- Carmen and Camille at the Discover Coast Music Festival in Bella Coola, B.C., Saturday, July 21, 9 p.m., bellacoolamusic.org.
WHEN Canada was celebrating the success of the Olympic Winter Games two years ago twin sisters Carmen and Camille Thomas were celebrating too. But it was for an entirely different reason.
"I was sleeping in bed and I knew in the back of my mind that the Juno nominations were coming out the next day," Carmen says.
The next morning the pop rock duo found out that their hit song "Shine 4U" had received a Juno nomination for Best Dance Recording of the Year.
"It was one of the best days of my life . . . I was in shock and I phoned Camille and we freaked out," Carmen says. "It was amazing. It is really nice to feel acknowledged by your peers."
"We did a little happy dance and celebrated," Camille adds.
Carmen and Camille are getting ready to release their newest album this summer.
"It's exciting for us because I feel like the songs really capture our personality," Camille says. "There are some songs with underlying positive messages and there are songs about growing up and then there are some feel good songs."
"I hope we can make people feel good with this EP," Carmen says. "It's something that people can put on and dance too."
Carmen and Camille's music interest began when they were little girls.
"Our dad would play the piano and we would think of melodies on top of it," Camille says. "Our first song was about our grandma's cat Bobby and we would spell out his name."
The twin sisters grew up in White Rock and attended Semiahmoo Secondary School in Surrey.
"In high school I was singing in Jazz choir and Carmen was in band playing the flute. We kind of got our start that way," Camille says. "Our parents are really musical so it was kind of a natural progression."
Early on, rock artists such as Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd influenced Carmen and Camille musically. However, over the years they have become more influenced by pop-dance artists such as No Doubt and Robyn.
"We traveled to Ibiza and were influenced by house and dance music," Carmen says. "We are playing keyboards more now but we still want to keep the organic element with the guitars."
More than five years ago the sisters took a trip to the South Pacific. When they returned home they decided to become serious about a music career.
"We went out a trip together to Australia and Thailand," Carmen says. "When we were away we did some writing together on the beaches and it was really inspirational."
Carmen graduated from the Broadcast Journalism program at BCIT while Camille was in the Jazz Vocal program at Vancouver Community College.
In 2006 the girls released their first EP titled Two and shortly after that success followed the twins. Since then they have appeared on MTV's Total Request Live and have been featured in magazines such as Stuff, Billboard, and Elle.
Carmen and Camille have performed in front of audiences worldwide. The duo have also performed the national anthems at Lakers and Kings games in Los Angeles and at a Vancouver Canucks game.
In 2009 they released their second EP titled "Don't Play Me Out." That same year they decided to move to West Hollywood, Calif. to grow their career.
"We have done a lot of acoustic gigs since we have been here. We played at an Oscar party for the movie The Fighter last year," Camille says. "Right now we are just more focused on getting new material and we just want to have new songs to play and a new EP to put out there. We will always keep playing together but right now the main focus is just recording."
"It definitely pushes you to be better because there are a lot of people here that are going after their dreams." Carmen says. "It reminds you consistently to keep plugging away and to get better."
The year of 2010 turned out to be one of the most successful for the twins. They released their two hit singles "Shine 4U" and "Boom Boom." Not only did "Shine 4U" received a Juno nomination but it received national radio airplay in Canada and brought the girls into the top 40 charts. The music video for "Shine 4U" was played regularly on MuchMusic. That same year Carmen and Camille were ranked 18 on Billboard's emerging artist chart.
"There were a lot of new things and new experiences that were happening at that time," Carmen says.
The girls got a huge break when a handful of songs from their album Two were featured on MTV's hit show The Hills.
"You're turning on the TV and there is Lauren Conrad sitting there in some breakup scene and our song is in the background," Carmen says. "It was really cool."
"It makes you feel like you are a part of their world and it's something I'd like to have happen again," Camille says.
"We have a lot of central themes. We have experienced life hand in hand," Camille once wrote a song about long distance relationships because that is what she going through, "but in the end we can always relate to each other."
Since the release of Two six years ago Carmen and Camille believe they have grown and matured as artists.
"We have a better outlook on life," Camille says. "As you get older you take a little bit more responsibility for the negative situations in your life."
"I think on a personal level we have done a lot of self exploration," Carmen says. "We have defined what artists we want to be, who we are and what we have to offer this world. We still want to be rock stars but we are also kind of neo-hippies."
"We have played at some maybe not so typical places but it's good for building up our fan base," Carmen says.
"You go into the smaller towns and people are really receptive," Camille adds. "I think with big cities it's cool because often people have heard your songs on the radio. In Vancouver we have a good foundation of fans, family and friends."
Although Carmen and Camille have lived in California for the past four years they have returned to the Lower Mainland plenty of times.
"Every time I go back to Vancouver I feel like I love it more and more," Camille says. "It's so pretty. We have such a good group friends there and we know where all the good restaurants are."
"The thing I really miss most besides friends and family is being able to jog along the seawall," Carmen adds.
Shortly after moving to Southern California, Carmen and Camille received a surprising prank call from a Canadian pop superstar.
"Carmen and I were driving somewhere and Carmen had just stepped out of the car for a moment when I got this phone call.
The person on the other end was saying that he was from the gas company and that we were late on paying our bill." Camille, "We were actually late on paying our gas bill because we didn't know you had to pay gas separately, we thought it was included."
After having a couple of moments tying to figure out what was happening, Camille discovered that the voice on the other wasn't the gas company. It was actually Justin Bieber.
"I think he got bored because he said this is actually Justin Bieber. We used to play with his guitar player and somehow he had chosen my number and prank called me," she says. "It was a pretty funny experience."
For future tour dates and more information on Carmen and Camille visit their website www. carmenandcamille.com or follow them on twitter @ carmencamille.
