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Some siblings fight, others make music together. [Wardell](https://www.instagram.com/wardellmusic/), formed by the brother and sister duo Theo and Sasha Spielberg, fall into the latter category, carrying forth the torch passed to them by sibling groups such as HAIM, Disclosure, The Beach Boys, and countless others.
After releasing their debut album _Love/Idleness_ back in 2015, the group returns with their newest offering _Impossible Falcon_ which hit streaming services late last month. The album continues where _Love/Idleness_ left off, with a brisk 7 track album which breezes past in a brisk 23 minutes. The album embraces their self-coined genre “shuffle pop”- a mash-up of several different styles and genres.
The duo spoke with Flaunt about the difficulty they experienced when releasing their sophomore effort, their songwriting process while livining on different ends of the planet, and how their father, the director Steven Spielberg, can’t carry a tune.
**It’s been years since you released your first album, _Love/Idleness_. What have you been up to since?**
**(Sasha)** We went on a couple of tours in 2016, then were sort of in this holding battle with this producer. We were waiting for this producer to start this album and yeah, it fell through at the last minute and we were stranded for about two weeks.
.**(Theo)** It got pushed for like 8 months or so.
**(Sasha)** It kept getting pushed, so we were just kinda waiting. We didn’t know if we should play shows or not. We did end up recording this song called “Deeper Underwater”, which you can only get on Soundcloud? We did that and Vanity Fair did a piece on that, I think they released that song and Steven Sebring did a video to it. And then from there, we were confused because we didn’t know if we should keep touring or get this album finished so we were in a bit of a holding period and that was when I started working on my solo project, Buzzy Lee, and recorded that EP. Theo started working at Public Arts in New York. So we were in a bit of a limbo, working on our own things. Then we were so happy when Chris Cody responded to an email I sent with the demos and we were like ‘Let’s do this’ and we got in with him very soon shortly after. Then there was another holding…
**(Theo)** There was another pause after that. We were considering releasing what we had done with Chris as just an EP itself, but we really wanted to make an album but it wasn’t coming together and we were on opposite sides of the country. Finally, I ran into our old friend Adam at a show at the Moroccan Lounge and me and Sasha discussed him having produced some songs for us. I brought it up to him and he was super down and incredibly receptive, we finished the rest of the album with him over the next couple of months. I would fly back and forth from LA.
**So it’s been quite a process getting this album released. Let’s talk about the it, its called _Impossible Falcon_, you released it late last month. Where did the name originate? And how does it tie into this specific grouping of songs?**
**(Theo)** It’s a really funny story that’s actually getting funnier. I was actually walking to see a friend’s show, I remember where I was, I was seeing a friend’s show right by the Highline in New York and Sasha sent me an Autumn poem. And she said “I think our album title is in this poem” so I read it while I was walking around and I immediately saw the words “Impossible Falcon” and texted her “is the album title you were thinking Impossible Falcon?” and she wrote back “YES” in all caps. So I basically think that was sort of like the placeholder album title for a while and we just never changed it. Never really thought about it. I think about in terms of how this album worked out, it does have some significance in how it was pretty hard to get this whole thing off the ground.
**What does this record mean to you? What do you want it to represent?**
**(Theo)** It’s funny because it represents a lot of endings in a way. Its a breakup album of sorts, I know that I and Sasha were going through intense breakups of our own. It’s also, in a weird way, having come out on the other end of this release, it does feel like a rebirth.
**(Sasha)** It’s in the name Impossible Falcon. At the time we were recording this it was near impossible that it would ever get finished. Once we started getting into a groove, it felt like, and this is going to sound so cheesy like we were soaring, we were flying. I know that’s the cheesiest thing I could have ever said. But it is representative because there were so many halts and oscillations within this record because it felt stunted and impossible but once we got going it was very possible.
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**What kind of music were you listening to when recording this record? What were the influences?**
**(Sasha)** I was listening to a lot of Joan Armatrading I remember from the beginning of the recording, I was also listening to a lot of Gene Clark. I know thats not in there at all, but it was what I was listening to.
**(Theo)** I was listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins and actually, for “I’m A Man”, as I was driving to the show yesterday, I was recalling three weird disparate influences on that song in particular. One was “I Need You,” with the George Harrison guitar swells coming in, all wonky and weird. When we got into the studio our producer was playing that Kacy Musgraves song “Slow Burn,” as an idea of how to sort of like slowly build that song up over time. Then also there was this Young Thug song called “High”, which samples the Elton John “Rocketman.” The idea of having this piano ballad with these electronics and having a beat to it was definitely in the last half of the song I was thinking about. We could go deeper into all these songs
**(Sasha)** True
**Sasha, you live in LA and Theo, you said you live in New York. What is your songwriting process like while living in different cities? How do you make it work?**
**(Sasha)** It works to our advantage because even when we were in the same city, Theo and I would send each other voice notes even when we were three doors down. How we started the band, I was in college and Theo had just graduated. So he would send me riffs, or chord progressions and I would send him back a vocal medley idea. We were so used to working that way that when I graduated college and we started pursuing the band, we found it more conducive to writing to actually be separated by a wall, which is how we grew up, separated by a wall. So it feels natural to us. So Theo, living in New York doesn’t feel very different from Theo living two doors down.
I mean, it sucks in terms of like “let’s work out these songs with a full band” me on piano him on guitar and you can’t do that when you’re not in the same city, but for the writing process it was nice.
**(Theo)** Not to really convolute the narrative, but in the aforementioned sessions which were scrapped was one of the great things to come out of it is that he was just pushing us to write more and more. So in those sessions, a lot of those songs were actually written with me and Sasha in the room for the first time. And they were good, it’s just people are never going to hear them.
**(Sasha)** Never say never.
**(Theo)** Never is the word.
**Let’s get some background information, for our readers who might not know, you two are obviously siblings.**
**(Sasha)** Not so obvious.
**(Theo)** Yeah, not obviously.
**Well, if you’ve done any research.**
**(Sasha)** when we are on stage we have to introduce each other as brother and sister, because no one really thinks we are just by looking at us.
**Yeah, its probably not going to be anyone’s first guess.**
**(Theo)** It might be more apparent over the phone.
**Very true, I think you all have great chemistry right now.**
**(Sasha)** We all do, guys, we all do.
**How has your relationship evolved over the years? Has there ever been any sibling rivalries between you two while growing up?**
**(Theo)** I think there’s always a peppering of sibling rivalry here and there, but because we are so close in age and really enjoy the same things, share the same group of friends, in a weird way it’s sorta been inverted. It often feels like we are on the same team, at family gatherings we team-up. So its not much of a rivalry as it is an alliance of sorts.
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**We have to mention your parents, Steven Spielberg and the actress Kate Capshaw, did they serve as any musical influence while growing up? Or where did you find your love for music?**
**(Sasha)** That’s a really good question, actually, our dad would play scores from moves while growing up.
**(Theo)** We would play a game called Name that Score, and he would play the first five or ten seconds of a score and you would have to be like …
**(Sasha)** Use all our film knowledge. Our mom actually has a good voice, and our dad can whistle perfectly. But I think our grandma (dad’s mom) Lee, was an incredible pianist.
**(Theo)** Our great grandfather on our dad’s side, Lee’s dad, was an amazing guitarist.
**(Sasha)** What?
**(Theo)** I think it was Lee’s dad? Remember that guitar that we just got from 1907?
**(Sasha)** Yeah?
**(Theo)** Our grandma recently died a couple of years ago and she had in her possession this guitar her dad had literally bought from the old country. It was like this prized possession. I held it for 30 seconds and then freaked out because it felt so fragile but well-loved and well played and I didn’t want to be the person to ruin a 100-year-old instrument.
**(Sasha)** Our dad can also figure out any song on the piano, just by ear. He’s really good at that, which is funny because he really can’t carry a tune.
**(Theo)** He does have an amazing ear.
**(Sasha)** I feel like he could sing if...no, he couldn’t. That’s like the one thing he can’t do. He can do a lot of really great things but not sing.
**(Theo)** It’s funny because the only band that he really listened to is The Beatles. It’s funny because he can have a classical ear for tuning. So it’s really funny, and also revealing, to see what songs he reacts to.
**You mentioned earlier, outside of the Wardell band, you’re both active in the music industry. Sasha, you have your solo project, and Theo, you’ve been a musical curator for Saturday Night Live. You’re both still very prominent in the music industry, both in the band and your respective careers. With having parents whose work lies within the film industry, was there ever any inclination to follow your parents into the movie business or has it always been music from the beginning?**
**(Sasha)** For me, it was always music. But I had stage fright so in high-school I was in all the musicals. That was my way of getting into music and getting used to performing. Then I started acting, and I was acting throughout college, getting little roles in indie films. I then graduated from college but I was still auditioning, but I also graduated with a Literature and Screenwriting Major, so I was writing out of college. I wrote a TV show with my writing partner Emily Goldwin and we sold it to ABC. It didn’t end up shooting, but I was writing a lot. Screenwriting. So I’ve been in that world and I still am, but the music is my one true love. Acting I stopped out of college when I was like I really have to love acting to do this. Especially in LA, you just have to really love it.
I do think in terms of movies when I’m writing music. Sometimes I write narratives and tell a story within a song, the way I would when writing screenplays, so it does manifest itself in that way. But yeah, it's just music for me.
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Photographed by [Marc Gabor](https://www.instagram.com/marcgabor/?hl=en).
Styled and Produced by [BJ Panda Bear.](https://www.instagram.com/bjpandabear/?hl=en)
Hair: [Mike Fernandez](https://www.instagram.com/ojosexo/) using [Oribe Haircare](https://www.oribe.com) at [Opus Beauty](https://opusbeauty.com).
Makeup: [Alison Christian](https://www.instagram.com/acommonfemalecitizen/?hl=en) at [Opus Beauty](https://opusbeauty.com).
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