JT - Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about how you two got together to make this album? What were you doing before then? Did you both have separate musical things going on or other groups?

DK - Rhonda and I met in Junior High School. I don't remember exactly how, but I know we hit it off right away and we've been great friends ever since. We always shared a passion for music. Rhonda and I both wrote songs separately when we were young. We performed our songs at parties and school shows, and even formed an all girls rock band in High School. Later, we went our separate ways. I worked continuously with different bands, some original bands and some cover bands, all throughout college and afterwards. Mostly I worked on developing my singing. I really wasn't playing guitar too much at that time.

RB - After High School, I took a break from playing piano and guitar for the most part, but continued to write songs. I went to college, then law school, and sort of lost touch with playing music for longer than I'd like to admit.

DK - We began working together again three years ago when we started collaborating on songs we had both started separately. Together we pieced together songs for our album, which also includes some songs done entirely by Rhonda and some songs which I did entirely by myself.

JT - The guitar playing really is first rate, and Rhonda's piano skills are terrific. And the songs really have a fresh feel to them, even though they have this professional and meticulous quality about them, and I think that's one of the things that makes them so good. Really tight, but at the same time almost spontaneous sounding. How long did you work on the tunes? Were there ones that came easier than others? Was there a certain song that was difficult to do, but wound up being great in the end?

RB - First of all, I have to clarify: I played piano on two of the eleven tracks. The terrific piano skills to which you must be referring belong to Pat Drier, a very talented professional musician who added a lot to our project.

DK - Both Rhonda and I had classical training in piano, and I had classical training in guitar as well. Mainly we both used our instruments as writing tools.

RB - Although Diana has become an accomplished acoustic guitar player, enough so to hold her own with the seasoned musicians we hired for the CD.

DK - We were fortunate enough to hire great musicians, two of whom had worked together many times over the years, Robert Holmes (electric guitar) and Tim Archibald (bass guitar). As for the song writing, Rhonda and I worked together for about one and a half years. We met about once a week, and held strong to our goal of completing a CD, though at that time we didn't have any concrete deadlines. Some songs seemed to write themselves. For instance, I wrote "Pieces" in one day and fine-tuned it throughout that week. I think because I also play piano, used to play bass, and had experience in college writing for different instruments, I hear all the instrumentation in my head as I'm writing. When we hired the other musicians, I had a pretty clear picture of what I wanted.

Some songs were more difficult than others. We reworked the song "Firelight" several times, and even though Rhonda was skeptical at times about its potential, I had faith that we could turn it into a CD-worthy song.

JT - You co-produced this work. I have to say that the production is flawless as well, everything is mixed nice, all the instruments are audible, and the vocals perfect. A lot of times I'll get a disc that could have really been something, yet the production sank it. Did you have any prior experience in producing albums, or was this a learning process as you went along on this one?

RB - We have to give a lot of credit to our sound engineer, Randy Heath, who, we've been told by professionals, recorded and mixed our songs in a very professional manner. Although it's common for artists to bring in outside producers, we had a very definite idea of how we wanted the songs to sound, and were lucky enough to hire extremely professional and talented musicians who were able to convey our ideas in their playing.

DK - I think it was helpful that I had been in a studio several times before, so I had an idea of how the mixing and production process worked.

JT - You're from the Boston area. Last year I talked to another Boston group, Sunshine Boy, whom I really loved. Is the scene there still pretty good? Did the audiences take to your sound pretty fast, or did they need to warm up to it at all?

DK - Unfortunately I don't feel I have a good sense of the Boston Music Scene. I've spent all my time putting together the CD, or else teaching children music or performing in small bars and clubs. From talking with other musicians, however, I think it's safe to say that the music scene is pretty strong - there's a lot of talent. There seem to be many places for musicians to perform their originals, which is a great thing.

RB - I've noticed a lot of talent coming out of Boston lately. For example, the band Flynn and my new favorite rock band, Must, both of which I've seen performing recently (although both bands are transplants; as far as I know, though, they're still living in the Boston area.) I think audiences take to us because we have catchy songs with a very strong lead performer. Hopefully, the music continues to catch on!

JT - There really is this definite "feminine" feeling to the album. I mean that in a good way, because I think sometimes a female will get into a rock band and it'll be kind of gimmicky, or perhaps sometimes male listeners might feel too alienated at times from the sounds of certain female acts. And that may be intentional on the part of the artist herself. But you have a sound that is warm and inviting and very womanly, and very accessible to everyone.

Do you think there's any stigma to being a female musical artist, and do you feel that there are potholes you have to consciously avoid to grab more listeners, or did all these songs come naturally and just work out that way?

DK - I am aware that these stigmas exist although I try not to think about them a lot. I try to approach things just as a musician writing about my own experiences or experiences others have shared with me. If they come across with a feminine feeling, I guess it's because I'm a woman.

Maybe the material seems accessible to everyone because I think I'm in touch with both my feminine and masculine sides, and I'm a very analytical person and always trying to understand both men and women, learning from others and from my own experiences. I don't consciously do anything to try to gain more listeners; I just do what I do and hope someone will have an emotional response to my work -- then I know I have succeeded.

JT - I also think you have a very "adult" sound to your songs that will resonate certainly with older listeners. Do you think that current radio caters too much towards a teen demographic given what's popular these days? I often feel like the adult contemporary stuff that's popular panders to the lowest common denominator as well, as if adult listeners need to be handled with kid gloves.

What do you think could give the current radio programmers a good shot in the arm? Is it up to labels nurturing bands that they seemingly have stopped doing over the last few years, or does it take more, do you think?

DK - Yes, radio does cater to teen listeners, although I don't necessarily consider that to be negative; there are quite a few teen-oriented artists I really like. In fact, the band Lifehouse, and others of that genre, which are made up of extremely young musicians, have very mature lyrical contents and sounds. We saw them live and were very impressed. There are also bands like Matchbox Twenty, The Dave Matthews Band and Vertical Horizon and artists like Duncan Sheik and Sarah MacLachlan who aim toward a more adult audience.

I by no means consider myself an expert on the music industry; my only familiarity with it is through my own performing and writing. It seems to me, however, that music today is more about performance art, about having something to market that is visually entertaining, and not so much about how good a musician someone is. Fortunately there still are bands and artists I still respect as musicians, so I have to give mainstream industry credit for that.

RB - I have the feeling that if more artists put out CDs independently of the major labels, we'd see more variety, and less cookie cutter pop songs. We might even hear some really great music performed by people who look more like our average looking rock idols from years past and less like fashion models.

It seems like today, radio play lists are so tight and major radio stations won't play songs unless they're major hits, at which point all the stations, from top-forty stations to hard rock stations, play the same hit songs over and over again. So I guess that's a roundabout way of saying that I hope people pay attention to independent projects like ours.

RB - Though I've heard that any type of creative writing, in order to be genuine, has come from experience, I don't think that's quite accurate. For me, it has to come from emotions, which, of course, come from our experiences. That way, if I'm feeling a certain way (sad about a personal loss, for instance), I'll convey that in my lyrics without being too literal. I agree, there's a fine line between conveying passion and sappiness, and although I'm sure I walk the line, I try hard not to cross it. So yes, the feelings are entirely from my own life, though not necessarily the experiences.

JT - One of my favorite songs on the album is "Spirit's Dream". Again it's one of those things that I think could have become cloying, but is really a beautiful piece of work and is very bittersweet. Could you tell us a little about how that song came to be and your personal ties with it?

RB - Thank you! That one is my baby, more of a little lullaby or poem than a whole song. It's the second song I wrote for my sister, who died five years ago. The first was straight-forward, about my loss, and was plenty cloying and sappy. I wrote "Spirit's Dream" from what I imagined her point of view to be, imagining that somehow she was experiencing the same deep sense of loss and helplessness and the desperation to hold on to loved ones that I was. If you listen to the words, only the last verse is the Spirit's dream; the rest is its reality. I think anyone who has lost someone can relate. Diana put a real investment into the song, knowing how much it meant to me. She arranged the verses so we ended up with what became the chorus.

JT - "Firelight" is a very yearning and sensuous tune. Again, it really strikes me how crystalline and well thought out the lyrics are to the song. I think you really hit upon that whole "burning desire" emotion that so many of us feel and yet kept it within this perfectly balanced ideal that doesn't let it spill over into gushing silliness. It just really sounds like you are very much in touch with your own intimate feelings and whatnot and know how to project them unerringly. Do you feel especially in touch with yourself when writing these kinds of songs?

DK - Yes. I have to agree with your observations about "Firelight". After all I've experienced throughout my life-- relationships, friendships, gains and losses, good and bad-- I finally feel like I'm at a place where I'm in control and making things happen instead of thinking about what I want and letting things happen as they may. And I'm no longer letting others have too much of an influence on my life. I knew I wanted to be a musician when I was five and I picked up my first guitar.

In fact, after we recorded "Firelight", my mother found a poem/song that I had written when I was about four years old. It started out: "there's a place that I know, not above not below, it's a place in the sea, that's where I like to be, in the sea." That must have been in my subconscious when I wrote the second verse of "Firelight". I have no regrets about how I got to this point. I think it's very important to go through different things to become a stronger person. Just like in "Step Into the Light" - "Some touched me deep in side / Helped me believe in something real / Some ate my heart alive / and taught me how to heal". Or something like that!

JT - What's been the most difficult aspect of getting your music career going? I mean, obviously not everyone's going to be as smitten with your sounds as I was. I mean, I hope they are. I literally listened to this album 5 times easily the first day I got it, it struck me that well. But have there been any struggles as of yet to get these songs heard or your names known?

RB - Thanks! We're in the very early stages of the project and of promoting the CD. It's uphill from here, but we're up to the task. So far we've had a lot of positive feedback. (And not just from our parents!)

JT - And lastly, do you have any final words you'd like to say to any fans out there who may be reading, or any well-founded womanly advice to other ladies or young women out there who are wanting to get into a musical career of some sort? Oh, and where do you two shop? Your outfits on the CD sleeve are rather nice.

DK - Male or female, as a writer, if you have any talent, just keep at it, just keep writing. It's OK to collaborate with others, but it's important not to lose sight of what makes it personal to you. I've spent a lot of time working on other people's music projects and getting involved in projects where I didn't have much of a say in the writing. For a performer, that may be fine, but as a writer, it's important not to let anything stand in the way of your songs. It's important to be confident and assertive; it took me a long time to get that way in a male-dominated industry, but I realized it was important and kept at it.

RB - I'm still trying to think of a wise comment in response to your question about our outfits…