Who: Two Tongues
Album: 'Two Tongues' [Amazon]
Hails From: New York City
For Fans Of: Saves the Day and Say Anything

Why They're About to Pop: Two Tongues is a side project fronted by Saves the Day's Chris Conley and Say Anything's Max Bemis. The group features Say Anything's Coby Linder (drums) and Saves the Day's David Soloway (bass). "Chris has been my favorite songwriter since I was 15," Bemis says. "Ten years later he is now is one of my closest friends...Making the record, and it being the first band either of us has ever been in outside of Say Anything or Saves the Day, was sort of like falling in love for the second time; you have to look outside of yourself and learn to communicate with and trust someone who operates in a totally different manner."

"Working with Max was a dream come true for me," Conley says of the collaboration. "I have never met another musician as inspiring and talented. During a dark period in my life, Max's music lifted my heart, and for that I am forever in his debt. When he approached me about doing this side project together, my immediate thought was, "I would do it with no one else." So my heart was in it from the moment of inception."

Two Tongues will release their self-titled debut on February 3. Pre-order the album now.

MB: Two Tongues is inspired by the relationship between the two halves of a whole in any given situation between humans; the yin and they yang so to speak. We use the metaphor of a romantic relationship as a way of explaining how two people, even friends, get along -- the ups and downs of inspiring, being inspired, loving and being loved, and so on and so forth.

CC: Max and I are good friends and we respect and admire each other. Saves the Day was important to Max while he was growing up, going through those tough high school years. Say Anything was hugely important for me during a year-long writer's block/depression, and their album '...Is A Real Boy' lifted me up when I was too low to pick myself up. The story that unfolds through the songs on the Two Tongues album is about our friendship, and specifically about how, at different times in each other's lives, our music has helped us both to keep our heads up and to persevere through hardships.

MB: 'Crawl' or 'If I Could Make You Do Things.'

CC: Hmm...that's tough. I like the second song 'Cigarette' the best. Max and I trade off some serious guitar licks after the first chorus. Wicked.

MB: Wilco? Queen, perhaps. The two opposite ends of the rock spectrum. Either would do fine.

CC: I think Tom Waits has done a wonderful job evolving without sounding like he's coming out of left field. He certainly makes strange music now (my favorite), but he transitioned out of lounge/jazz/schmaltz so smoothly and gradually that he never caught anyone off guard. At least, this is the way it seems to me, being entirely removed from the reality of his career. He might have a different version of the same story.

MB: Stuff that is way more healthy for you than tasty.

CC: Currently, there is a carton of rice milk, two bottles of champagne, half a bottle of Kombucha, a head of lettuce, peeled carrots, hummus, and rice cheese.

MB: I listen to this new band Moving Mountains from New York quite a bit.

CC: *NSYNC's 'Bye Bye Bye' (totally serious); Paul McCartney's 'Live and Let Die'; Ween's 'Where'd the Cheese Go?'; and Missy Elliott's 'Pussycat' ... ya heard???

MB: In a sort of cheesy, but surprisingly dark way, it's sort of a dream come true for better or worse. All the cliches are pretty much accurate and that's not always pleasant, but it can be extremely fulfilling and I love what I do. It's an adventure.

CC: When we first started touring, I was 17 and I loved writing songs, and pretty much that was the whole world for me. I was nervous to be on stage, but that was the place where my songs lived and breathed, so it was invigorating. Back then, I had so much fun writing and touring that I never took my head out of the clouds to wonder where it was all going. I dreamed of being a football player when I was a kid, so being a rock star was not part of the program. It wasn't until Saves the Day went on tour with Weezer and then Green Day and Blink-182 during 2002 that I started to think, wow, this is quite a journey. These days, I am purely thankful for everything that has happened and I am eager to continue into the future, while my main focus is always making new music. Writing songs is where it started for me, and it remains my source of joy.