The Hanseroth Twins

The Hanseroth Twins had a taste of stardom long before they cut their debut album. Phil Hanseroth and his twin brother Tim have been collaborating with Brandi Carlile since the 2000s; they appeared on her 2005 debut album and have been backing her on-stage and in the studio ever since. While they cut their teeth in alternative rock, their natural gift for harmonies and their sure hand with folk and country idioms made them a great fit for Carlile's band, and they showed they could make a fine album on their own with 2024's dynamic Vera. Phil Hanseroth and Tim Hanseroth grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and by the time they were 15, they'd started playing music. Their early influences were the grunge bands that were making a splash in Seattle in the late 1980s and early '90s, as well as the Ramones, whose primitivism convinced them they could form a band, too. Picking up a cheap guitar, Tim taught himself to play, and Phil soon followed suit on bass. The brothers got their first break in the music business when they formed a band that grew into the Fighting Machinists, a burly alternative rock band who regularly toured; in 2002, they released a seven-song independent EP. Producer Rick Parashar, who had worked with Pearl Jam, Blind Melon, and Dinosaur Jr., took an interest in the group, and they landed a recorded deal with Interscope Records. The Fighting Machinists broke up before they could release anything on Interscope, but while working with Parashar, Phil and Tim were introduced to Brandi Carlile, then a fellow up-and-coming Pacific Northwest artist. Carlile became an immediate fan of the Fighting Machinists, and after they split, she asked the brothers if they would be interested in joining her band. Phil and Tim agreed, and they soon became valued collaborators with Carlile, anchoring her band on guitar and bass, adding supporting vocal harmonies, and sometimes pitching in with songwriting. When Carlile made her major-label debut with her self-titled 2005 album, the brothers were there, and as she rose to stardom, they remained by her side, playing at some of the most prestigious venues in the country with Carlile, including New York's Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl. Their songs would be recorded by Tanya Tucker, the Highwomen, and the Zac Brown Band. They won a Grammy for co-writing "The Joke" (with Carlile and Dave Cobb) for Carlile's 2018 breakthrough album By the Way, I Forgive You. And when Carlile helped stage a surprise appearance by Joni Mitchell at the Newport Folk Festival in July 2022, Phil and Tim were part of the backing band. (The concert was documented on 2023's Joni Mitchell at Newport.) Having established their talents as performers and songwriters, the Hanseroth Twins decided it was time to step out on their own since the breakup of the Fighting Machinists, and in 2024, they released Vera, a primarily acoustic set of songs that showed off the emotional side of their work.
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