The Old Adage

Some siblings can't be in the same room and others like Nino and Mimi Chavez aka The Old Adage, are fine with sharing everything, even an interview. This duo also creates some really solid tracks together and somehow they manage to make new music videos for a lot of their songs. They are the kind of artists that always have something cool going on, so we decided that it was time to check in and see what was new with the band. They shared a new video with us for the remix of their song "Hollywood" and told us a little but about what they have been up to this winter. Check out what they had to say and give their latest video a watch below!

HID- The Old Adage makes a lot of music videos. How do you come up with all of the ideas and find the budget to make them?
Nino- "When we want to shoot a music video we generally try to brainstorm ideas between the two of us about what we think would look good and be fitting for the vibe of the song. Then, we usually look for someone that we think can pull it off and that we can afford. Usually, it's a friend. Regarding the budget we both generally put money aside from our own monthly budgets to make them and we split everything down the middle."

HID- Have you been writing or recording any new music lately?
Mimi- "Yes! We are always writing and recording. In fact, we have tons of music back lined, we never stop."

HID- Do you have any big Spring or Summer shows booked already? What are you looking forward to doing this summer?
Nino- "For the summer we're planning on playing out a lot more. I'm excited cause we're gonna be playing a bunch of new music we haven't done live yet and we're gonna be releasing new music every month this year! That will stay consistent throughout the summer too."

HID- How did you pass the time this winter?
Mimi- "We spent a lot of time in the studio and planning for our releases. Although it always is a little quieter during the winter season because we are spending a lot more time with family’s for the holidays and what not."

HID- What's been inspiring you lately?
Mimi- "People and my health. I’ve been trying to focus on being more health conscious and making healthy decisions with my life because everything we do comes with repercussion. I have just been trying to live a little better and people around me have been very inspiring.

Iv'e always felt like people have high expectations of me and I don’t want to let people down. I know what we are capable of and I feel it necessary that we grab a hold of it. I’ve also been getting a lot of positive feedback and good vibes from people from doing my music and being myself and that in itself helps me continue and feel like I’m doing something right."

HID- What are you listening to?
Nino- "I listen to everything pop. I love it. EDM and hip hop too. That's about 90% of what my Spotify consists of. The other 10% is miscellaneous AF. But, I would say favorite artists at the moment? Galantis, Marshmello, and Major Lazer"

HID- Sleep in or up early?
Mimi- "I’m usually on a routine. I’m always up at a certain time, unless it’s Sunday. Probably the only day I actually “sleep in” now. Right now, things are fucky because I'm working midnight's but I’m up at 4 pm and I’ll be up til 10 am everyday. I’ve always been a good sleeper. When I was younger my mom use to call me “Sleeping Booty” because I have always slept in. Same thing during high school. If I didn’t have anything to do best believe I was in bed til 3 pm...but nowadays it seems like there’s always something I have to do. Lol. So, I aim for a good 6-8 hours."

HID- Anything else you would like our readers to know?
Mimi- "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." - sadie quagliotto

It’s been about five years since Detroit’s The Old Adage started making music under the name Mimi and Nino.

The brother-sister duo was an acoustic project started in high school that consisted of only a guitar and a tambourine. Mimi Chavez said that at that point, she and Nino Chavez didn’t really know what they were doing.

The pair eventually added a drummer and changed the group's name to The Old Adage.

Performing under a genre that the group calls “DIY-pop,” Mimi said the group has a hard time fitting their music into a specific genre. She said the goal is to be pop, though a fan coined the DIY-pop description.

“I like the ring of it because it is pop, but I like to think we are somewhat original and have our own way of doing things,” Mimi said. She added that her and her brother do everything themselves.

Featuring a unique and layered sound, the music is complex and varied. Every song has its own vibe, and even songs on the same album are more different than similar. It makes for fresh, strong tracks.

Nino said the music is influenced by everything, even things that aren’t music. Some of his largest musical influences come from top-40 radio, Twenty One Pilots and contemporary hip-hop.

“We just kind of follow wherever the song takes us,” he said.

They are currently working on new music that should be out by summer, though they aren’t certain what they will be releasing. Nino said they haven’t decided on singles, an EP or a combination.

The group’s songwriting and music-making process changes from project to project, Mimi said.

Their first release, “Matches,” was made by working ideas live over instruments, while their full-length album “Cycles” was written first. Mimi said she would write lyrics and bring them to Nino, and the two would then usually write together.

For the most part, they write in the studio now.

Nino is responsible for a majority of the music and production, while Mimi focuses more on ideas, certain parts of the music and vocal production.

Nino said that when making a song, they have a specific sound in mind, though it never works out perfectly.

“We never seem to hit it, but it still comes out OK in our opinion,” he said.

Mimi said that when something doesn’t turn out the way they envisioned it, it gives the song a different edge without changing the meaning.

“It's like life,” she said. “You have an idea of where it’s going, but yet it usually ends up becoming something completely different than you ever imagined, and there’s a lot of mystery and beauty to that.”

The two are focusing more on making new music rather than performing live, though they are playing a benefit show March 25 at Covenant Baptist Church in West Bloomfield. - Amber Ainsworth

Mimi and Nino Chavez moved around metro Detroit a lot when they were growing up, but music was the one constant in any house, in any city. The siblings, born 15 months apart, have been developing the potently catchy pop project known as the Old Adage over the past three years, building towards a busy year of touring in 2015 and the April 2016 release of the self-produced album, "Cycles," along with opening for Creedence Clearwater Revisited in July.

Born in Detroit and still in their early-mid 20s, they’ve already lived near downtown, Dearborn, Riverview and Monroe. But Mimi and Nino are eager to make the road a new second home, reaching for bigger and bigger audiences.

The Old Adage’s music is refreshingly freed from hipster posturing or overly-arty esoterica, and embraces a range of flavors that are unabashedly fun and often quite danceable, including a new level of synth-pop balladry on its latest album.

How do they make a familial creative collaboration work so well? The Free Press spoke with Mimi and Nino as they prepared to host their second annual End of Summer Fest on Friday at the Loving Touch in Ferndale.

QUESTION: Let's start with the song “Brothers.” Not only is it easily one of your catchiest tunes, but the lyrics are about friendship and sibling bond – and committing to the musical lifestyle: "We’ll be doing this 'til we’re dead…”

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Mimi: “Brother" is about realizing we need everyone. … It’s about being a genuinely good person and having good times forever. We can’t make anything happen on our own; everyone is contributing to our destiny, and we all play important roles, whether big or small. For us, it’s just what we’re deciding to do. As with any other career, there are big risks to take, so we are putting everything behind it because we believe in it. We don’t have a backup plan.

And we aren’t afraid of losing, because that’s the worst thing that can happen. It’s a gut feeling; you can’t not ... try! We feel like (music) is what we’re supposed to be doing. Music and artists have inspired us so much in our daily lives, and that’s what we want to help do for others. We’re working jobs that allow us freer range, music-wise, so we’re able to tour and play local shows when we want.


Q: How has the band and your collaboration developed?

Mimi: We started touring ourselves in early 2015, and I’d say so much of the learning process came out of that, just meeting people and other bands (who shared) their own experience helped us out. It’s very fast learning, playing in different cities and getting – or not getting – the reactions you expect. One thing we’ve learned is that we can always be better. There’s a reason we’re not yet where we are supposed to be and we have to continue to work for that.

Nino: The biggest thing we changed is we lean more towards a contemporary pop sound. We’ve learned how to try new angles, lyrically, and to keep up with our own tastes, which are constantly changing. We’ve also just gotten to know ourselves, to know each other, better, through songwriting and touring. I still remember a time when we’d literally tremble on stage, uncontrollably shaking with sweat. The stage is a much more comfortable place for us to be, now. We prefer (being on the stage) than being in an audience.

Q: Not all brothers and sisters start a band together. Even if they do, it’s rare they find such synchronicity, compatibility.

Mimi: Music was really encouraged in our home, growing up. As children, we both dabbled in piano and I played violin as well. But it wasn’t until high school that we began jamming together. That’s when Nino learned guitar and I was getting into drums. I think it has to be that sibling bond, that we literally have almost the same exact DNA and that we’re only 15 months apart, that makes us so compatible, musically.

From the moment we started writing and playing together, we felt there was just something there. We don’t know what it is, it just felt right. It’s like our chemistry makes it feel like we are one mind, musically … which is really trippy, actually. And that goes with my favorite part of performing (as the Old Adage), which is being able to connect with people. Our music is so us, it’s just very freeing to let that go in a performance. I love that my weirdness is somehow relatable. And people can feel it. That’s what we want!

Q: What sets the second album apart from your debut?

Nino: Writing "Cycles" was a completely different process from "Matches" (2014). We wrote "Matches" at home and recorded it live, with a drum machine, our synths, my guitar and a PA speaker. It was loud, raw, and it felt pretty straightforward. "Cycles," however, we wrote almost exclusively in the studio, recording it as we went. That gave more freedom to layer parts as we wrote; it let us experiment with time changes and build more complex song structures. That different approach to writing inspired new ideas and brought its own set of challenges.

If I had to pick two artists that definitely influenced "Cycles," it’d be Taylor Swift and Twenty One Pilots. We were just trying to write some great new pop songs that had a new feel to them. Growing up, I listened to a lot of hip-hop, R&B and pop, even a lot of that late-'90s teen pop, until I started playing guitar in high school and rock music became my new obsession. I never thought it odd to jump genre to genre; we kinda grew up doing that.

Q: And what are your future plans?

Nino: Figure it all out! (laughs) There’s so many ways to do this, and things we’re trying to plan or figure out, like airplay? Record labels? Touring? Funding. We’re learning what to do or try next every day, honestly. All of our tours have been an adventure onto their own and driving around the country to play music, you can’t beat that.

Mimi: We’ve recorded all of our officially released music in the basement studio of our house in Monroe, affectionately called Little Butter Records, as in, "little brother." We helped record a few of our friends out of that studio as well, but it’ll be finding a new home soon. But, for now, the plan is just to keep doing what we’re doing and getting better at that. No one’s handed these things, you have to earn them.

End of Summer Fest II

featuring the Old Adage

10 performing bands + artist exhibition

4 p.m. Fri.

The Loving Touch

22634 Woodward Ave, Ferndale

248-820-5596

thelovingtouchferndale.com

$8 - Jeff Milo

The brother-sister duo, The Old Adage, have recently released their debut album, Cycles, which introduces a whole new sound to the Alternative music world.

The album’s opening track, “Get Loose”, eases listeners into their fresh way of creating alternative music. The song introduces Mimi Chavez’s strange but beautiful voice, and also the duo’s well established electronic sound. While the song is good, it doesn’t do justice as an opener,since the group’s individuality doesn’t shine through, in this particular track.

The third track, “Brother,” dwindles from the band’s electronic style for a moment so the vocals can show their potential. Mimi and, brother, Nino Chavez work in complete harmony and you can clearly hear it in this song. “Brother,” is filled with catchy lyrics; “They just want to get in your head but I’ll give you something/ We’ll think about the things that we did/ We laugh at nothing.” and “We can’t get up and won’t go to bed cause I’ll miss my brother, We’ll be doing this ‘till we’re dead, how about another.” The lyrics may seem lighthearted and fun, but The Old Adage’s passion for their music can still be heard throughout the track.

“Twas The Fall,” differs from the rest of the album but somehow ties in perfectly. The lyrics are full of imagery about autumn, but what stands out the most is how the genre changes throughout the song. The song starts with a light beat and the vocalist sounding almost jazzy, but the group quickly switches back to their electronic roots with a guitar riff bursting through the vibrations. This one track is definitely the highlight of the LP.

When the eighth track, “Dragon Breath,” opens, the guitar riff sounds like something straight from Arctic Monkey’s AM album, but as soon as Mimi Chavez’s vocals came on, the group’s edginess is immediately back.

“Higher Places,” is an extraordinary ending to this album. The song features incredibly strong vocals from Mimi, which may remind some listeners of Cher Lloyd, and also showcases the duo’s distinctive electronic sound.

The Old Adage has created an exceptional first album which is guaranteed to have listeners left wanting more by the end. Needless to say, The Old Adage are a powerful group that has a lot to offer to the music industry.

Reviewed by: Alyssa Mount-Bycholski - Alyssa Mount-Bycholski

A few weeks ago a friend passed along an album that peaked my interest. It was fun, it was pop but it had a little more depth and a lot more dance. Needless to say, I asked my friend to tell me more! The band is called The Old Adage. Siblings Mimi Chavez and Nino Chavez have teamed up to create some really solid jams. Their latest album Cycles is being released this Friday, April 1st at North Lights Lounge in Detroit. If you haven't heard this band yet you need to check out the new album;s first singe Brother here.


We reached out to the band to ask a little more about this up and coming duo. Check out what they had to say and join them to party this Friday!

HID- How do you describe your sound?
NINO: An erratic Indie electronic maybe? That's always a hard thing for me to judge cause I like to pull ideas from different genres of music and sometimes it just feels like a jumbled genre of pop or rock.

HID- When did the two of you start creating music together?
MIMI: Right around when Nino started playing guitar. That was in 2007.

HID- What is the best part about making music with your sibling? What is the worst part about it?
NINO: The best part about doing music with my sister is probably the fact that it's so convenient living together and with such similar backgrounds and experiences we're on the same page a lot of times. The worst part...Probably the fact that we're siblings and still fight and we live together so it's hard to get away from each other sometimes, ha.

HID- Do your parents ever come to your shows?
MIMI: When we first started out she was there every show. Now that we have had so many shows she makes it out every so often, and even less now because she lives in Florida, but she 100% supports our music and our vision for it. & our dad lives in Mexico...haha

HID- Name your three biggest musical influences: NINO: gah that's a hard one because every other song I listen to influences me. But if I had to pick three at the moment: Taylor Swift, Twenty One Pilots, and Avicii

HID- What was your inspiration for the new album?
MIMI: Mostly our views on life, and what actual truth is. We started to feel pretty passionate about what we "believe" and about what life meant to us. & TWENTY ONE PILOTS heart emoticon heart emoticon heart emoticon

HID- Why did you name the new album Cycles?
NINO: In my mind we named it Cycles because small and large cycles exist in all parts of life. From the life cycle of a star, to the water cycle, and even the circle of life if you would. Energy recycles and we're all a part of it.

HID- Where did you record the album?
MIMI: @ our home studio "Little Butter Records" in Monroe, MI.

HID- What do you like about playing in Detroit? NINO: I like playing Detroit because it feels like home. We grew up going to church and were babysat in southwest so we spent a lot of time there. We never lived there but no where else feels as close to a hometown.

HID- What makes a Old Adage show special?
MIMI: I feel like I'd have to brag about myself...eh that feels weird...lol...Idk what makes our show special. People have said they love the energy we give off, people have said they have enjoyed the show itself, we tend to be a little theatrical and add in little dance moves or short transitional "scenes" per say. We are passionate about what we do and I think people see why we are doing what we are doing.

HID- If you could open for any band in the world who would it be?
NINO: Oh maaann...probably T Swift. Not because we're so relevant just the idea that it'd be an awesome show
MIMI: Twenty One Pilots

HID- Is there anything else that you would like our readers to know?
NINO: You are awesome.


I have listened to the album a few times through and I love it. If you liked what you heard consider heading out to Northern Lights Lounge at 9 pm on Friday. You can watch The Old Adage perform alongside Nina and the Buffalo Riders, Tahnz and The Filthy Animals. and a guest performance from Stretch. Northern Lights Lounge is located at 660 W Baltimore St, Detroit, Michigan 48202. - Hip in Detroit

There’s a catchy new single that has been caught in my head for weeks now and I’m happy to say that I’ve been lucky enough to sit down with the band that created it for an interview. Brother and sister duo Mimi and Nino Chavez, aka The Old Adage, have been crafting hook laden ear worms together since 2012 and their new single, “Red,” is just another step toward becoming the next big thing out of Detroit.



Let’s start with a little The Old Adage history for those that are just discovering you guys. How did the band get its start?

Mimi Chavez: Well actually before we were The Old Adage we were called Mimi & Nino. We did that for a couple years until we got a drummer. We felt bad being Mimi & Nino because to us it wasn’t just our band anymore. We tried to come up with something that wasn’t already a band name, which was actually pretty hard! Back then we listened to a lot of harder rock and 89X radio. Nino really liked the song ‘Becoming the Bull’ by Atreyu at the time, and in that song they had a line that said “grab the bull by the horns, The Old Adage goes.” He mentioned the name to me and Immediately I fell in love with it. He didn’t like it so much at the time, but I did a lot of convincing and eventually we both decided it would be a good name for us. We grew up in a super musical family so before any of our bands we always had to be in some sort of music class or lesson throughout our childhood. That led up to me really getting into singing, and Nino really getting into guitar. We were both obsessed with music throughout highschool. Nino would play his guitar for hours everyday, and I would sing for hours everyday. Then towards the end of my highschool career we started writing together. We started to open up for one of our friends’ bands a lot at a local cafe at the time ‘Cafe Classics’ which no longer exists and then started to get a lot of our own shows locally. We kept writing and pretty soon we wanted to release something ‘Official’ and start something a little more serious.

Being siblings, how long have you two been writing music together and what is the breakdown of work? Does one of you do more lyric writing and one more music writing?

Mimi: We’ve been writing music together about six years now. It really is so different every time. We like to say its half and half, and we also like to joke about who is more of the song writer/music maker. It really is pretty equal though. A lot of the times recently I will come up with a melodic line and lyrics and Nino will contribute lyrics and ideas to that, and then we will both sit down and write the music to it. Other times he will come up with lyrics and we will work from that, and sometimes we will just write completely together. We feel the songs we start from scratch together on usually turn out best. Sometimes we start out with a beat, sometimes we start out on guitar, or a moving synth or bass part. Now, we actually write most of our stuff (music wise) on the computer which is kinda weird.

Where does newest member, James Humason, fit into the mix and has adding a third member to the band changed the dynamic of things?

Mimi: James is actually no longer a part of the band. He is a good friend of ours til this day. He was in our band for a year or so and was the reason we changed our name, so we put credit where it is due. And yes, he changed things up very much. Adding James really helped us grow as a band into something more relevant. We were just us two on guitar and keys. Adding James helped us write more complicated songs, and eventually that led us to better production.

I know you guys started out with an acoustic / rock sound and have moved to a more layered, electric sound. Can you describe the evolution of your music a bit? Was it something that happened organically or a conscious decision to change things up a bit?

Mimi: It happened very organically. It was a constant evolution. When we added James it was completely new. We were a band instead of just an acoustic duo. For a short period of time James was super busy with football, work, and school so we ended up having to play a lot of shows by ourselves. There was a point where I was playing a kick drum, had two toms set up on the sides of it, set my keyboard on top of the toms, and played kick, snare, keyboard, and sang while Nino played guitar and sang. That actually worked out pretty well for a while. It was a funky thing, but people seemed to enjoy it. After that we bought a drum machine and played a long with that. That was the real starting point of our more electronic sound. That led up to us tracking things out and buying synthesizers. So it all gradually led up to our sound now, which is still changing. I don’t think it will ever stop changing.

Personally, I can’t stop listening to your new single. What was the writing process like?

Mimi: We are glad to hear that! Well actually this one was a really interesting one. I had written a song by myself about a year ago. I really wanted to make it a song, but it wasn’t all there in Nino’s eyes (we pick on each other a lot). So we were in Mexico visiting some of our family last December. We had a lot of down time so we made it a point to write during those two weeks. I brought up the song, and what happened was we basically devoured it. We came up with a completely new song out of that song, and maybe kept half of a verse and bridge part lyric wise. The music changed completely. That was one I originally wrote on synthesizer, but then while in Mexico we wrote the ‘new’ song on guitar. Nino came up the guitar parts, I believe I came up with the melodic lines, we wrote the lyrics together, and when we got home we wrote the music together as well.

I know you guys recorded “Red” in your new and soon to be public studio, was the recording process any different in a space that is completely your own as opposed to previous recording sessions?

Mimi: Yes and No. We’ve only ever recorded in home studios, so it was very similar in a way. Our studio is in our basement as well. It WAS very different because most of the time recording it was just me and Nino. We have a lot of fun when we record. We are brother and sister and already make fun of each other a lot, but its even better when we get to recording. We mess up a lot and laugh at it and its just a really good time. We recorded the Matches EP at our studio, which was all already written, but a lot of vocal parts that we have in there were random coincidences. In one of our songs, “Before The Suns,” there is a part where I’m saying “Yeah right” which was me saying “yeah right” to the take because in my opinion it was terrible. We kept it! Now we mostly record our songs while we are writing them, not after.

With the new single now out in the world, what’s next for The Old Adage? Is there another EP on the horizon or perhaps a full length LP? Are there any plans to tour in the future?

Mimi: There is another E.P. or L.P. in the works right now. We aren’t 100% sure on which avenue we will go. It all depends on how many, in our opinion, great enough songs we come up with. We have a ton of songs working though, maybe 15-20 we are considering to continue with, so it depends on how many we get to and can finish by the end of this year. Our new Release will be April 1, 2016. We are doing an 8 date tour next month, mostly to New York. We are also planning a one month-er for April for our new release.

You can pick “Red” up on Amazon, CDBaby, and iTunes. - Under Bright Lights

Electro-Pop sibling duo The Old Adage have released their debut LP Cycles today, after a pre-release stream was made available yesterday via Idobi Radio. Cycles is a true DIY release, produced/engineered at the band's own studio, Little Butter Records, and released by the band themselves.
On the meaning of the album, the band said, "Cycles is what life means to us in a sense, because everything is a cycle. We are all in them. We are all going through similar re-occurring experiences, and are all in the cycle of whatever is happening here. We are so much more a like then not and we need to work together to progress. That is the truth."

source: imgur.com
TRACK LISTING:
1. Get Loose
2. RED
3. Brother
4. 'Twas The Fall
5. Real World
6. I Had A Dream
7. SDR
8. Dragon Breath
9. Records In Our Rooms
10. Higher Places
The Old Adage is a Brother & Sister duo founded in March of 2012, front by Mimi and Nino Chavez. They released their first demo The 'T.O.A.D.' in November of 2012. The TOAD consisted of acoustic rock original pieces. Again, the group would be evolving, this time to an "Electric feel" with synthesizer/drum machine based songs. Co-writers & Composers (Chavez's), recorded, produced and mixed their first 'Official' release 'MATCHES E.P.' released August 1, 2014. The now "duo" released new single "Red" August 28, 2015. Recorded, produced, and mixed at their new (soon to be Public) Studio in Monroe, MI. "Little Butter Records". The duo has toured Midwest U.S.A., played a number of concerts held in New York City, and have shared the stage with mention-able acts such as Hawthorne Heights, Vinyl Theatre, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, The Soil & the Sun, & Stepdad. Nearing 2016 the duo spent months at Little Butter Recording their Debut Album "Cycles". The album consists of 10 Alt-Pop pieces the Chavez's have also recorded, produced, and mixed, and was released April 01, 2016. - Music Brackets

Family ties are at the forefront of Detroit’s The Old Adage. Comprised of brother and sister Mimi and Nino Chavez, along with James Humason, the band has been sticking to DIY ethics and electronic sounds since March 2012.

“Writing this album was really interesting compared to how we wrote Matches. With Matches we had a lot of structure, yet no specific writing process. This time around it was the complete opposite. This album is much more lyrically, and melodically based. It is a little more pop, and a little more abstract (oddly), but we hope to reach people in a completely new way this time around. (Although that was not intentional.)”

Today, the band is sharing the next chapter in their journey first with us. An exclusive premiere of their debut EP Cycles. The album, recorded in the band’s Monroe, MI studio, is due out on April 1st. Give it a listen below, and pick up your copy tomorrow! - EMILLIE MARVEL