chance to experience things - like, we're going to London really soon, so that's exciting.
TCL:Does it mean anything to you that someone as well-known as David Bowie has said that your music is genius?
Ivan:That's flattering - it's weird, because two years ago I was listening to Bowie and now he's complimenting me. Like I say, it's weird.
TCL:Do you think that when you're on stage, your age makes a difference to people looking and listening to you?
Ivan:I like to think that people like us as a band, and not just because we're kids, but I'm sure a lot of people think it's cool to like us because we are. If we were an adult band making this music I don't think we'd be as big as we are. That's why people first noticed us.
TCL:What pressures have you come under since the media attention? Has school been a problem or normal?
Ivan:All my friends are pretty cool about it.
TCL:All of this must be very exciting for you and your sister, but what if/when it stops?
Ivan:For me, it's hard to remember what it was like before this. We play so much music. It was a hobby when it started so if it all falls apart it'll probably go back to being a hobby.
Bang Bang Boom Cake is on release through Mute/EMI
'It's not like we're the Von Trapp family' - The Tiny Masters' father on his musical brood
"The family are not musicians in the strict sense of the word, in terms of technical abilities," say David. "I play drums a little, but I couldn't tell the difference between A and G chords or anything like that.
"We're big music fans - we grew up in NYC, and there's probably more access in this city than there might be elsewhere, possibly more for kids than in other places. We have a big record collection, and they grew up in a house where something like that was valued. The arts in general were valued, also, and I have to assume that was carried through to them.
"It's not like we're the Von Trapp family, though. I think they're a product of their environment, geographically, and in terms of the house they live in, what people in this house are interested in.
"Obviously there are pitfalls that go with the kind of success they're getting. You see what happens to the likes of Britney Spears when she drops out of school in 9th grade. Fame itself is a double edged sword, to the extent that legally any decision that we have to make as parents, we are careful that opportunities as they come are evaluated in terms of their best interests.
"Lots of things cross our inbox that would lead to a lot of exposure and a lot of bland celebrity coverage. These things are not very interesting to us, to be honest.
"They make fairly non-commercial music. It's an interesting thing that has happened to them, and that's fine by us. We've turned down reality shows and trashy celebrity magazines that just want to talk to us because they're young. I don't feel that this has any connection to the Lindsey Lohans of this world. That's the biggest pitfall, I think.
"Others include the pitfalls that all parents face - what mischief can their kids get up to? I think 99.9 per cent of the time they're normal kids - the music is a very small part of what they do. We're going to England very soon and that's going to be a working holiday - it's not that they have to get up at six in the morning and rehearse for three hours before they go to school, or anything like that. They rehearse very, very infrequently. We just want to keep them from flunking out of school and keep them off drugs. The usual."
Kidde pop: fame and fall-out
CLEOPATRA
Midlands UK-based Higgins sisters - Cleo, Yonah and Zainam - started off in the late 1990s as a teen threat to The Spice Girls. They came unstuck when they tried to take on the likes of TLC and Destiny's Child and failed (even though great things were expected when Madonna signed them to her Maverick label). Also attracted criticism for the song Press Here to Start - the lyrics "My software needs some protection/a hardware connection/click here if you need affection" were written by three blokes. Classy, eh?
MUSICAL YOUTH
Birmingham kiddie group best known for the bowdlerised version of Pass the Dutchie, which topped the UK charts in 1982. Within two years, they floundered, beset by internal problems and management conflict.
THE JACKSON FIVE
Quite simply one of the world's biggest-selling and most popular groups. The Indiana quintet emerged in 1970, subsequently selling more than 100 million records. Michael went on to proclaim himself King of Pop and is arguably one of the best-known living musical entertainers.
FIVE STAR
The Pearson family from Romford, Essex, had massive success in the mid-to-late 1980s. Overseen by their father, Buster, a veteran session guitarist in the reggae scene, Five Star became the youngest act to top the UK album charts (with their 1986 album Silk and Steel). Their success ended in 1990; the following year, one of the family members was fined for public indecency.
