The Rogers Sisters

Wears The Trousers Interview - 04/26/06

three’s the magic number

After an amazingly successful year that saw self-declared New York trendies The Rogers Sisters at last reach out to non-US shores and be welcomed with a noisy adulation, Anja McCloskey went to meet the quirky sisters and their not-so-related bandmate to talk about electrocution, petty theft, Liverpudlian skinheads and their weird and wonderful new album, The Invisible Deck, named after an astonishing card trick that Mr Rogers Sr would perform for them as kids…

Since their inception in 2001 and subsequent self-release of their super-rare 7“ Let‘s Fly Away, sisters Jennifer (vocals, guitar) and Laura Rogers (drums, backing vocals) plus Hawaiian bassist/vocalist and honorary member of the Rogers clan, Miyuki Furtado (briefly a member of Baltimore indie rockers Gerty) have come an awful long way. It all started when self-confessed Detroit rock ‘n’ rollers Laura and Jennifer moved to New York and stumbled across Miyuki in a karaoke bar soon after the dissolution of their volatile feminist rock band Ruby Falls. His renditions of Purple Rain and Over The Rainbow were so heartbreakingly convincing that they decided on the spot that they couldn’t possibly let him go, instead towing him along to play a gig at a birthday party in Brooklyn the very next day.

From there, the trio became collectively named The Rogers Sisters and proceeded to play all of the trendiest house parties in New York’s fashionable Williamsburg neighbourhood. The band has never been one to take themselves too seriously though: “We wanted to ditch the ‘overthoughtoutedness’ of Nineties indie rock,” says Laura. “We wanted to let loose, have fun and get a little soul.” They certainly seem to have hit a nerve with this concept; not only did they manage to build a mini-army of fans across Europe last year, they also took both the Reading and Leeds Carling Weekend Festivals by storm and instilled themselves as regular faces on MTV2.

What’s it like to live the hipster life of a Rogers Sister then? According to Jennifer, it must be pretty entertaining: “We get to travel to a lot of new places — we went to France and ate a million cheeses, we went to Australia and New Zealand and that was beyond our wildest dreams. We stole chocolate in Switzerland and got caught, we drank in the basement of some London bar and got in trouble…”. But Miyuki quickly admits that it’s not all petty theft and sunshine: “We almost got beaten up by some skinheads in Liverpool — they were really disgusting!” he grimaces. “I also cut my hand open at Leeds festival and was bleeding all over my white clothes while an army of medics tried to put one single bandage on.”

In fact, Miyuki confesses that he always tries to horrify Laura and Jennifer during the band’s live performances by doing the most ridiculous things. Of course, there are times when his antics go gruesomely awry: “I cut my head open on a guitar one time and I fell into Laura’s drum set really badly another time,” he laughs. “One time we played, I fell off of the stage with my guitar right on top of a girl. It turned out she was an NME reporter… but in the end, pretty much any gig where I don’t get electrocuted is alright for me.”

“We just try to have fun and to the best of our ability recreate the chaos that used to occur at shows we played at home,” says Laura. “We used to play in dark slippery rooms full of drunken maniacs. Now that we get up on stage and there’s a light shining on you, you are so far away from the audience. So to get that kind of intensity is really challenging.” To the outsider, their live set comes across almost like a humorous B-culture approach to music. “We do a lot of private jokes during the set,” Jennifer admits. “I always try to make Laura laugh so that she messes up her songs!”

The Roger Sisters come from very different backgrounds. So while Jennifer and Laura were literally raised on rock ‘n’ roll — their father owns a record store and one-stop distribution outlet in Detroit and the girls grew up tagging along to shows by everyone from Journey and REO Speedwagon to Prince and The Cars — Miyuki on the other hand followed his diplomat father around the world and lived in Hawaii, Japan, Liberia and Switzerland before landing in Baltimore and then New York. “It’s funny how people can have such different experiences and still relate to each other,” says Jennifer. “It’s amazing that we still ended up liking The Zombies, The Cure, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.”

Taking into consideration their travelling past, it seems a little at odds that The Rogers Sisters are most often herded under the umbrella of “trendy New York bands“. But they don’t seem to mind: “We love being a trendy New York band. It’s good for us, there is a focus on the city we live in and we get to travel the world because of it,” says Laura, adding “The only thing I find frustrating is that people seem to think no one cares about us any more because we are from New York.”

To prove these ‘non-believers’ wrong the band are eagerly lining up a busy and energetic schedule for the year. “We want to hit the festivals again, it was so much fun last year. And we’ll tour as much as possible, in the UK, US, Japan, Greece, Brazil, Thailand, Ethiopia, Portugal, Hawaii…” says Jennifer, while Miyuki adds more secret plans: “We also want to be on Top of the Pops, duet with Robbie Williams and produce a song with Kanye West. But that might not happen…”

Wears The Trousers