The Newest Framptons: Meg and Dia

Meg and Dia
Originally uploaded by TheUniversalCynic

While listening to the 2009 Warped Tour compilation, I got this insidious tune stuck in my head. It had great pop hooks and beautiful vocals. It really stood out from the screamo of many of the bands on the disc. I was in love. With Meg and Dia? Who the heck are Meg and Dia? I had to look further. Here, courtesy of their website, is the lowdown on some talented youngsters, Meg and Dia Frampton.

"Seeing the world is an eye-opening experience—especially if you grew up in the tiny town of Draper, Utah—so it’s no wonder Meg & Dia’s new album, Here, Here and Here, paints a portrait of what life has been like for this hard-working band as they’ve toured for the past two and a half years in support of their 2006 debut album Something Real (which spawned the fan favorite singles “Roses” and “Monster”). Despite being fronted and named after sisters Meg and Dia Frampton, Meg & Dia is very much a collaborative effort between five individual musicians. With the upcoming release of their second album Here, Here and Here, this group of five friends has begun to evolve into the kind of musicians they want to be—although they’re the first to admit that it’s still a collective work in progress. “On the first record, Dia and I were these little naïve girls who got this huge opportunity to make a record,” Meg recalls. “We went into it completely unaware of everything. Then we traveled the world and our perspective expanded a hundred-fold.”

It was this newly gained viewpoint that influenced all the songs on Here, Here and Here, whose title is inspired by a quote courtesy of Mozart: “There’s nothing to composing. You just need to focus on here, here and here,” he said in reference to his head, heart, and ear. If there’s a consistent theme throughout the album, it’s that life doesn’t come with instructions or a map. “All of the songs reflect the sentiment that we’ve been on this really long journey—from point A to point B—and it’s taken us a long time to learn all these different things,” Meg explains in regard to their learn-as-you-go attitude. “We wanted to create the feeling of progress, even though we’re not done yet. The whole album has a feeling of motion…that we’re trying to get somewhere while still having a little more way to go.”

Meg & Dia have certainly shown just how far they’ve come since their debut release. Here, Here and Here is a musical and emotional rollercoaster through various striations of pop-rock sounds and sensations, with each of the 13 tracks brimming with the band’s signature candor and charisma. Meg & Dia stepped outside of their musical comfort zone by experimenting with different instruments and arrangements. “Hug Me” is an upbeat rocker inspired by Brave New World and the desire to be your own person amidst a sea of expectation; “What If” is a guitar-driven, alt-rock romp that’s filled with hypothetical questions we all encounter in our lives (i.e., “What if I find my purpose first?/What if I fulfill my life’s work?/What if you’re counting on my failure made me live?”); “Bored Of Your Love,” a revealing and bittersweet duet performed with Tom Higgenson of the Plain White T’s, marks Meg and Dia’s first co-writing experience with an outside person; and “Black Wedding” is an ominous-yet-sassy salsa with fist-pounding choruses and arena-rock guitar solos.

To help Meg & Dia realize their vision, the band turned to noted producer Howard Benson, who is known for his work with My Chemical Romance and The All-American Rejects among many others. “Howard encouraged us to do a bit of soul-searching and inspired us to push ourselves creatively as artists to the limit,” Meg says. “I learned what I am capable of and to not be afraid to try any idea no matter what it is. He taught me to have faith in myself and not sell myself short just because I'm young and haven't had as much experience. His hand in the arrangements really helped bringing the songs together as a whole, making them more cohesive and emotionally solid.”

Never ones to hold anything back lyrically or musically, Meg and Dia also pride themselves on the fact that—for better or for worse—they are responsible for all of their own material. Meg mastered the GarageBand recording program while the band was demoing songs, which resulted in the final tracks not varying too much from their original form. “Organic” and “authentic” were keywords during the songwriting process, which meant that everything—from the lyrics, to the guitar lines, to the string arrangements—is 100 percent a product of the band. The result is an album that encourages the listener to use their imagination and glean their own meaning from the songs. “Today a lot of musicians hire people or just go with big, corporate writing teams,” Dia says. “That kind of thing scares me to death. “Even though we’re still learning, it’s just cool that no matter what, it’s all completely us.”
Check out the Warped Tour Compilation for Meg and Dia, along with a lot of other interesting bands.