FIONN Get Stoned

We all know that sibling harmonies can be otherworldly, think The Hunter Brothers and The Rankin Family.
Indie-pop 21-year-old twin sisters Alanna and Brianne Finn-Morris from White Rock, British Columbia take those harmonies up a notch.

604 Records artists FIONN, recently released their single Get Stoned to streaming services, accompanied by a very cool video. Get Stoned deliver honest lyrics, with a look at social constructs. Smiling faces, with a beautiful feel, Jacob Harris, Abbey Doucet, and Zach Vague have created a pink-hued backdrop for this Fionn song. The song delivers quintessential pop elements, getting stuck in your head like a great pop song will.

I had the chance to ask Alanna and Brianne some questions about the band, the music, and more.

Q&A

When did you start performing together?

We’ve been performing together since day one, serenading our parents through our early days, even making them buy tickets to the “shows” we would put on. We were fascinated by music, listening to many of our dad’s traditional Irish tapes and Elton John collection, spending a good part of our later childhood sending our stuffed animals on world tours to the sound of our Grammy Nominees 2007 CD, and a copy of Abba Gold. Our first step into the public eye was at Granville Island in Vancouver, where we started busking at 12. Money couldn’t buy the amount of experience one gains busking in a food market, we met many characters and gained so much confidence. From here, we started getting hired to play gigs, and haven’t stopped since!

Can you tell us about your band name?

Our last name is ‘Finn-Morris’, and ‘Fionn’ is ‘Finn’ in the Irish language! Our father emigrated from Ireland to Canada in a show band when he was 21, so we have always felt a strong connection to our Irish roots, emotionally and musically.

I’d love to hear more about the video, from concept, casting, filming, anything you want to share.

We have both agreed that filming for Get Stoned was the most fun we have ever had on set for a music video! When we first were told that this song would need a video, we had not a clue what the concept would be. We were flooded with storylines of our own when creating our past videos, but for this one, we couldn’t think outside the box. It seemed like the most obvious thing to do was to centre the video around a house party, but that didn’t feel very original. Jacob Harris, our director for the video, came to us with his idea of us leaving a house party and going on adventures of our own with a fun group of guys.

We loved Jacob’s ideas so much, that we let him take complete control of the storyline. It took us two days to film, and in total there were seven locations! Alanna had the worst cough of her life, we kept getting foundation stains on our stark white t-shirts, the boys had to smoke fake weed made from rose petals for hours, and we both thought we were going to leave set with broken legs from sitting eight people on the edge of a roof, or from being lifted six feet off the ground on an old couch. Fortunately, everything worked out in the end, and it was ALL WORTH IT!

“Get Stoned is a light-hearted account of mean girls at a house party,” says Alanna.

“It can hurt to be pre-judged by others, and Brianne and I often let other people’s comments or thoughts affect us emotionally. A couple of summers ago, we were partying with a group of girls who turned on us immediately when boys and too much alcohol came into the equation. We ended up getting stoned with a guy who made us laugh the rest of the night, and helped us shake off any feelings that had brought us down. The song came from a side of us that we had yet to discover. This was the version of us that no longer cared about what other people said, and could even find humour in mean comments aimed in our direction.” – FIONN

Can you talk about your musical influences and what you’re listening to now?

When we were younger, we were very inspired by folk and Celtic music. Our first record came from listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell, Hozier, Florence + the Machine, Alanis Morrisette and Fleetwood Mac. We became HUGE fans of Lorde’s record Melodrama when we were 19, and think that it along with maybe Channel Orange by Frank Ocean, lead us down the creative path that bore the songs for our upcoming EP. We gained a whole new appreciation for Lana Del Rey, and started listening to artists like Jessie Reyez, Mitski, SZA, Wolf Alice, Billie Eilish, Arctic Monkeys, the Shangri La’s and Father John Misty.

What can fans expect from a live performance?

Because our first record was more organic sounding, we played nearly all of our shows with just an acoustic guitar and mandolin. Our new music has more of an upbeat alternative pop element, so Alanna has spent the past year working up her bass chops, and Brianne is making the switch to her fender telecaster for the majority of the songs. With that being said, we’ll still be stripping it down for a few songs, as we’ll never lose our love for the organic element of a live show.

Will you be touring?

We don’t currently have a tour booked, but we’ll be keeping all of our socials updated when it happens, follow us @fionnband!

FIONN’s Links

Web / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Spotify / Apple / YouTube

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Trish Cassling

Writer/Photographer/Editor

Toronto Music Blogger