Nova Twins Live to Smash Barriers

It could appear that the Nova Twins have never made a mistake to outsiders.

The South London duo, who were once known as BRAATS when they started in 2014, had just celebrated their third anniversary when Tom Morello, the guitarist for Rage Against The Machine, praised them as “the best band you’ve never heard of.”

Their relative obscurity quickly changed after the release of their critically acclaimed debut album, Who Are The Girls? in 2020, when they traded in the capital’s thriving punk scene for high-profile tour support roles, nominations for industry awards, and glowing reviews in publications ranging from the rock press to style bibles like Teen Vogue and The Face. But when Amy Love (vocals, guitar) and Georgia South (backing vocals, bass) talk to an interviewer on the day of the release of their eagerly awaited second album, Supernova, they laugh off the notion that this has been a simple journey.

“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Amy admits freely. “In the beginning, we’d just upload a new song to YouTube, and then it was like… now what? We didn’t have a clue, but it was a lot of fun.” 

“We’ve had a very organic journey,” observes Georgia. “You have these stored experiences where you’ve salvaged a gig, learning how to play to a near-empty room, learning how to cope if your amp breaks. It’s all such a valid experience. We don’t regret anything.” 

Even if the memories are still fresh, those early “potty circuit” performances seem so long ago. The duo was approached to take part in Bring Me The Horizon’s Post Human arena tour last year after working together on 1×1 from their genre-defying EP, Post Human: Survival Horror. After that, they performed with entering Shikari on select dates before starting their own headline tour of North America and Europe. They are still reflecting on those events now.

“Doing our headline show at [1,000-capacity club] Heaven in London was such a ‘pinch me a moment,” says Georgia. “Walking out to that many people there solely to see us was just crazy… and we had pyro! It just felt like a real milestone.”

“We had two years of nothing, no shows at all,” Amy recalls. “And then suddenly, we came back and we’re playing arenas with Bring Me The Horizon. Just looking at our new schedule, like – we’re playing the O2! It’s, uh… different.”

It makes sense that the Nova Twins were taken aback by events like this. All of their scheduled public performances were canceled, and they had to conduct all of their promotional interviews from their homes because their debut album was released on the eve of lockdown. The singles Vortex or Taxi, however, sounded even bigger than they would usually, too vivid and colorful for walls to contain them, for anyone who listened to them while the world outside had come to a complete stop.

The Nova Twins spent this time of peaceful seclusion dedicated to their laptops, learning how to use the music-production program Logic, exchanging riff ideas, and producing the songs that would eventually form Supernova.

“This album was approached differently because we wrote the majority of it in lockdown,” says Amy. “Everything changed for everybody in lockdown, it wasn’t just us. We were sitting on laptops, in tiny, different bedrooms – not even a rehearsal room. Before that, we had just come off the festival circuit [for Who Are The Girls?], so those new songs had all this raw energy – we were ready to go.”

“We weren’t afraid,” Georgia stresses. “We had time to think and reflect, and just be free from routine. We were so lucky to have the time to write this album outside of our usual schedule. We would have rushed it otherwise. It always comes naturally. Even when we were separated and just sending files across to each other, we would both just know when it was right. We trust each other with the process and our instincts would just tell us immediately whether it makes sense, and whether it sounded like Nova.”

The Nova Twins spent this time of peaceful seclusion dedicated to their laptops, learning how to use the music-production program Logic, exchanging riff ideas, and producing the songs that would eventually form Supernova.

It is also obvious that you may select exactly where your borders and goalposts are when you utterly shred the rules, smash genre boundaries, and carve out the space for a brand-new scene as Nova Twins has done. Although Nova Twins have always drawn inspiration from a wide range of genres, including punk, grime, electronic music, and more, with Supernova it appears as though each of these inspirations is amplified to a new level.

“We just hope people enjoy the album and take from it empowerment and strength,” says Georgia, conveying her expectancies for their music. That intention of empowerment radiates through everything Nova Twins communicate and do, including how their attire.

The Novas are the best at fusing image and music together because, like the original Class of ’77 punks, they approach to fashion with a gleefully unrestrained and irreverent attitude. They alter every outfit to their liking by snipping and stitching, adding safety pins to anything and everything, and bleach-dying any t-shirt they can get their hands on. “Our clothes speak as the music does,” says Georgia. “It’s just loud and it’s fun.” 

Because this isn’t just about the music, of course. Or perhaps it is… However, your very existence becomes politicized if you are two black women attempting to break into the rock music industry. The Nova Twins have always been content with this. The couple once responded with the terms “power” and “imagination,” pointing to the very idea of creating their own space where none had previously existed, when asked to describe what it takes to produce a Nova song. “We were so naive when we started off in a band as young girls, teenagers…” Amy images. 

“When we first entered into the music industry, we realized that it wasn’t what it was made up to be – we had challenges as women, we had challenges as black women. Our scene has so much wrong with it: the lack of diversity was so shocking. Like, whenever we turned up at a festival, we were always the only ones there who looked like us. That’s not gonna do anything, is it? That’s not going to change anything. So, we just thought – we need to diversify. We need to be less insular in the music industry.” 

Nova Twins are hardly the first female punks of color or the first punks of color to achieve success in the rock scene, of course. The Selecter, X-Ray Spex, Bad Brains, Death, and other bands have paved the way for underrepresented groups to have their voices heard in mainstream rock music, opening doors for groups like Skunk Anansie and perennial Nova Twins champions Fever 333, who have both asked Amy and Georgia to open for them.

The pair eventually hopes to be able to pass the torch.“It feels like we’re doing our bit to try to change the way that things are,” says Georgia. “Even just one step at a time. It feels amazing.” 

Amy continues: “We hope the next generation will feel like, ‘I can fucking pick up a bass. I can pick up a guitar. I can scream. I can be lairy. There are options for people like us. There isn’t just one thing we have to be.’ We just feel honored to be able to be in this position, and be able to open doors, bring bands on tour with us, and give them a platform like other bands did for us.” 

The girls share bright, persistent smiles. “It’s never too late to see this kind of change,” expresses Georgia. 

Amy conforms and lays out a superficial directive for their journey ahead: “We just want to continue to lift and smash the barriers.”