Young in fact, old in soul, Nik & Sam, identical twins from the rural Arkansas hamlet of Dover (population: 1400), make music that is, at once, high spirited, soulful, beautifully conceived and masterfully executed. In their deft hands and piercing, high lonesome harmonies is the promise of contemporary roots music’s future, both in the new generation of fans they can draw to the music and in the progressive flourishes with which they energize the ancient tones of a tradition they seem to understand instinctively, no matter their tender years. Their songs, both originals and inspired cover choices, are fueled by the drive of the Dixie Chicks, the imaginative vitality of Nickel Creek, and the rootsy. pop-inflected immediacy of Sheryl Crow.
"Nikki and I want to make people go, 'Wow!'" says banjo/dobro playing Sam. "I think we can make a difference and spread our music around the world."
Such youthful idealism in such a tough business. But Nik & Sam, raised in a musical environment and encouraged in the strength of their dreams by supportive parents, live their vision to the hilt. In addition to raw, maturing talent, both young ladies are fully invested in their common aim and pursue it with a clear-eyed intensity, thanks in no small measure to Mom and Dad.
"I think you have to believe in something for it to come true," says Nikki, she of the guitar, and mandolin. "If you do nothing with your life you will get nothing, and your life will be a waste. Those goals can be hard, but it can pay off. Like Dad always says, 'If it was easy, everybody would do it.'"
Born to Richard and Rhonda Setian (Dad's a fire marshal, Mom's an oncology and trauma center nurse) and raised on a farm about 90 miles west of Little Rock, Arkansas, Nikki and Samantha were blessed with the lifestyle accoutrements of an idyllic childhood--five horses, three dogs, two cats, a pond full of ducks, a flock of wild guineas-and parents who loved music (Richard is a self-taught guitar picker who learned his way around the instrument via a Mel Bay instructional book and Eagles and Lynyrd Skynyrd albums), lived in a community where music was omnipresent, and found therapeutic uses for their own record collection when their daughters were mere bawling babes.
"We're not really sure why Nik and Sam like music so much," Richard muses. "Maybe it's because when they were babies, both laying there screaming at the top of their lungs, we would crank Ozzy Osbourne and they would finally shut up."
At age five the girls sang a duet of "Jesus Loves Me" for their church. At Richard's occasional gigs he would offer to let them sing a number and they were always ready to perform: "Once they got a taste of the stage it was in their blood."
Offstage, music was taking hold of the girls. Richard remembers his daughters forever singing and working out vocal parts, and emulating concert performances. "They always had perfect pitch," he notes. "If one was off-pitch just a little, she was going to get a funny look from the other. Sam was a natural at harmony. She could harmonize to anything. As a matter of fact, when I would sing or play her a harmony part, she would often harmonize to that harmony. I would finally tell her to just 'do your thing,' and everything would be okay."
"I know I always used to sing when I was little," Sam says. "I'm not sure why, except we always had music around the house and I enjoyed it. Dad always played his guitar and Nikki and I would sing with him." For her part, Nikki remembers "singing all the time. We always had music around us. I used to get my parents' CDs or tapes and listen to them. They had all types of music and they let us listen to all of it. I liked mostly the same stuff Sam listened to, except maybe some harder rock 'n' roll like Metallica, Pearl Jam and Ozzy."
"We always listened to Mom and Dad's music," Sam concurred. "Stuff like the Eagles, Boston, Lynyrd Sknyrd and bluesy stuff like the Allman Brothers and other old country music like Willie Nelson."
"Today I like a variety of music," adds Nikki, "like Nickel Creek, John Mayer, Alison Krauss and especially the Dixie Chicks. I also like the blues like Jonny Lang."
Mom Rhonda was the conduit for Sam to pick up an instrument. She was taking fiddle lessons and her instructor had a cousin that taught banjo, which was what caught Sam's attention. "I begged Mom to let me take lessons," says Sam. "I was 10 years old. Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks played banjo and I thought that was cool. The first time I played banjo on stage I was hooked! I also started playing the dobro shortly after that. Some of my influences are Bela Fleck, Emily Robison, Jerry Douglas and my banjo teacher Paul Renfro."
When she was ten, Nikki asked her father to give her guitar lessons. Like her sister, Nikki found the experience of playing her instrument and performing with it onstage exhilarating--or to put it in her own words, "I thought that was awesome!" On a shopping trip to get a new banjo for Sam, Nikki picked up a mandolin and started toying with it. Richard showed her the chords to Flatt & Scruggs' timeless "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," and a new passion took root in Nikki. Now she plays mandolin on some songs, and is learning how to flatpick a guitar, "because I have noticed that not many females play that way." As influences, she cites the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines and Patty Loveless as vocalists; Tony Rice and Bryan Sutton as guitarists; and Sam Bush and Chris Thile on mandolin.
Considering that these are 15-year-old girls, there is the matter of school and extra-curricular activities beyond music. Here too parental oversight keeps Nikki and Samantha rooted. Despite the potentially lucrative opportunities looming for their talented offspring, Richard and Rhonda resist the temptation to go for the gold. Richard has earned a Master's Degree in Education from the University of Arkansas, Rhonda was the first in her family to attend college receiving her Bachelors in Nursing from Arkansas Tech University. When Richard states unequivocally, "School is important to our family," attention must be paid.
Being 15 year olds, though, Nik and Sam aren't crazy about classwork, but say it's "okay." English is both girls' favorite subject, and both do well in it. They get along with their fellow students, but say their friends "can be wishy-washy"; in the end, "we are probably each other's best friend." They experience the usual mix of jealousy and admiration from their schoolmates, but are mostly unfazed by both--they go their own way, without much regard for fad or fashion. "We're always doing our own thing," says Sam, "like dressing different. We don't necessarily wear what's in style, we have our own style. Also, most kids play video games while we play music. They'll ask us if we have some game or Xbox and we don't even know what they're talking about. They look at us like we're aliens."
To decompress, the girls hang out with the horses on their farm--riding them, caring for them, and entering competitions with them. That the family got into the "horse business" was by design: Richard and Rhonda thought it would be a good environment in which to raise their children. "They could learn about responsibility," says Richard. "Raising horses is a daily task-feeding, riding and just checking their condition. It's not like having a cat, who's happy if you keep his food bowl full and his litter box cleaned." Both Nik and Sam have been competing in barrel racing and pole bending since they were seven years old, and both have broken the same arm in the same place, one year apart. "Must be a twin thing," Richard quips.
Finally, word about Nik and Sam reached Los Angeles, by way of transplanted Russelleville, AR native Chris Lee. Hailing from a musically inclined family himself, Lee, a guitarist, relocated to Los Angeles, where he carved out a solid professional career as a musician, songwriter, and producer. In addition to working in several touring/recording bands, he did session work, and wrote music for film, TV (including NBC’s Will and Grace and ABC’s Reba), and commercials (including a song for two award winning Coors Lite commercials).
Lee asked his friend Michael Swindle, another Russellville native, to keep an eye out for promising local artists. On a tip from Swindle, Lee flew home for the holidays and at the same time arranged to meet the 11-year-old Setian twins, who had been dazzling rodeo audiences with their precision harmonies and exciting instrumental interplay. Lee and Swindle, with Mom and Dad Setian along, booked time in Dover’s lone recording studio—a makeshift one at that—and put the twins’ music on tape for the first time. He also videotaped the girls in performance.
Upon returning to Los Angeles, Lee contacted a former bandmate turned producer, Danny Dunlap, and pitched him on teaming up on the Nik & Sam project. Dunlap has been a touring and recording bassist and producer for the past ten years, his most recent credits including playing on Sting’s "Sacred Love, Send Your Love" and producing, playing bass and musical directing for teen pop artist Katy Rose (V2 Records).
For Dunlap, the Nik & Sam video sealed the deal. "From the minute I saw the smiles on that tape in January of 2004, I was hooked," Dunlap remembers. "Then I met the girls in person a few months later and they took me to a whole new level of excitement." Chris and Danny have made several trips to Dover to work with Nik & Sam in the studio, writing original songs for them with an eye towards releasing a full CD soon. It's a measure of how skilled the sisters have become that two studio/session/concert veterans are knocked out by their smarts, energy and solid musicianship. "When we go down for a visit now, we write and record all day and jam and pick all night," Danny says. "These girls just can't get enough. Nik and Sam are an inspiration to anyone lucky enough to come in contact with them. Their love and enthusiasm for music is contagious. Their talent and focus are undeniable. They're young, but when those voices come together in a room the vibration shakes the walls and rattles your soul. The combination of great talent and amazing humility is a wonderful thing."
"So far music has been a blast," says Nikki, who pinpoints her goals as being to record music and play it live, to play the Grand Ole Opry and the Alltel Arena in North Little Rock ("especially since we've been to concerts there"), and not least of all, to hone her songwriting skills. Even now, though, not yet a teenager, she displays unusual sensitivity to the world around her, which augurs well for her long-term prospects as a writer—in short, she’s already on a track to contribute songs that touch her listeners’ lives in meaningful ways. "I wrote a song called 'Thinking of You' that's going to be on our CD. I was just up in my room thinking of the husbands, families and friends off to war and I started writing. I had the tune in my head. I rushed downstairs and played the song for Dad. The parts all came together and we decided to perform it. That makes me feel great!"
Sam seconds Nikki's goals as mirroring her own and adds: "I can see myself becoming a professional musician. I would like to tour and play at bigger places. I think I can be a good influence on other young people. During our last Christmas break, we really worked hard to record. We worked on Nikki's song. I remember how hard we worked to sing from the heart so that it would sound like that in the recording. We even changed the lighting to set the mood. That song is a really deep song and when we sing it, people really feel it. That's why we're doing more writing, because it seems when people write songs that they live, they sing with such energy and heart."
Ultimately, Dad Richard says it all when he opines that his daughters can perhaps make a difference in people's lives for the better. "There are so many kids that have no direction. Maybe they never had support from their parents. Nikki and Sam can be such an inspiration to kids. We've seen the reaction they get from folks young and old. Young people say, 'I want to do that.' Older people say, 'I wish I had done that. Maybe I still can.'"
In the end, maybe the only thing left to say about these gifted and grounded girls is exactly what Samantha wants us to say: "Wow!"
