By Michelle Woo
Photograph by Eric Sueyoshi
Nestled under a canopy of mature trees in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake district is the backdrop for the day’sphoto shoot. There sits a run-down bungalow, a treasure trove of hula hoops, stacks of old records, checkerboards and other vintage surprises.
Awaiting the arrival of this month’s cover girls — indie pop-rock duo Meg and Dia Frampton — KoreAm staffers are a tad nervous. While the eccentric locale is a photographic heaven, its quirks may be a little off-putting. (One editor made an emergency run for toilet paper and other missing necessities.)
But all anxieties are zapped moments after the sisters appear on the dirt walkway. Casually scoping the scene, Meg turns to a man holding a dusting brush.
“Is this your house?” she asks. When he answers affirmatively, she gushes, “It’s awesome!”
Dressed in jeans and T-shirts, Meg, 22, and Dia, 20, possess none of the rockstar snootiness you might expect from two frontgirls whose current album, “Something Real,” was praised by Rolling Stoneand whose band, Meg & Dia, holds the No. 1 rock video spot on MTV Asia’s listener-voted show “Amplified” this week.
Getting primped and primed, the girls hear New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” buzzing from the speakers and start singing along as if they’re lounging in their own living room. For the first shots of the day, they curl up together on the bohemian-style bed, glancing at each other and giggling as the camera clicks away. Dia’s laughter suddenly amplifies into a strident cackle.
“Come on, be serious,” Meg commands with playful, big sister authority.
Dia takes a deep breath and puts on a businesslike face. “Serious,” she repeats.
You can’t blame them for taking some time to be silly. Their band, which consists of Meg (guitar, vocals), Dia (lead vocals), Nick Price (drums), Carlo Gimenez (guitar) and Jonathan Snyder (bass), just wrapped up a marathon touring year, which included a coveted spot on the world-famous Vans Warped Tour. They’ve finally reached a rest stop before hitting the road at the end of this month for one of their biggest opportunities to date: a 29-city tour with San Diego’s Angels & Airwaves, fronted by former Blink-182 vocalist-guitarist Tom DeLonge.
For now, they rock out to the photographer’s CD collection, feed each other sour apple candies and describe what they’ve been doing during their time off in Florida, where their family now lives. “I’mcooking all this crazy stuff,” says Dia. “My mom taught me how to make sundubu, tofu beef soup and cucumber kimchi.”
Their eyes light up when they speak about their younger sisters, Jade, 15, who’s a tennis phenom, 11-year-old twins Rena and Nikki, who are obsessed with Japanese manga, and Misty, who’s 9.
“I try to think of what their childhood will be defined by,” says Dia of her four “biggest fans.” “When we were kids, Meg and I loved ‘Peter Pan.’ We tried to create a flying machine to go to Neverland.”
It must have worked. Meg and Dia soared.
***
The Frampton sisters grew up in Draper, Utah. Their father, Dix, was once a deejay for KBS in Seoul, where he met his wife, Sunhee Kim. After settling back in the States, the couple supported the family by running a series of small businesses, including a video store, a sandwich joint and a flower shop.
A bouncy little girl with an ear for country folk music, Dia taught herself how to yodel. Impressed with her natural abilities, her dad would sign her up for yodeling contests at rodeos and county fairs, where she’d enthuse crowds with her powerful, pitch-perfect voice. “When she sang, it was obvious that she had real talent,” Dix says.
Meg, more low-key and introspective, developed a passion for songwriting after receiving her first guitar. Late at night, while the rest of the family was asleep, she would jolt out of bed and scribble down lyrics and chords. She read constantly and credits authors like J.D. Salinger and Chuck Palahniuk for influencing her lyrical style.
In their early teens, Meg and Dia gathered a few friends and started a band called Jade Harbor, inspired mostly by ‘90s alternative rock. When the family relocated to Las Vegas, they joined another band called Cowards Courage. Early on, they knew that they never wanted to be a manufactured, bubble-gum spectacle. “We didn’t want to do that girl band pop stuff, which was popular at the time,” says Dia. “We wanted to be original. We wanted to be ourselves.”
Meg moved back to her home state to attend the University of Utah, where she earned a full scholarship. Dia eventually followed her sister to Salt Lake City. Describing high school as “miserable,” the teen enrolled in a home schooling program to finish up her junior and senior years.
In 2005, the girls self-released 1,000 copies of the Meg & Dia debut acoustic album, “Our Home Is Gone,” which floods with angst-ridden lyrics and wailing vocals.
For Meg, while it started out as a hobby, music slowly took center stage. One day, she called her dad and told him she wanted to quit college to play with Dia. He told her to go for it. “It wasn’t ever, like, this is what I have to do with my life,” Meg explains. “It was more something that I would be drawn to over and over again.”
A heap of encouragement came the day Meg went in to get her car fixed by a local mechanic named Nick Price. They started chatting and Meg casually mentioned the project. Price, who happened to be a drummer, showed interest. That night, having been looking for a bigger sound, Meg and Dia drove to his studio to hear him play. As the three of them rocked out together, they knew he was the one.
“Music is a really scary thing,” says Dia. “You don’t know where your next paycheck is coming from. Nick is the one who really pushed us. It’s really, really hard to find a good drummer.”
From there, they threw themselves into Meg & Dia, recruiting an additional guitarist and a bassist. Through MySpace, they started blasting out messages in hopes of securing some gigs. Some people would write back, “Sure, come play at our house party. But we can’t pay you.” Still, they would show up ready.
“Our first tour consisted of many, many basements and many occasions where we’d show up and the venue would be locked or shut down,” Dia describes. “We played at bars for literally three really drunk people. It was a process of having to prove ourselves, especially for Meg because you don’t often see girls playing the guitar. She wasn’t very good back then, but I think now she’s really something to see.”
In the fall of 2005, they were signed by Ohio-based Doghouse Records, the label of indie rock successes such as The All-American Rejects and Say Anything.
Their big break arrived in the form of an online message from MySpace founder Tom Anderson. They were about to delete it, assuming it was spam, but decided to give it a glance. Apparently, their MySpace page somehow caught a virus and the technical staff planned to shut it down. But before they could do so, Anderson gave some of the songs a listen, liked what he heard and entered them into a listener-voted contest to become the official MySpace House Band on the Vans Warped Tour. They won.
Those summer days, the girls toiled away on the testosterone-laden tour, waking up at 6 a.m. to build their stage, performing two sets in a steamy tent and then taking everything down in the evening. Manager Mike Kaminsky says they never complained.
“It’s nonstop for them,” Kaminisky says. “But these girls can handle it. They’re one of the most hard-working bands I’ve ever met.” What’s also surprising to him is how Meg and Dia have maintained their personalities and values in an industry that’s very much about image.
In August of 2006, Meg & Dia released its second album, “Something Real,” made up of new works and revamped versions of acoustic songs from “Our Home is Gone.” While critics compared the Framptons to other young sister acts such as Canadian rockers Tegan and Sara and teen pop duo Aly and AJ, their lyrics took on more grownup themes. For instance, the song “Indiana” centers on the classic novel by George Sand about one woman’s emotional journey through a series of abusive and unhappy relationships.
“That book touched me so much,” says Meg. “After reading the last page, I cried for about six hours.”
“I want to write about truth that I’ve found through experience,” she adds thoughtfully. “I want to write about something as ordinary as drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, but be able to describe how beautiful that morning is.”
The buzz of their first album landed the girls spots in Teen People, Cosmo Girl and on TRL. Their music video, “Monster” — an eerie spectacle of furniture being spewed against the walls as the girls, clad in white dresses, bob rhymically to the beat — was nominated for the MTVU Viral Woodie Award. This year, the band signed a deal with Warner Bros. Records.
With Angels & Airwaves, they’ll be playing at big-name arenas across the country, something they’ve never done before. Meg says she gets a thrill each time she takes the stage: “What goes through my head is, ‘What is everybody thinking?’ and ‘I hope young girls are inspired by us’ and ‘This is really fun,’ and ‘I’m so lucky to be here right now.’”
***
For the final shots of the day, the photographer guides Meg and Dia outside to embrace the crisp December morning. Stepping over rocky terrain, Meg picks up two long slabs of wood she discovers by her feet.
“Hey, can we have a sword fight with the wood?” she asks her sister mischievously.
Dia shrugs, takes one of the slabs and busts out with a surprise attack. Both girls giggle.
“I don’t want to play sword fight anymore!” Meg whines.
“Fine, it was your idea,” Dia says.
Dia says that like any sisters, she and Meg have had their fair share of spats. One time, when they were children, Meg took out the couch cushions, threw Dia onto the vacant spot, put the cushions back on and started jumping on her.
“I can’t remember what I did, but I was so mad,” Dia recalls.
Today, their fights mostly revolve around little things like who gets to use the shower first, but for bigger arguments about working and performing as a team, Dia says they’ll always sit down and talk it out.
“I love always having a sister around,” Dia says. “Being around so many boys, we need to have our girl time.”
After their tour, Meg and Dia will hit the recording studio once again to begin their new album, which they have already started writing. When asked if she has any memorable touring stories from the past year, Meg simply declares, “There’s crazy stuff happening every day.” Both say their goal is to keep improving their art.
Clinging to each other for laughter, friendship and support, Meg and Dia have, in many ways, created their own Neverland. With their music and voices as swords, they’re on a mission to fight the pirates, the doubters and anyone else who gets in their way.
