Check out Aly & AJ’s new interview and photoshoot with Interview Magazine below!

How Aly & AJ avoided the child star curse and invented a new sound
Aly and AJ Michalka (born Alyson and Amanda Michalka), a.k.a. the Y2K teen idols Aly & AJ, have journeyed from L.A. for their first New York fashion week. Aly, in particular, is a style maniac, although both arrived for this photo shoot in stunning outfits; AJ wore black patent leather pants that squeak when she walks. Despite busy days in press junkets and playing shows (they recently performed for Ferragamo at a party launching the brand’s new scent), the sisters seemed chipper, posing like professionals.

The occasion for their trip? After ten years spent focusing on acting projects—Aly stars on Veronica Mars-creator Rob Thomas’s iZombie, AJ on hit family sitcom The Goldbergs—the sisters Michalka have released an EP, appropriately titled Ten Years. The four-song EP, led by single “Take Me,” is a floaty wisp of confectionary dream-pop. The siblings call their music “nostalgic,” but it also smacks of the now, with an ’80s synth style re-popularized by producers like Dev Hynes and Ariel Rechtshaid.

“To me it feels a little bit like a soundtrack to life, and I think that’s the most interesting part about the production,” says AJ. “I tend to lean towards songs that almost feel like they’re the score to a film, and I feel like this record really does that.”

In adulthood, the Michalkas have much more control over their work (the production of Ten Years was self-funded). Though they have always written their own songs, these are the tracks with which outside hands have interfered the least. “I think the most important thing is that we’ve really grown from being these 16- and 14-year-old songwriters that were writing about experiences that we [hadn’t had yet], like having a boyfriend or losing someone important in your life,” says Aly. “We were just writing those assuming what you would feel like if that happened to you.” Continue reading Interview Magazine