OK! Next Big Deal: Brandon & Leah Jenner Talk Music and Keeping Up with the Kardashians

OK!: How did you guys meet?

Brandon Jenner: We’ve known each other pretty much since middle school. Leah was friends with my little brother Brody when they were young, so Leah used to come over to the house to hang out—shoot BB guns and ride the golf cart.

Leah Jenner: I was very much a tomboy.

OK!: When did you start making music together?

Brandon: In high school, we played in a few different bands together. We kind of created a musical connection first before we started a romantic one.

OK!: When did you start dating?

Leah: When we were both single! Brandon came over one day. In my early twenties, Brandon came over one day and was like, ‘I am totally in love with you.’ I was like ‘No, I can’t. I can’t.’ Okay, fine. Yes.’ We have been together almost nine years now.

OK!: How has your music changed over the years, since you were teenagers playing potentially angrier things?

Leah: As with anything, the longer you do it, the more you progress. We just kind of stuck with it and you’re right, when we were younger, we were playing bar band type stuff, and rock and roll. Now that we are a little bit older, we play more soulful stuff. It will continue to evolve.

OK!: How would you describe your sound?

Brandon: Leah calls it indie pop, and I call it hip-hop-based reggae and soul music with a beachy flavor laughs. It's a collage of what we've grown up listening to. A lot of our influences are subconscious. I listened to a lot of Al Green. Leah listened to a lot of Etta James.

Leah: There’s always been a thread in our music. Lyrically, it really is an honest thing, writing about our experiences, our relationships, our lives.

youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyz6RiU6YQQ&w=560&h=315

OK!: How does it feel to be making music for a while and all of a sudden to have this recognition?

Brandon: It’s great. We’re really quiet and we don’t talk very much. We spent a great number of years just kind of making music on our own in the studio, recording, and working on our craft. We were signed to Warner Brothers and were going to release it, and they just never released it. We had basically stalled for two years of our lives. After that, we just started putting it out ourselves.

Leah: We met this guy Tommy, who is an incredible producer, and we co-produced with him. We released it on our own, and with the success of the TV show, it has been absolutely mind-blowing for us.

OK!: Why did you guys decide to join Keeping Up with the Kardashians this season?

Brandon: We were kind of asked to do it a few times, in a few other seasons. We didn’t think that reality TV, quote unquote, and the music business really mix very well. Last season, we did an episode and we got a lot of really great feedback from people, and a lot of them that checked out the music really dug it.  So I think that kind of alleviated a lot of our fears about being you know as reality TV stars and not as musicians. We just decided to embrace it. At the end of the day, it’s really a great way to get people to hear your music and it’s been a great experience hanging out with the rest of the family more.

OK!: Do people recognize you on the street now? Has it changed your life?

Brandon: Not really, no. Every once in a while there's somebody who will recognize me and want a picture, which is cool, it's flattering. To me, my life is separate from that.

OK!: What's next for you guys?

Leah: We're playing shows around town. We're working on EP number two. I'm super excited about that one.

OK!: How do you work together and live together and not drive each other crazy?

Brandon and Leah: laughs

Brandon: The truth is that we are such great friends that we want to be together all the time. So the fact that we get to work together is just a ridiculously awesome bonus. It's just what works for us. We’re both passionate about what we’re doing, and we love each other. It might surprise people that we spend so much time together and that we still get along, but it’s just the way it is for us. It’s the way it’s always been.