Karmin Go Deep on ‘Pulses’
In the two years since their cover of Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now” made Karmin Internet stars, the duo of Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan have enjoyed a lot of big moments. They won a contest to appear on the flip cover of Rolling Stone, performed at the iHeartRadio festival in Las Vegas and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, and made multiple visits to the American Music Awards.
What makes all of these accomplishments more amazing is that they’ve done it without the benefit of a full-length album. That will end in September, when the pair release Pulses, with cover art revealed here for the first time.
When Rolling Stone visited the pair at a recent taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live, where they performed their new single “Acapella” as well as “Try Me On,” Heidemann and Noonan explained the album’s title.
“We want to call it Pulses because it’s kind of like the honeymoon is over now,” Noonan said. “There’s good and bad. It’s not necessarily everything is happy-go-lucky tracks. There’s also some serious stuff. There’s definitely a lot more depth in it, which is something we’ve always felt we wanted to do.”
“There’s a track called ‘Paranoia,’ and it’s, like, super creepy,” Heidemann added.
Karmin may have attracted attention from their You Tube covers, but the duo are eager to show off a wider range with a full album’s worth of material. “The last release was an EP. There were seven tracks. We thought that was going to be a full-length – we recorded a bunch of music,” Heidemann explained. “So this time there are interludes and intros. There’s a lot more of us, and a lot more breathing time.”
Noonan, who was heavily involved in the production of Pulses, believes the band is developing what he calls “a Karmin sound.” But he says that “Acapella,” the lead single, is not completely indicative of the rest of the album.
“I don’t know if the whole sound of the album is done with 808 – most of the tracks do have 808, but there are a couple four-to-the-floor tracks. The difference is for this one we had our band in for the whole session. They’re playing everything. I’m playing everything.”
They’ll get to show off that sound opening for the Jonas Brothers this summer. The pair go back a few years with the brothers. “We knew Joe from the first time we were doing Jingle Balls in 2011 and we were just playing cover songs, doing 15, 20 minutes. Just us and a keyboard,” Noonan recalled. “He came in and said hi and he’s like, ‘Dude, I’ve been watching all your stuff.’ It was really cool, really dope.”
What really impressed Noonan, though, was that Joe could take a joke. “I kept giving him all this shit ’cause he’s a Jonas Brother. And he just took it and gave it right back. He was hilarious. So we got along really super well,” Noonan said.
Heidemann is excited for the tour, which kicked off July 10th in Chicago. “They actually play real instruments, which is great,” she said. She hopes to have some friendly competition with the Jo Bros.
“It’s a 40-minute opening set. After our softball game in the parking lots, we go on,” she said. “We’re gonna have a softball league, I think, with the Jonas Brothers. I think we can beat them.” Nick, however, is “really good at softball.”