The Lemon Twigs
28th May 2023

Sons of power pop songwriter/multi-instrumentalist , the Lemon Twigs were formed by brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario. Channeling some of the ’70s singer/songwriter energy of their father’s era with a healthy love of musical theater and an over-the-top performance display, the brothers began writing songs at young ages and delivered their 2016 debut album, Do Hollywood, on  at the tail end of their teenage years. Success came quickly for the band, with critical acclaim and a string of TV appearances as well as extensive touring. They went from the conceptual eccentricity of their 2018 sophomore album, Go to School, to a more varied but no less bombastic set of songs on their 2020 album Songs for the General Public. Their fourth album cycle was launched with “Corner of My Eye” in 2023.

Long Island brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario started the Lemon Twigs while they were still in their teens, each playing multiple instruments, counting guitar, keyboards, drums, horns, and strings among their proficiencies. The boys were raised in a musical home, sons of working musician parents. Along with an interest in theater, early musical influences like , , , , and other ’60s and ’70s Baroque pop figures played heavily into the band’s sound at a formative time. In 2015, their earliest output arrived in the form of the cassette-only album What We Know. Significant buzz had formed around the group even then, and they signed to indie superpower , releasing their “These Words” b/w “As Long as We’re Together” single in 2016 and selling the 7″ mostly while on a tour supporting . Their debut album, Do Hollywood, arrived later in the year, produced by ‘s .

The Lemon Twigs embarked on a tour in support of the album with a live version of the band that included Danny Ayala on keyboards and Megan Zeankowski on bass. They returned in September 2017 with Brothers of Destruction, a home-recorded EP written largely during the sessions for Do Hollywood featuring a handful of live staples from their touring set. In August of the next year, sophomore album Go to School arrived, a massive production conceptualized as a musical about a chimpanzee raised by human parents. The ambitious Broadway-inspired record included guest appearances by both of the D’Addario brothers’ parents as well as power pop legends  and .

In April 2020, the band returned with The Lemon Twigs LIVE, a fundraiser for Coalition for the Homeless culled from live-to-tape recordings from shows in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and California. It was followed in August by their third studio full-length, the -co-produced Songs for the General Public. It spent a week on Billboard’s Top Current Album Sales chart (number 61). The brothers also contributed to ‘s album Fear of Death, which saw release a month later. After retreating to the studio to record their next Lemon Twigs LP, they resurfaced in early 2023 with the self-produced single “Corner of My Eye” and dates for a U.S. tour. ~ Neil Z. Yeung & Fred Thomas, Rovi