Aly & AJ recently had a photoshoot and interview with Playboy. The gallery has been updated with gorgeous pictures from the photoshoot. Check out Aly’s solo shots at Aly Michalka Fan & read the interview below.

So, it’s been three years since your last new music, which was under your then-name 78Violet. What’s the journey been like?
AJ: It’s kind of interesting. I don’t really count the three years as the journey from rehabilitating our music. For us, we’ve made a record under a different band name. We were a little bit gun shy about going back to Aly and AJ and I just feel like we got past that. We released one single under that name, the song called “Hothouse,” which still is close to my heart. I love the song, but it just doesn’t represent who we are. I really look at this as a 10 year reunion to our music and just finding the passion again and the love for writing and for performing.

And those three years between 78Violet and becoming Aly and AJ again definitely helped define our music, but I really think it has been this 10 year span just for me singing music under Aly and AJ that has been the most significant and it mattered the most, in regards to building a repertoire of music and just growing as adults and entering this industry again not as a teen or a tween, which last time we were really doing this we were really young. So, whole new perspective, fresh eyes, and hopefully the growth of who we are as people as well as what we do professionally.

This is your first record outside the Hollywood Records-Disney ecosystem. How do you think you’ve grown or changed?
AJ: Gosh, in a lot of ways. I think how can you not after 10 years? Aly’s gotten married. We no longer live together. We’ve made film. We produced it, we starred in it, we raised the money for it. I mean, we’ve done a lot in a short amount of time that I look back on and go “Wow, for our age, we’ve been really tenacious”, you know? If we say we’re set out to do something, we do it and the music was kind of the last hurrah.

We were really kind of gun shy to get back into it. We just lost the love a little bit, you know, we had experienced so much as kids and I kind of feel like we learned a lot about the industry that put a little bit of a bad taste in our mouth, whether it was a couple of people we worked with or whether it was just trying to find the right inspiration or what have you. I just feel like we’re back on track with who we are as musicians and I think we had found that as actors and as performers before we had found it as musicians again. So, this is the time that felt right and here we are. I just think we’ve learned a ton in regards to relationships and just how we view the world and how we look at politics and religion and so many things that we wouldn’t have talked about 10 years ago. Continue reading Aly & AJ Playboy Feature