Artist Spotlight: Cline Twins
The Cline Twins, known for their unique blend of creativity and energy, are back with their third single, “Single Thing,” a song that encapsulates the warmth and joy of summer. Their latest track is the perfect soundtrack for summer nights around a bonfire with friends and family, featuring vibrant guitar and an irresistibly catchy chorus.
In this exclusive Q&A, Cline Twins opens up about the stories behind the music, lessons learned along the way, and what keeps their passion alive.
MusicsWeek: Can you walk us through your typical songwriting process?
Cline Twins: We come together and start writing, either with a guitar, piano, etc. We start bouncing lyrics and ideas off of each other, which gets melodies and words to come on the page that you may not have thought of by yourself. Other times, we write separately and then come together with our ideas and songs to make them complete.
MusicsWeek: Where do you find inspiration for your lyrics and melodies?
Cline Twins: We find inspiration from melodies all around. Such as new music and artists, all the way to our all-time favourite artists. Sometimes you can be watching a movie or show or even out on a walk, and without even hearing a song, something inspires you to write lyrics and a melody. Sometimes, even a melody can come to you out of the complete blue and can end up being a full song that was completely unexpected.
MusicsWeek: How do you handle writer’s block or creative slumps?
Cline Twins: You handle it as if it’s very normal and really let it be natural. Unexpected songs and lyrics will start coming to you, and in no time, you’ll have songs on the page again.
MusicsWeek: What comes first for you: the music or the lyrics?
Cline Twins: It really depends on each different song. That’s the really fun thing about it and what keeps it fresh and new. Sometimes you write a whole song with all the lyrics and then you come back to it a few hours later, days later even, and new lyrics, new melodies, and a different and improved version of the song can come out. Other times, a melody can be lingering in your head with no lyrics at all, and you can’t quite find the words. It can start building into a formula of a song, and sometimes you have mock lyrics just to map it out. Eventually, lyrics will come around, and you have a song.
MusicsWeek: How do you know when a song is truly finished?
Cline Twins: You can really feel it and tell when a song is finished. There’s a certain fullness to it that naturally comes into itself. That feeling can come during the chorus, the verses, and the ending when you know you have that final lyric that sums up the feeling of the song.
MusicsWeek: How do you decide on the theme or concept for an album?
Cline Twins: Themes play themselves out and come together as the song and feel start to show themselves. For example, you can have a song or songs in the works, and just with even one verse, you can start seeing the colours and tone of the album cover and what the lyrics and feel can turn out to be.
MusicsWeek: Do you write music on the road or only in a dedicated space?
Cline Twins: It can really be anywhere. Writing songs on the road is really great because sometimes you can’t sleep or you’re just really excited, so you feel like you're on the same page. You say, “Hey, let’s grab the paper and pen and start writing”. It almost feels like you are saying it simultaneously, at the exact same time, and then you start writing, and in that session, you can have a song written. We also write music in certain spaces and areas, you can find a flow and certain rhythm when it’s like that. Lyrics and familiarity can come to you. It can also be first-time areas where you write a song that you may go back to write at a later time.
MusicsWeek: Have you ever had a dream to inspire a song or an album?
Cline Twins: Yes, quite often each of us has dreams about a song, and then the next day you wake up with a new random song and melody in your head.
MusicsWeek: How do you handle a song idea that doesn't fit into your current project?
Cline Twins: You can really make it fit into the feel of the project. Such as working the lyrics and melody into something that can rhythmically move you in the same way that the rest of the project is going. That way, melodies and lyrics can come to the front of the song and shape themselves into a feeling like such. And also you can handle that by holding on to it for another album, until we feel like it is where we imagined it to be, and in a natural, right place.
MusicsWeek: Do you ever revisit old songs to rework or find inspiration?
Cline Twins: For sure. Sometimes we write a song and put it away for a few weeks, a few months, and come back to it and have a new look at it, and a better version of it can come out. Sometimes it can be unexpected. It can be by just singing or playing other stuff, and then a revisited song randomly comes to you, and you start singing it with your guitar or by the piano, and it can form into something new.
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