The Beach Boys, the Kinks, CCR, Kings of Leon, Heart…besides general awesomeness, these bands all have one thing in common: members with shared genetics. There’s something special about the musical chemistry between siblings, and LA locals Kamille and Kelly Rudisill are putting that connection to good use. Performing under the name Karmina, which means “song” in latin, the classically trained duo creates melodious “sparkle rock” that is poised to take the pop world by storm. Before heading to New York to promote their new album, Rewriting Chapter Two, the lovely ladies of Karmina took some time out to answer a few questions for LA Music Blog’s readers about their sophomore release, the songwriting process, and the perks of bringing a family member on the road.

So you guys just finished a new album?

KAMILLE: Yeah, we’re finished. We’re done, and we’re just excited to get it out.

KELLY: We’ve been working on it for a year, just writing and recording, and we’re very proud of it.

You guys titled the new album Rewriting Chapter Two. What brought that title about?

KELLY: It’s really cool you noticed that because the title is actually named after a lyric in our lead track, “Slow Down.” I think the meaning for us came from the fact that you never know where life is gonna take you; you never know which road you’re gonna be going down next. Especially as a musician – the road as a musician is so mysterious. We thought we were gonna be in one place in the second chapter of our musical careers, specifically our sophomore album, and here we are in a place that we never would have guessed. We’re just excited and wanted to emulate that on the album.

KAMILLE: Sometimes you just kind of have to go with what life throws at you, as everyone knows. If chapter two is different, you just have to rewrite it and make it better, and that’s what we tried to do.

Speaking of “Slow Down,” what made you guys choose that as your single?

KELLY: The energy of it was very addicting. We like high-energy songs that make other people excited, and we want to get people excited about this album. So we thought, let’s just throw our most fun, most exciting track at them.

KAMILLE: Exactly. I think another reason we chose that song is it’s so much fun for us to perform. We both love that song, and we love performing it. It’s not your typical single because in the choruses, we’re doing a counterpart thing rather than both singing the exact same thing. You pretty much never hear that in a single or on the radio. There have even been people that have been like, “Maybe you shouldn’t do that,” but we like it and there’s a first for everything, so maybe this could be the first hit single with a counterpart in the chorus. [LAUGHS] We’re going for it.

Let’s talk about being on the road and touring. A lot of musicians talk about how hard it is to be away from family and friends. Since you guys are sisters and get to spend a lot of time together when you’re out on the road, does that help a bit?

KELLY: Oh, yeah. We’ve talked numerous times about how lonely this job would be doing it alone. It’s one of the many perks of having a sister in your band with you. Just when you get to a hotel room and you’re done with the day and you have about four or five hours before you go to bed, you have someone who wants to watch a movie with you or talk about the day with you instead of just phone conversations with people across the country. It’s really special and convenient.

KAMILLE: Yes, very convenient.

Tell us a little about your songwriting process.

KAMILLE: It’s always a little bit different. When we write together, usually one of us has something in mind, and we share it with the other person, and then we just start going off of that. In general, we both do the music first most of the time.

KELLY: We were trained classically since we were nine years old. I think music in general moves us, and then it’s our job to create lyrics that are just as moving as the music. That’s usually what inspires the lyrics. The music stirs something inside of us.

KAMILLE: Exactly. I think whatever is going on in our life kind of translates into the music that we start fooling around with. If we’re just sitting down and you’re feeling a certain feeling, you just start playing chords that speak with that tone, and then the lyrics just fall into place. That’s just for us, though. We know that a lot of people write very differently. Some people will write lyrics first, some people don’t write lyrics at all and just get a lyricist. It’s different for everyone, but that’s usually the way that we do it.

So you guys are getting ready to go to New York. What do you have planned there?

KELLY: We are so excited about New York. It’s just a week trip, and we have an itinerary started, and our down time keeps getting less and less. There are a few big things that are happening in New York.

Number one, we have a show at the Living Room on Tuesday, February 2nd, at 9 pm. We’re trying to just promote the heck out of it because this is gonna be our first real show in New York. And when I say real, I mean we’ve done industry shows, and we’ve performed at the U.S. Open, but those almost don’t count, because there’s an automatic crowd [LAUGHS], so this is our first real show and we’re really excited about it. We have a street team doing some work for us on that, too. We love our street team.

A couple other exciting things are we have an interview and performance on the foxnews.com Strategy Room. We are so excited about that. Another thing we’re excited about is that our band is coming out to New York with us. As a musician, that’s just the best feeling in the world when you have your best friends with you who are also your music soul mates [LAUGHS], and we’re all in it together. What else are we doing in New York, Kamille?

KAMILLE: We’re doing the Living Room.

KELLY: We have a couple radio interviews.

KAMILLE: We’re meeting with our street team.

Sounds like you guys aren’t gonna be sleeping much.

KAMILLE: Yes.

KELLY: How did you guess? [LAUGHS]

What else can we expect from Karmina in 2010?

KELLY: Our biggest priority in 2010 is connecting with our fans. We’ve just recently realized how important that is. Fans needs to be appreciated, too. We’ve been reaching out on all of our interfaces, namely our Facebook fan page. We’re on that all the time, but we give MySpace some love, too. We have a group page on Facebook, and Twitter, and our website. We’re really trying to connect with our fans more. We’re also looking to start street teams across the country so that when we do a tour, which is in the books for this year, we can go to those places where our street teams are.

KAMILLE: I think for 2010 you can expect the best from Karmina [LAUGHS] because we really believe this is our year. Even though we are independent artists on an independent label, we’re gonna be working our butts off and having fun –

KELLY: – and trying to inspire others to have fun with us on the journey, and hopefully you’ll see us at the 2011 Grammy’s.