Aly & AJ Step Back Into The Sun

By Gabriel Aikins


As soon as an artist takes a long break between albums, listeners tend to sustain them in amber at the moment of their last release. If that project came while in the listeners’ formative teenage years, the effect is amplified. Yet no one stays the same over time; both artists and fans learn and bloom and evolve. Millennials who came of age in the late 2000s know this to be true for themselves and also for sisters Aly and AJ Michalka, pop stars and actors who hold a special place in their hearts.


They grew up alongside us. As teens, the pair appeared with each other in Disney Channel’s film Cow Belles, while Aly starred on Phil of the Future and AJ noticed roles on Oliver Beene and in The Lovely Bones. Their three albums, culminating with Insomniatic and its breakout single “Potential Breakup Song” in 2007, secured their status as pop-music icons. In the 14 years since, Aly & AJ have aged into themselves just like the rest of us, continuing to work steadily as actors while releasing a handful of dance-pop tracks. Right now, with a completed fourth album titled A Touch of the Beat Gets You Up on Your Feet Gets You Out and Then Into the Sun, out on Friday (May 7), they’re willing to reintroduce themselves to the world.


It doesn’t take long to recognize how Aly & AJ’s sound has evolved. While their pop roots are still there, they’ve taken a backseat to colorful live instrumentation, from the intimately played guitars of “Slow Dancing” to the satisfying punch of percussion on “Don’t Need Nothing.” The album was recorded at the legendary Sunset Sound in Hollywood and shepherded by producer Yves Rothman, who, additionally to producing for Nasty Cherry, previously worked with the sisters on 2019 EP Sanctuary. “We set out with a really specific goal,” AJ says. “We mentioned we wanted to prepare a record that is played stay in a live room at an iconic studio in Los Angeles.” Aly explains they didn’t wish to compromise their vision of a live album at all, so they were meticulous about safety sort in attempt to pull the recording off, with every person involved masking and testing to make sure the process could go on.


The pandemic threw off the original timing for A Touch of the Beat. 2020 singles “Attack of Panic” and “Joan of Arc on the Dance Floor” were meant to be imminent precursors to the album, which was originally slated to drop last year. Aly explains, “We knew that an album was certainly on the horizon, nevertheless we didn’t really identify that we had songs that were worthy of being on a full record up until December 2019.” As soon as things shut off, the roadmap changed, and the album release was pushed back each year. Most of the songs were well on their way to being done once that decision was made, yet there were still changes needed to mirror the moment. “We did rewrite a lot of lyrics in terms of just changing little tweaks here and there, and I think those tweaks for sure had something to do with the moment we were actually living through,” Aly says. She points to 2020 single “Slow Dancing” and its gentle longing for loving intimacy as a track that resonates more deeply immediately after per year in isolation.


The pair wanted to make sure the album would retain the raw intensity of their live recording sessions throughout post-production, generally the time to apply a final layer of sonic sheen, which meant breaking a little from old habits that feel innate for longtime pop performers. They spent two weeks recording the album straight through, front to back, before working with Rothman to finish the project with a delicate touch. “I think it’s about not over-polishing the record also much, which, as pop musicians, Aly and I are really used to doing,” AJ says. “In the past, you’re working with Auto-Tune a little more, you’re cutting and pasting takes a certain way because you want it to have that ultra glossy sound.” Aly adds that the ease of modern technology can make that polishing tempting, however points out several of the ideal rock records of the ‘70s and ‘80s are enhanced by their imperfections. She cites Janis Joplin’s work for example, as her final album Pearl was also recorded at Sunset.


That’s not to mention the sisters are fully leaving their roots in back of. They sustain the Sanctuary, a fan club that launched in 2019 for their core audience to give feedback and visualize deeper into Aly & AJ’s lives. Musically, their roots are still sprinkled while in the album, with Aly specifically pointing out “Symptom of Your Touch” and “Paradise” as tracks with a strong pop foundation. “I think that we’ll routinely ultimately honor the older sound because it’s still who we were and who we still are. It’s just a new and improved and different interpretation than it was,” she says. They were also overjoyed once their companions started sending them videos featuring “Potential Breakup Song” on TikTok, where the electrifying track enjoyed a resurgence that spawned millions of views and led to the release of a new, uncensored version of the track that dropped at the end of 2020.


The name of the album was taken from the chorus of “Don’t Need Nothing” and came from a moment of clarity throughout the recording process. “That’s the mantra that sets up this record. That’s what this album sounds like,” AJ says, pointing to the warm and euphoric chorus of “Paradise” and shining guitar chords and energetic percussion on “Don’t Need Nothing” that underscore the titular phrase. Aly adds, “It encompasses the feeling of the record, the fact that it was made in California in the summer and the sun was out although it was a pandemic, so it makes it unconventional and weird.”


As Aly & AJ talk about the music and the method of making it, a typical theme emerges: taking control and applying their years of lived lessons to an album that will be heard by their generational peers. “The life experience of course changes, that’s probably the greatest difference building a record at this age and making our first record as soon as we were 15 and 13,” Aly says. (She is currently 32, and AJ is 30.) She explains that if they started, a lot of the decision-making was out of their hands and handled by a team of adults, often to protect the teens from the stresses that come with making an album. Those guardrails are right now off, and Aly notes with a chuckle that they’re “in the loop on everything whether [they] like it or not.”


And whenever they mention they determine everything, they mean everything, down to their merch. On their first albums in the mid-2000s, they were presented with mostly finished designs and chose from what was put in front of those. Today, the sisters hand-select each detail, from the font to the specific brand of shirts, group in attempt to create ensure the finished product meets their vision. They’re particularly overjoyed of this: Whether it’s a sunny slipmat or a shirt that displays the title of the album in simple script, each part of merch in their store has a description proudly detailing the thought process and effort beyond it. On a company level, they’re in control, also, as A Touch of the Beat is the initial record where the sisters own their masters. “Ownership is a big word in our camp now because it does feel really empowering. We sort of own everything at this point, which was not routinely the case,” AJ says.


Perhaps most importantly, Aly & AJ both mention the method of working on the record has lead them even closer with each other as sisters. Aly notes they live mere minutes apart right now, and says “[their] brains are tuned in with each other.” If they mention their producer picked up on their synchronicity while in recording, the true depth of their relationship is something that can’t be replicated. Through all the changes the sisters have been through, becoming adults and growing as artists in the lead-up to the release of A Touch of the Beat, their bond is what stands out, the energy that both centers them and propels their growth. As AJ explains, “I just think there’s this connection we have, this sort of unspoken certainty of what we’ve been through that maybe others aren’t clued in on that we just have, and it’s sort of like our love language. We just get it.”