by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“I never took lessons,” says Asya, “and I never got to learn how to read notes. I just started writing songs and making up words by myself.”

Asya (pronounced Aussia) sings and plays piano and keyboards. Her sister Chloe plays drums. Together, they’re Smoosh, a Seattle act on the verge of releasing their sophomore album, Free to Stay, on Barsuk Records. Since 2004, they’ve played shows with the likes of Pearl Jam, Death Cab for Cutie, Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power, the Go! Team and Eels (with whom they’ll play Montreal). The critical success of the duo’s debut album, She Like Electric, facilitated tours of the U.S. and the U.K., and this year’s itinerary includes Canada, Europe and Australia. These are impressive achievements for any young indie band, but when you’re as young as Asya and Chloe, 14 and 12 respectively, they’re truly remarkable.

You may be wondering whether their father owns a large local venue or a hotel chain, or if their mom’s failure to become famous turned her into one of those stage-side tyrants. Actually, their mother Maria is a physician who works extra shifts to finance the girls’ tours, and their father Mike is completing his doctorate degree in molecular and neurobiology at the University of Washington (they’ve kept their family name under wraps to retain privacy). Neither of the parents plays music or professes to be a music nerd, though they’re learning a lot as they take turns chauffeuring their daughters from town to town and show to show. But they always supported Asya and Chloe’s drive to play music, something they may have inherited from their grandmother.

“We still have our grandma’s piano, and her keyboard too,” says Asya. “It’s really low, almost on the ground, so I could play it when I was really young.”

Beyond their years

The combination of youthful energy and technical proficiency alone is enough to fuel a short-lived novelty act, but Smoosh’s mature way with melodies is what sets them apart from run-of-the-mill prodigies, putting them on par with indie pop musicians twice their age. Asya has been writing songs since she was five, and although she’s a self-taught pianist, she took drum lessons with Chloe, who’s been hitting the skins (and occasionally breaking a stick) since she was six. It all started one day at a music store, when Chloe laid eyes on one sweet drum kit (that she’s since grown out of).

“This sounds really stupid,” says Chloe, “but when I first saw it, I thought it was so cool ’cause at that time it was really big and sparkly and red. Asya was already playing the piano, so I thought that if I took lessons, I could play with her.”

The person that sealed the deal, selling the kit to the girls’ parents and promising to provide instruction at the Seattle Drum School, was Jason McGerr, now a member of Death Cab for Cutie. In the early stages of what became a four-year course, McGerr overheard Asya singing and playing piano, and began to encourage certain ideas and to help the girls arrange songs and record demos. On Smoosh’s MySpace page, he writes that witnessing their evolution reminded him of what drew him to music in the first place, and that, “It is because of all their youthful experiences that their songs sound so fresh, inspired and unconsciously pure… It sounds like they are tipping invisible hats to a past they’ve never known.”

Behind the music

When the Mirror spoke to Asya and Chloe last Friday, they were missing their last day of school, which was also Asya’s graduation from junior high. Though the homework always gets done somehow, Maria says the school has been incredibly accommodating about her daughters’ absenteeism, possibly because the girls are having a learning experience of their own. After all, a record deal is a crash course in business and law for any musician; touring teaches geography, budgeting and adapting to foreign cultures and climes; and sharing stages with other bands—even if the girls have to stay backstage during other sets in adults-only venues—is one hell of a music lesson.

Prior to Smoosh, the sisters had a typical group-think mentality when it came to music—Asya laughs as she admits to having listened to the Backstreet Boys. They’ve said that they’re inspired by bands like Sleater-Kinney, Interpol and Arcade Fire, though their interpretation of those relatively aggressive sounds garners comparisons to artists like Tori Amos and Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys. Perhaps because Asya started writing so young, with so little knowledge of music to draw from, her lyrical and musical influences are more unconscious.

“I never really write about people I know,” she says. “My piano is right in front of the window in my house and it’s really easy to come up with lyrics there, especially when it’s raining, for some reason. And sometimes I get my lyrics from poems or stories that I wrote.”

Critics’ darlings

Asya’s lyrics aren’t particularly adult, neither in the grotesque manner of the Pussycat Dolls, nor in the sorrowful singer-songwriter sense. But, considering the way adult drama so often feels like high school, Asya’s poetic commentary on weathering good and bad times is strong enough for an adult, and made for everyone.

Likewise, the music has moved even the most jaded rock critics to show some honest respect, and not just because it’s a great story—alongside scores of writers from weeklies, dailies and glossy mags across the U.S. and U.K., former Melody Maker crank Everett True loves them, as does Vice, though their reasoning may be unsavoury. And the press, radio and TV coverage generated by She Like Electric is bound to multiply with the release of Free to Stay, the work of a more savvy Smoosh, with the same uninhibited energy of their debut.

“The songs are getting more complicated,” says Asya. “I added bass parts and other keyboards, and I do guitar for one song—I’m not very good at it, but I like to play it. I just kinda made up some chords and taught myself.”

Growing pains?

The girls don’t know whether Smoosh will evolve into an adult band, or whether their nine-year-old sister Maya, or their two-year-old sister Scout, will join the band. Maya’s shown an interest in bass, but at the moment she prefers to draw and work with clay—the cover image for She Like Electric is hers, as well as elements of Smoosh’s family-run Web site. Maria says she and Mike are preparing the girls for the possibility that they won’t make another album (though that seems unlikely) and that they won’t be able to tour so extensively again. With their egos in check and their hopes set at a realistic level, Smoosh have learned to love the moment, whether it’s watching bands like Eels play every night, being interviewed on CNN or, above all, playing their own songs to fans and new converts.

“I don’t really get that nervous anymore,” says Asya, more excited than anxious about revisiting the U.K. and playing Canada, Europe and Australia for the first time. As for Chloe, she’s simply looking forward to being on stage, no matter what the country, especially those moments when they capture the audience in the palms of their little hands.

“I like it when the crowd likes our music and they’re dancing, ’cause then I really get into it,” she says. “It makes me rock out more.”

With Eels at le National on Friday, June 16, 9 p.m., $20

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