We recently had the chance to connect with Carmen Thomas & Camille Thomas and have shared our conversation below.
Carmen & Camille, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
We like to start with some good old fashioned intention setting, affirmations and prayers. Get the happy vibes flowing right off the bat. Then we move onto our somewhat ridiculous (but beneficial) morning beverage routine involving fresh pressed celery juice, lemon water with green drink, apple cider vinegar and cayenne pepper. Our great grandma Grace lived to be in her mid 90’s and drank cayenne pepper every morning. Then usually we make a coffee with some collagen powder and cinnamon. By this point we’re exhausted and full… I’m mostly kidding. We try and get a workout in right away before the day gets busy. And music after that, the best part of the day!
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
We are CXC, an indie pop duo originally from Vancouver, Canada who are now based out of Los Angeles. We are twin sisters (Carmen & Camille Thomas) and we write, record and produce our own music. We play guitar and flute and love harmonizing. A lot of our sound is mixing more organic instrumentation with electronic elements.
We consider it our great honor to get to make music together and perform together. We have been really focused on creating and releasing new music on our own the past two years and are excited about doing some new collaborations with some very talented people that we have coming up.
We’ve performed across Canada, The United States and Europe and are excited to get back on the road. Our goal is to play Coachella. Nothing beats performing live.
We have had some adventures on the road, like when our plane broke down while on our way to perform for Canadian troops at the North Pole. We spent three days in 24 hours darkness in Greenland instead while they tried to fix the plane. Some of my favorite memories are meeting and connecting with people after shows. It’s just the best.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who taught you the most about work?
Both of our parents had great work ethic and were musicians themselves. Some of my fondest memories are my dad playing guitar and mom singing. Our dad passed away unexpectedly on our birthday last year due to a sudden health issue and it’s been a lot of ups and downs dealing with that loss. But one of the many things he taught us was his work ethic. He was such a creative force, always writing or painting or learning. That sticks with us and motivates us.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Camille: Carmen and I have both opened up to each other about how hard it is sometimes when you’re an independent artist doing everything on your own. Making all the decisions is freeing, but also daunting at times. But after our dad died I just stopped caring about all the noise and established we have an angel on our shoulders and we’re more determined than ever to tour the world with him watching over us. Carmen and I do enjoy the journey, I like to say we’ve definitely drawn it out as long as possible. And at the end of the day we’re making music together in new ways and that means the world to us. I guess after our dad passed away things just felt different. My priorities became much clearer.
Carmen here now: for me personally I did have times where I wanted to give up on the past and I think that was from feeling a lack of control in my career. But the past two years we delved into learning Ableton together and both produce our music now and that has been such a game changer. I haven’t wanted to give up in a very long time now. I feel like in some ways we’ve just got started! I love the music we’re making and have loved the journey of experimenting together and redefining who we are as artists at this point in our lives. I think there is an ongoing theme of perseverance and determination in a lot of our new music which is what I’m very much feeling internally. Our latest single, Mine, that we just released it all about asking for what you want.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
Carmen: Something that we have been recommitting to is the power of our minds and the importance of how you speak to yourself. Self healing and self love is always going to be a journey but we’re really trying to bring it back to our awareness. We want success, we want to see all of our goals come true and I don’t want to be the thing that is holding myself back from that. I’ve done that before and it feels boring now. I really do feel like we’re onto a new level of belief in ourselves.
And how we speak to each other is important too, as we are working creatively together and no one can push my buttons like my sister ha.
Camille: Like Carmen said, the past few years have been really focused on streamlining our consciousness and exploring unconscious beliefs. I do believe what you think and speak is what manifests itself in the world, and the power of aligning is real. We’re all human and it’s always evolving, and I’m not striving for perfection, just forward motion. I’m much kinder to myself now and have been focusing on being aware of my internal dialogue. I used to people please much more and now I’m into being myself and knowing my worth and value. I’ve made a ton of choices that weren’t in my own best interest so now I’m trying to be good to myself and focus on what matters, which is connecting with people through music. And being more vulnerable and honest in our lyric writing. There is a healing power in that.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
Camille: I think about this sometimes, what would I want people to say about me when I’m gone. What always comes up is I would want them to say I loved hard and brought joy to their life. That matters to me. It’s really about human connection. I’m sure there would be some crazy stories people could share but we won’t get into those now 🙂
Carmen: I think (or hope) that people would say that we are loving people who have lived life to the very fullest. I say prayers daily that I can bring joy to people through our music.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cxcband.com
- Instagram: @cxcband
- Facebook: cxcband
- Youtube: @cxcband
- Soundcloud: cxcband
- Other: Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7IWSfDdKNN9YXkNA5b9eBP?si=NDqQ4LI9RYKynvvkGN0lpg
Image Credits
The first picture of the three with us in black with the flute and guitar:
Pic by: @whenitshoney
The brown picture with the guitar:
Pic by: @Esthy
