Between Friends on Style, Stage Fright, and Hailey Bieber Soft Serve

Welcome to SOUND ADVICE, Interview’s weekly destination for playlists curated by our friends, enemies, and lovers. In recent weeks, we’ve featured playlists from Che, Tommy Genesis, and Jackzebra. This week’s installment comes from Between Friends, the L.A.-born sibling duo whose new album Wow! dropped on Friday. Since their early teens, Brandon and Savannah Hudson have been making music together, fine-tuned through a lifetime of shared playlists, projects, and family reunions. It’s no wonder their dreamy, genre-fluid pop feels like texting your crush from your childhood bedroom. To celebrate their sophomore effort, the America’s Got Talent alums made is a sugar rush of a playlist, bounding from Madonna and Playboi Carti to Super Mario 64. Consider this your portal into their shared brain.

———

Do you guys fight?

Brandon: Sometimes. But it’s never like, serious. More of a feisty bicker. 

Savannah: Very rarely. And if we do it’s more bitchy, not actually fighting. 

Biggest crowd you’ve ever played for? 

Brandon: A couple weeks ago at Hyde Park in London with Olivia Rodrigo for sure. It was like 30 thousand people or something ridiculous. 

Savannah: London show last year was wild.

Do you get stage fright?

Brandon: It’s less fright and more like anxious jitters. Whenever we have to be stationed somewhere for too long before a performance we both get a lil frazzled. Like windup toys, just put us on & let’s roll. Sit around too long and you start changing and messing your hair up, etc

Savannah: Very rarely but sometimes… randomly. When Brandon is nervous, I get nervous

Favorite decade in music?

Brandon: It’s so hard not to say, like, the 70s for songwriting, or the 80s for pop music and synthesizers and drum machine combos, the 90s for all the genres and sub-genres of dance music, early 2000s for basically shaping us with the radio. Honestly gonna say this decade though… there’s this polished and perfect quality in pop from the past that has kind of disappeared now. We like flaws and charm, and I feel like a lot of music today keeps that. Also we’re all genre-bending now, taking things from everywhere, combining elements that shouldn’t work & making things fresh. The internet changed the game. Our personal tutor on a daily basis, every second, consuming newness. It’s almost like today we are cutting the middleman out and getting straight to the point and delivering something directly from the bakery that’s hot and ready without having to box it in. 

Savannah: Early 2000s!!!

NY or L.A? 

Brandon: Obsessed with NY, go all the time but have never lived there. LA is home so there’s a bias. We def wanna try out the city though, it’s on our to-do list when we start creating again, change up the scenery. LA’s a lil sleepy these days. 

Savannah: LA!!!! (but I <3 New York) 

Where do you get your style inspo from?

Brandon: Books, movies, the internet, magazines

Savannah: Brave people 

Last song you listened to? 

Brandon: “Love Love Love (demo)” by Lauren Duffus on a beach in St. Tropez fr.

Savannah: “Stereo Love” – ORIGINAL.

Your worst habit? 

Brandon: Working all the time and giving each other shit when we clock out .

Savannah: Saying my tummy hurts.

Worst and best part of working with your sibling? 

Brandon: Worst part, probably having different selects when we take photos cause then one of us compromises and there’s beef for a sec. Or, the family band comparisons. We are nothing like the Osmonds, we’re just related. Best part, same brain waves pretty much 24/7. We are kind of always on the same page and have had the same routes in our heads since we were kids. It’s like a yin yang thing, especially after this long of working together, there’s no explanations, just destinations. Built in bff fr. Also this industry is wacky and scary, we hold it down for one another. Doing this alone would suck. 

Savannah: Best!!!?? Built in best friend and trusted warrior and getting to do really fun stuff together all the time. Worst?? That sometimes it’s hard and stressful but at least we have each other 🥹 

Favorite film score?

Brandon: Star Wars, or the soundtrack for Morvern Callar. Oh, and the 28 Years Later score by Young Fathers was also sick but too new to tell. 

Savannah: Project X.

What’s your Erewhon smoothie order? 

Brandon: Peanut butter blast protein shake with double whey.

Savannah: I actually don’t partake in the Erewhon smoothie thing, but I like the Hailey Bieber soft serve. 

Your go-to L.A. lunch spot?

Brandon: Escuela. Or In-N-Out, always. Or Capri Club.

Savannah: CROFT!!!!!!!!

Worst break up you ever had? 

Brandon: Our first band for sure.

Savannah: Our first band at 16 <|3

Dream collab, dead or alive?

Brandon: Dean Blunt collab EP or an M.I.A feature with Pharrell on the decks.

Savannah: Prince or Madonna or Skrillex.

Your headphones of choice?

Brandon: 2011 Beats by Dre Pro “Detox.” Had these as a kid, strayed away as an adult and have officially found the way back home. Unopened case and all. Thank you eBay.

Savannah: Wired Apple headphones forever.