Max and Harvey are the two British teens who have become a social media phenomenon and now the pop stars have set their sights on a higher prize - going mainstream
"We haven’t quite started writing our own songs yet except for our first songs but we’d like to get involved with that as soon as we finish school," says Max Mills. Or is it his identical twin brother, Harvey?
The only way to tell this teenage social media phenomenon apart is by the fact that one of them wears a hat. It’s Max speaking, I think, but visual confirmation is not an option as I am on a conference call with the lads to their house somewhere in England, with their mother, Sara, keeping tabs on both me and her boys.
The 15-year-old Mills twins are the massively successful pop stars you’ve probably never heard of. Probably because they exist in a Day-Glo twilight world that is well below the radar of the mainstream or at least what used to be the mainstream.
The pair began singing when they were eight years old and in 2016 joined the social platform musical.ly, a music video maker combining features of Snapchat, Instagram and Vine on which users can upload videos of themselves lip-synching to songs from their favourite artists.
5.7 million social media followers later, and the twins have had a BBC children’s TV special, a 2018 Radio Disney Music Awar winner for Social Media Star, and, of course, a Max and Harvey book.
They are not quite the Liam and Noel of tween pop but it’s not just Max’s hat that distinguishes the brothers - there are a lot more differences than that.
The pop princes have recently added "recording artists" to their already sizeable achievements, having signed to RMI Recordings/Hollywood Records and have released three original songs, including One More Day In Love (over 2.1M views on YouTube), and are currently in the studio working on their new music.
On November 1 Max and Harvey arrive in Dublin for a gig at the Academy and they also play the Waterfront Studio, Belfast on November 2 but they have been here before to appear on RTE kid’s show Swipe TV and also as part of the Sound of Music tour.
There is a lot of travelling when you’re Max and Harvey. "Especially to LA. The flight is not the best, sometimes it’s a 12-hour flight," says Max.
"We watch as many TV series as we can when we’re travelling. Movies that are either on the plane or on our phones. I like Disenchanted on Netflix."
Tickets for our tour are on sale now!!! For every ticket you buy, we’ll add one more word to the tour name. What’s that? We can’t do that?! Ok fine, we’ll think of something else 😂 Can’t wait to see you guys!! @itsjennaraine #MHthetour https://t.co/oCwXuIZpe9 pic.twitter.com/B4U1SdhNvf
— Max & Harvey (@maxandharvey) August 3, 2018
"I watch a lot of things that are on the plane and a lot of comedy things," chimes in Harvey.
They are not quite the Liam and Noel of tween pop but it’s not just Max’s hat that distinguishes the brothers - there are a lot more differences than that.
"There definitely are," says Max. "We have different personalities altogether. Harvey likes to do a lot of stuff to do with social media and I like to do a lot of music-y stuff but we both do other things as well.
"We tend to like to do the same things sports wise or active wise but we’re pretty different people."
It all began when they were eight years old. "I think the main thing that started it all was when we were younger," says Max. "Because obviously we were twins and we looked very identical when we were babies so we got into a lot of different acting roles where they can switch out the babies and our dad was a performer from whenever, I can’t remember how long for."
"Then he had us and he had to settle down and get a different job but he was always singing around the house and Max and I would be singing as well and in the end we grew up and started singing together and that’s when Max started to learn how to play the guitar. So from there we basically kept singing together and now we’re here."
As they say, their father Paul, who the boys list as their biggest influence along with Bieber and Mendes, used to be a singer himself - musicals, mainly - and he met his wife Sara while performing on a cruise ship.
He gave up his dreams of a singing career to support a family which also includes Max and Harvey’s younger siblings, and now works for a double glazing company.
So do they feel guilty for ruining their dad’s career as a pop star? "Ahhhhh . . . I think that one’s on him," laughs Max. "He was doing quite well but I think you have to be at a certain level to be able to make a living off of it. He was doing West End shows and stuff like that. You have to earn quite a bit to be able to support a big family."
Their own musical influences have evolved since their early interest in the work of Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes. "We always stick by Shawn Mendes because of his social media part at the beginning but we just love the writing by Ed Sheeran and different people’s takes on how they produce and write songs.
"And also a guy called Marshmello because he does the sort of DJ thing and he produces his songs very well as well."
What can fans expect from a Max and Harvey show? "We put in the most effort we’ve ever put into anything for out live shows," says Harvey. "We love to have fun with the audience. We do different elements of the show and make sure everyone is having a good time really.
"We always have humour with the crowd and get everyone involved basically. It’s just loads and loads of fun."
It all makes you wonder where they find the time for school and down-time away from the demands of social media and their careers. "A lot of the stuff we do is actually fun anyway but it can be tiring," says Harvey. "We do still keep up with school because obviously before we started doing all this, it kinda got thrown onto us, we were just regular kids going to regular schools.
"We do get quite a bit of down-time but obviously when we need to be working whether it’s in school or what we’re doing now, we definitely put our heads down and get stuff done."
"We still do normal school, we haven’t changed that and we still prioritise down-time as much as we can because we’re still kids at the end of the day. We need to go and hang out and be sociable because we don’t want to lose any friends but we can’t go without doing anything for more than five minutes because we’re both hyperactive anyway."
"We do get quite a bit of down-time but obviously when we need to be working whether it’s in school or what we’re doing now, we definitely put our heads down and get stuff done."
"Our friends definitely keep us grounded. All our friends treat us exactly the same as they ever would have because, like I say, we were friends with them before any of this. It happened so suddenly and out of nowhere so our friends help us keep our heads screwed on."
Finally, how ambitious are you? "I’d say we are extremely ambitious people," says Max. "We love to have a lot of involvement in what goes on. We never really like to have things rushed over our heads. We always want to know what’s going on and we always want to be involved."
And with that, hat tilted to a boyish angle and phones fully charged, Max and Harvey are off to conquer another corner of the social media multiverse.
Max and Harvey play The Academy, Dublin on November 1 and Waterfront Studio, Belfast on November 2
Alan Corr @corralan
