Music
The Shears twins play their singles Crystal Clear and Cloak in this spectacular and exclusive set.
Post-punk duo The Garden are all kinds of compelling. Their songs, played on drums and bass guitar or rapped over pre-made electronic tracks, are short, dark, ominous, fantastically intense and ever so slightly goofy. Their androgynous looks and style won them the admiration of Heidi Slimane and a modelling job with Yves Saint Laurent. Their performances involve lightning-speed drumming, unsettling face-pulling and spontaneous acrobatics. And, yes, they are twins, with an innate chemistry most bands can only dream of.
With bass-playing brother Wyatt pitching in over his shoulder, we caught up with drummer Fletcher Shears just as the pair finished their longest album to date (It’s over 18 minutes long, this time).
Watch The Garden perform Crystal Clear exclusively in the player below.
You’re thrilling to watch. What does your music feel like to perform?
There’s definitely a lot of adrenaline involved. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do or go as far as I do if I didn’t have that. I just know that if I have that feeling, then I’m good to go. And luckily I do have that feeling every time.
So how did you guys meet? (Joke. We are joking.)
Um, yeah, like, in the womb. We started experimenting with instruments when we were about 11. We started a little-kid punk band that same year. We were just your average kids: liked to play hockey, liked to play video games here and there. When we first started recording, and really got a passion for it, that was a big step in our lives. We have, like, thousands of songs on a computer. As life moved forward, so did we. We’re not very stagnant people. We like to keep moving.
Watch The Garden perform Cloak exclusively in the player below.
Has being twins given you confidence to be different, knowing you’ll never be completely alone?
Maybe somewhere inside of me. But I think people think we’re a lot more similar than we actually are. We think differently, we move differently, outside music we don’t do things at the same time. Of course we’re best friends, but if you’re close to us then we have very noticeable differences. It’s just easier for us to understand where the other one is coming from. We can always come back to earth with each other.
You’ve alluded in other interviews to rumours about you both at high school…
High school was not difficult – it was just very boring and bland. We just went through the motions. There were rumours after high school. Just petty s**t. I guess I could understand how the average person would mistake this, but people thought we were transgender or something. Kids see a lot of buzz online but don’t know what’s going on, so they assume things.
Your last album was 18 minutes long. Why don’t you like to stick around?
I don’t like to spend too much time on something I’m creating. I don’t like the feeling of sitting around questioning it – I just like to do it. So usually we’re: record, done, record, done. But with the new album we wanted to challenge ourselves. We finished it three days ago and it’s the longest we’ve ever spent on an album. It also has more experiments. I played grand piano and Wyatt played violins. Our sound evolves. We like progression and forward movement and whatnot.
Are you still modelling?
We’re focused on the album right now, but if something comes up we’ll definitely give it a shot. I had a lot of fun with Yves Saint Laurent. I don’t think it has anything to do with who we are or the way we perform, but me and him personally, in our daily lives, just really like clothes. Clothes are fun. I like trying new things.
You’ve been a two-person scene all your lives – how does it feel now complete strangers want to be a part of your world?
We appreciate it to the fullest extent. It was definitely shocking at first. It did feel weird for us. But him and I are open people, and it’s awesome talking to kids. It’s understandable, most of all, and we appreciate the love.
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