Meet Twayn: twin sisters turning chaos into chorus and heartbreak into hooks

 Their latest single, "Danger Meets Desperate", is a sharp-tongued, soul-baring spiral through modern love and mismatched expectations—delivered with the kind of lyrical precision only self-aware heartbreak veterans could pull off. Backed by Generator NE’s First Notes program, the track is as clever as it is cutting, pairing earworm melodies with razor-edged wit (“He’s 23 and acts his age / And by that I mean he’s a total trainwreck”).

From scoring major syncs and BBC airplay to opening for Jools Holland and selling out festival stages, Twayn—Hannah and Grace Stobart—are proving that vulnerability, honesty, and sisterly synchronicity are their superpowers. With a growing catalogue of anthems and a live show that’s pure emotional theatre, these 20-year-old North East powerhouses are far from desperate—just dangerously good.

1.“Danger Meets Desperate” has this brutally honest, witty take on modern dating and ‘situationships’. How much of the track is drawn from real experience, and how do you navigate turning personal chaos into such clever pop?”

Thanks for saying that!  All of our writing has an element of real experience in it and that’s the starting point for our lyrics, but, a bit like the storyline of a soap, there is quite a bit of poetic licence involved as it’s pretty near impossible to get all of the nuances across to the listener in a 3 or 4 minute track without taking a few additional twists and turns to get your message across.  Sometimes, the real experience might be added to with the story of something we’ve heard about, or the way we wish we’d played things.  If it was all 100% about our lives, that would be a little too exposing, so it’s generally a blend, but very much of the moment and we hope hits the zeitgeist for our generation.

When we played the City Hall, Newcastle, in December 2024, someone told us afterwards that they had heard another audience member saying, “Geez, these girls have no luck in their love lives” so I guess that sometimes people do take the songs quite literally, but honestly, real life (isn’t always!) quite as bad as the headlines might seem.

2.The lyric “I’d know ‘cus I am an expert” feels like both a wink and a warning. Do you see humour as a way of reclaiming power in emotionally messy situations?

That’s spot on!  Yes, you’ve certainly got to learn to laugh about things and there is a bit of ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.  We don’t want to appear weak in these sorts of situations (regardless of how we might really be feeling on the inside) so we do try to write a strong lyric to message how best to deal with things  (whilst quietly admitting that it’s sometimes do as I say, don’t do as I do).  That said, we do still write a lot of sad songs about situationships too, but sometimes the best tonic is a sort of ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’ approach and that’s what we wanted to achieve with this song.   We really do love regaining a bit of the narrative and writing tongue-in-cheek, vengeful bangers and, as you say, reclaiming a bit of the power!

3.You write about young womanhood with a sharp, unfiltered voice—lines like “He’s 23 and acts his age / And by that I mean he’s a total trainwreck” really hit. How important is it for you to speak to your generation in a way that doesn’t sugarcoat things?

We really strive to be authentic and to stand out from the crowd lyrically, but it is pretty much a case of writing down what we are thinking and feeling, without a filter, rather than a deliberate attempt to shock, if that makes sense.  We certainly love to hear that our songs are relatable, and we’re lucky that people our age usually do say that to us!  Sugarcoating things isn’t going to help anyone in the long term as it just isn’t real 99pc of the time … is it?!

 4.You’ve worked with First Notes on this release, supported huge acts like Jools Holland, and played major festivals. Has the spotlight changed how you approach songwriting—or does it make you double down on staying honest and unpolished?

I think it’s the latter.  Our writing technique really does stay the same, albeit the sound does move around a bit and our skillset improves too, so we demo a bit better each time we write.  I’m not sure we could write something that we didn’t believe in as it just wouldn’t sit right with us.  Music is not an easy business in the first place, so if you had to ‘fake it’ on top of all of the other challenges, I’m not sure where you’d end up.  We’re always pushing ourselves, and each other, to be better musicians, so our increasing success doesn’t really make a difference, even though it’s certainly a confidence boost; we definitely keep each other humble and remind ourselves that success is relative and usually temporary!

 5.From “Mr Perfect” to “Danger Meets Desperate,” there’s this thread of peeling back romantic ideals and exposing the cracks underneath. Is this becoming part of your signature as artists—calling out the fantasy in favour of something rawer, realer?

It’s something to do with our age and the times we live in.  We’re 20 now, so really in the thick of it;  life is messy, complicated and uncomfortable at times.  Because the world is more connected, everyone gets to know your business; you can see who likes your posts, and it’s all too easy to feel like you’re being judged.  We try to block out all of that as much as possible, but we guess that it’s also helpful in so much as it can provide a whole rich source of material.  For us anyway, writing it down lyrically helps us make sense of everything that’s going on. 

We all find our own ways to get through tough times, and it surely isn’t real when people pretend that everything is ‘picture perfect’?  Some people might head to the gym, shop, write it down in a diary or go have a few beers, but for us writing music is something we need to do; songwriting brings us comfort, helps makes sense of situations and sometimes brings a bit of closure and, as you highlighted earlier, maybe even helps reclaim a bit of power.