Heroine December, a band led by Aussie sisters Maya and Nandy McClean, will be launching their new album, ‘Target Practice’, at the Ultimate Prince Party in Melbourne this month. Noise11 caught up with them to talk about their band, their work with Prince and their journey of self-development.
Maya and Nandy have been working together since they were teenagers and it’s obviously a very normal thing for them.
“We were womb mates,” they laughed, before reminiscing about their first role, at 16 years old, in a white bread commercial.
Fast forward to 2005, just 6 weeks after the girls moved to LA, and they were chosen off an audition tape to dance in an upcoming Prince film clip. They rehearsed once, but didn’t end up shooting the video.
“He shut the whole production down after he found out we could sing.”
Instead, they went on the road and toured with him and Támar Davis, and their purple journey began.
It was two years later that they experienced a career highlight – performing with Prince to a live and televised audience of millions for the 2007 Super Bowl.
Not huge sports buffs, the entire experience was completely new to them, including the event itself. “We didn’t really know what the Super Bowl was before doing it.”
Earlier this year, Maya and Nandy executively produced the video for Prince’s latest single, ‘Breakfast Can Wait’.
Nandy had been helping Prince to get in touch with Danielle Curiel, the 18 year old dancer who he had handpicked to direct and star in the video, and she found herself coordinating and liaising with people to help get things organised.
“All of a sudden, during a conversation, he says, ‘when you’re producing a project, you have to be mean.’ My internal dialogue was, ‘I’m [executive] producing this now, am I?'”
Both women have done a lot of self-work over the years and found that to be invaluable on the set.
“Because I’ve got my emotions under wraps, it was a good test for me to be available for other people when they had their concerns and certain things weren’t going with the flow the way people were expecting it to,” Nandy said. “It was a really amazing experience just to be responsible for something like that, definitely confidence building for me.”
This unexpected venture into the world of executive producing is likely to sow more seeds in the future. They already have an idea for a reality television show which they are now looking to co-produce.
“Stay tuned, because we’re really excited about the concept for the show and we’re already working on some ideas.”
First though, Maya and Nandy have an album launch coming up later this month for their own band, Heroine December.
The official launch will be happening in Melbourne this Friday (22nd November), as part of the ‘Ultimate Prince Party’, instigated by remarkable Prince look-alike, Marcus Scott.
It looks to be a big night, with several special guests expected and Prince memorabilia to be given away, but they say there are more surprises still to come.
“It’s going to be a fun night.”
Heroine December’s sound is a combination of pop and rock. Their influences draw from their own musical tastes (“we grew up being pop babies”), as well as their father, who plays guitar and steel drum, and of course Prince, with whom they learnt a great deal, particularly about live sound, which is a feature of the new album, ‘Target Practice’.
There’s one thing the rest of their band might not be grateful to Prince for though and that’s the long rehearsal hours.
“We got trained with how [Prince] does rehearsals and then we just think that’s normal,” said Maya. “We’re just like, ‘Isn’t that the way you do it when you want to get something done well?’ We literally thought it was normal, but apparently a lot of other bands don’t even rehearse that long.”
“He’s been an amazing influence on our work ethic, that’s for sure.”
Following the release of ‘Target Practice’, the twins will be launching a Kickstarter campaign for a unique video idea to accompany the album.
“Me and Nandy love telling stories, so we’re creating a mini-movie out of some of the songs from our record,” Maya explains.
“It’s going to be really heartfelt, moving and it’s going to be coming from a space of giving and contribution. It’s definitely going to make a difference to people.”
This is not a surprise, given Maya and Nandy’s personal philosophies and the importance they place on personal growth.
“[Self-development] has taken us as people to a whole new level, as well as our career,” said Maya. “Personally it’s definitely impacted our own self-worth and self-confidence with who we are as people in the world.”
Through this work, they have mended relationships with friends, family and within the industry, where they admit they’d previously had huge control issues.
This has led both women to start individual businesses – although they tend to overlap – with Maya doing vocal coaching and Nandy doing life coaching.
With their plates well and truly full with writing, singing, dancing, acting, coaching and now executive producing, their band name seems perfectly appropriate, but it was actually Prince who helped them choose it.
“We were having a conversation with Prince and we were sharing some of our music,” Nandy explained. “He heard the word ‘heroine’ and he says to us, ‘Heroine would be a great band name’, but not the drug, heroine the female hero.”
The name ‘Heroine’ had already been registered, but the girls’ love of the festivities of December, as well as that being the month in which the band was formed, let to the inception of Heroine December.
Many would say that true heroes are all about the empowerment of others and this band is no exception.
“What our band is committed to is empowering people,” said Maya. “Every time we do a show, we always want to tie in something that’s going to leave people empowered and not have that just limited to music, but also how we interact with people, speak to people and how we carry ourselves as a band.”
“We want to be known to be a stand for that.”
You can see Maya and Nandy perform at their album launch at Room 680 in Hawthorn this Friday (22nd November) as part of the ‘Ultimate Prince Party’.
Local funk and RnB artist, Dru Chen, will also be performing, along with his 7 piece band.
You can get more details about the launch from Purple Funk Australia and more about Heroine December from their brand new website.
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Heroine December
