At ages 19 and 21, Lily and Madeleine Jurkiewicz have already had several releases, including their self-titled debut with Asthmatic Kitty back in 2013. Now the Indianapolis duo is preparing to release yet another album of material that is certainly their most dynamic to date.

Prior to Lily and Madeleine’s performance at Deluxe in Old National Centre this Saturday (Feb. 27), Seth Johnson caught up with the pair of sisters for an in-depth phone interview. Fans eager for an sneak preview can catch the duo at an intimate, free in-store performance at LUNA Music this Friday.

Seth Johnson: For those who are unfamiliar, can you give me a little bit of the backstory on how Lily and Madeleine first began?

Madeleine Jurkiewicz: Lily and I are sisters, and we’re from Indianapolis. We had always loved music, so we started writing and performing about three or four years ago. We signed to Asthmatic Kitty Records, and that was the first label we signed to when we started our career. We balanced school and music at the same time for a while. And then once we graduated high school, we decided to take a break from school. We’re putting our third full-length album out on New West Records this Friday (Feb. 26), who we just signed to in June. So now, we’re just full-time musicians.

SJ: You two started making music at a young age. Were there any challenges that you initially encountered because of that?

Lily Jurkiewicz: We didn’t know how to write songs. We could write jingles and all of that stuff, but nothing full-length. That was just a really strange concept for me. I personally was not interested in performing at all. I had never been interested in stage performance or anything like that, so getting used to performing was kind of hard at first.

MJ: I would say that one of the biggest struggles was the business aspect. And, understanding all the people that are involved in the process, like promoters and booking agents and whatnot. That was probably the hardest thing starting out, but Lily and I have learned so much more about the business now and are super confident in our art and in our business.

SJ: I’ve interviewed you two in the past about both Paul Mahern (Zero Boys) and Kenny Childers (Gentleman Caller) . Can you speak to how they’ve helped you grow as musicians over the years?

LJ: Kenny was the person we wrote with, and we still write with him to this day. He’s just a really nice guy, and he fostered my excitement for songwriting and for music.

Paul has been our manager and producer. He was the first person we met in the business. He was the one that was like, “You guys should be artists,” and we were like, “Okay!” He has done so much for us. We wouldn’t even be doing what we’re doing if we hadn’t had met Paul. I don’t think we ever would’ve pursued music as a career if he hadn’t have pushed us.

SJ: Talk to me about the process that went into writing and recording your upcoming album, Keep It Together.

MJ: We kind of wrote in a new way this time. Lily and I wrote separately and then came together at the end to revise and edit right before we went into the studio. So it’s interesting because you can identify a lot of the songs more with Lily or more with myself. We were very 50/50 on all of our last projects, so this one is just a little bit different in that way.

We arranged all the songs with our band, which consists of me and Lily, and then our friends Shannon Hayden (read Seth Johnson’s interview with Hayden here) and Kate Siefker. Those ladies are so amazing, and we’ve toured with both of them for about a year now. It’s cool that we were able to create a full album with all of us four ladies, and then we’ll be able to go on the road and tour with it so our live shows will be very similar to the record. It makes every song more cohesive as a full body of work. So that was a new experience Whereas before, it was kind of song by song, and we got help from lots of our friends and different musicians that we knew. This project was more of a full idea that we executed.

SJ: How do you see Keep It Together as being different than your previous albums?

LJ: This album just has a clearer vision. With the other albums, it was just sort of a bunch of songs compiled together. But with this one, I feel like everything sort of flows. The subject matter is more cohesive. A lot of the songs touch on the same ideas. I also like this album a lot because it’s sort of less imaginative and more realistic to my life and to Madeleine’s life. Instead of talking about some river that doesn’t actually exist and being all folky, we’re actually talking about our lives, and I like that.

SJ: How does the title of the album relate to where you two are currently as musicians, as sisters and as people?

MJ: The line comes from the first track on the album, which is called “Not Gonna.” In the context of the song, the line is about keeping your shit together.

LJ: Yeah. The song is about what we’re expected to do as young women in society. So when I wrote that line, I was specifically talking about keeping your emotions in check and always looking put together.

MJ: Keeping it together based on the expectations that people put on you. But, I think it means more than that in the context of the entire album. Like, keeping it together as sisters. It’s kind of a command to our listeners too. I mean, it’s not like we’re trying to tell them to do anything, but you could interpret it that way.

SJ: How has playing music together impacted your relationship as sisters?

LJ: Honestly, I don’t think it has affected us at all. If we had gone to separate colleges in different states, then we probably would be growing apart right now. But, everything has just sort of stayed the same as it’s always been, which is really nice.

MJ: Yeah. Lily and I spend our whole lives together. We live together. We tour together. We write and perform together. So I think our relationship would be pretty similar, except maybe we would just not be as close because we would be having separate life experiences. It’s made me happy that I get to be with my sister all the time, and that we get to work together.

SJ: I know you have an Indianapolis show the day after your album is released. With that in mind, what is your live show like now, and how does it compare to what it was in prior years?

MJ: I am so excited to start touring for this record and performing. Lily, Shannon, Kate and I have been rehearsing so much lately, which is something that we’ve never really gotten to do with these last records. Lily and I would just kind of tour them by ourselves or with Shannon. It was really nice to do it that way, but then our live performances weren’t super true to the record. It’s not always necessary to create a live show that’s exactly like the record, but it is kind of more fun that way. So with Kate and Shannon, we’re able to rearrange everything to be how we arranged it in the studio in the first place. I just feel really confident in our performance, so I’m very excited for the show at Deluxe.

SJ: Is this more collaborative direction with Kate and Shannon the direction you see yourselves going in the future?

LJ: I don’t want to take a step backwards. I enjoyed making acoustic folk music. But, we spent so many years doing that, and I definitely want to keep experimenting and doing newer, weirder stuff in the future. I’m trying not to think too hard about the future though because the album hasn’t even come out yet (laughs). So I’m trying to just focus on that right now.

All photos by Faith Cohen