Merry Christmas:)
Hope you’ve had a great time with loved ones! As a little Christmas treat…we put up our whole LIVE album on Youtube! So if you need some time away from hustle and bustle…go listen to our whole live album 
So thankful for each one of you!
Merry, Merry Christmas!
xoxo
j&k
Because we are keeping the #HeartOfStone anniversary train rolling…we decided to let you download the entire album FOR FREE on Noisetrade.
Yay!
j&k
Today we are celebrating the one year anniversary of our album release, Heart of Stone. If you never got the album, in honor of the one year anniversary, we are giving it away for FREE on Noisetrade. Who can believe it’s been a year? We can hardly wrap our heads around it.
So.much.has.happened.
There have been so many exciting things…we’ve gotten to meet a lot of you….loyal, kind, amazing fans all around the world. The last year has been incredible in large part because we’ve gotten to meet many of you face to face..and not just know your twitter handles. We’ve met you before & after Kelly shows, we’ve come to your living rooms and backyards, we’ve sweated out a 5k together, we’ve flown across the pond to sing in your pubs & on the streets, we’ve Skype chatted, we’ve talked on the phone…so many amazing memories.
We made a music video.
We started our own jewelry line, #jillandkatejewels.
We recorded our first LIVE album.
We’ve gotten to hear first hand what the album has meant to you. Which songs are your favorites. Which songs comforted you in dark times and which songs made you laugh and dance to shake off an ex. The scope and reach of the album has been greater than we initially thought it could be.
We made it to #39 on the iTunes Pop charts.
As we look back among all of these happy memories as the one year anniversary mark hits we also feel a deep sadness. A year ago today Will Gray (our manager) showed up at our door with flowers and pastries to celebrate the release. He had flown in earlier in the week to be with us throughout all of our release week activities…and now he’s gone.
How could it be that just 12 months ago everything was fine? Will was here. Making us laugh. Dreaming with us. Planning our world -j&k-take-over…haha…(yes it will happen.) Eating cupcakes and twizzlers. It just doesn’t seem possible that he’s not here anymore.
Our show at the Coffee Bean was the last time we saw him before he got sick. We saw him 3 more times after that in the 10 months he was battling his cancer.
We know he is always with us. He imparted so much good information to us. He really didn’t just manage us…he loved us and mentored us. He instilled great ethics and values. He gave us a foundation. A foundation that we thought he would continue building on for our whole lives & careers.
So we move on knowing how excited he’d be about all of the things coming up. We just wish he was here to be with us through it all…
It’s a bittersweet day. He wouldn’t want us to be sad. He would want us to work hard and love hard, to do good work. To be good friends…read what he wrote about friendship:
“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it’s the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when they discover that someone else believes in them, and is willing to trust them with their friendship.”
William Gray, circa 1996
So we move forward.
We’d love to hear any memories, stories or mementos of how Heart of Stone has impacted you over the last year if you feel like sharing
Thanks so much for making this such an incredible year. We put together a photo & video memory stream below of some of the things we did since last September. Hope you enjoy all the pics….
xo
j&k
PS. Almost all of these pictures & ALL of the video are all because Ryan Camp has traveled & worked with us pretty much every day of the last year…Will highly recommended him to us and we began working together during our release week last year. Thank you Ryan for your hard work, going on several adventures with us, for your ridiculous photo/video skills and for always putting up with our shenanigans.
Release Week
CLICK TO WATCH THE RELEASE WEEK WRAP UP VIDEO
Last Show With Kelly Clarkson & Co in London, England
CLICK TO WATCH OUR LAST BACKSTAGE VIDEO FROM LONDON
CLICK HERE TO WATCH US SING “WHEN IT DON’T COME EASY WITH KELLY AT OUR LAST SHOW
A Night For Hope Benefit Show
CLICK TO WATCH THE NIGHT FOR HOPE RECAP VIDEO
Shows in London
CLICK HERE TO WATCH OUR LONDON RECAP VIDEO
Visit to the Houses of Hope Africa in South Africa & Zimbabwe
CLICK HERE TO WATCH ONE OF OUR AFRICAN ADVENTURES VIDEOS
J&K 5K Weekend in Nashville, TN
CLICK HERE TO WATCH A RECAP OF OUR J&K5K WEEKEND
Recording Our LIVE Album
(the above pics are courtesy of Pockets of Film –thanks Emily!)
CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO FROM OUR LIVE RECORDING
Shooting Our FIRST OFFICIAL Music Video
CLICK HERE TO WATCH OUR MUSIC VIDEO
Songs & Stories Tour
So this one time (it was a Wednesday) we ordered a copy of Lauren Graham’s new book that came out & we tweeted about it. It’s no secret that we adore Ms. Graham…if you haven’t watched the entire series of Gilmore Girls at least twice we can’t be friends. Just kidding. Well not really. It’s a great show & that’s when our fan-girling over Lauren Graham began. We saw her on Broadway in Guys & Dolls and even got to meet her after the show. Thank the Lord above that this woman was just as kind, down to earth, and funny as you think she’d be. She was seriously the nicest ever. We pretty much had perma-grins on our faces for a week after.
We are SO happy that she has returned to weekly television…now she is the totally cool mom on NBC’s hit show Parenthood. If you don’t watch it, stop reading this blog and go watch it. You will laugh & cry and then get mad at how much the show makes you cry. It’s fabulous.
And now Lauren has written a book…Someday, Someday, Maybe…and we are SO EXCITED to read it. We’re sure it’s going to be great!! What can’t she do? Nothing. Nothing we tell you.
Oh yes, so remember how we said that we tweeted that we ordered her book…well…she responded to us…and with just one tweet she had both of us pretty much freaking out with excitement:
That’s right. Day made. Fan-girling was off the charts. Still is.
-j&k-
What a weekend. Seriously. Our legs are sore and our bodies are tired from super early mornings but HOLY CRAP…we had such a great weekend.
This past weekend we had our very first (of hopefully many) #j&k5k weekends. People flew in from all over the world…yes WORLD (Nathalie for the win)…to hang out with us in our fabulous little city that we call home. The weekend kicked off with a rockin’ team dinner held at a Hibachi place.
The next morning we ran a 5k…how cute is our team?
Before the 5k we had the distinct pleasure of singing the national anthem pre-race.
We even got to meet the mayor…Hey Karl Dean.
And we’re off!!! Runninggggggg.
It was so fun seeing our bright shirts in the crowd!
WOOHOO crossing the finishing line!!! (Don’t be confused that it says “start” we promise it said “finish” on our side
Kate with her mom & sister. It was their first 5k ever…so proud of them!
We tailgated post race & embraced the warmth of the sunshine. We ate muffins, donuts, re-fueled with coffee and chit-chatted about you know..this and that. And Ryan took lots of fun pics of us that we will post at a later time…we were kind of group-photo-happy.
Later that evening we all gathered in loft office spaces that a team of Über creative professionals transformed into the perfect sound stage for the recording of our live album Heart of Stone.
Our super talented friend Emily came out and took pictures for us. We will post some of her pics soon…they’re amazing!
After looking back and thinking about the weekend we’ve talked about a lot of things. One of the things that struck us the most is how much fun WE had. While planning this event we talked a lot about making sure that our “attendees” would have a kick-A time and we never really thought about us having a good time. Not that we thought we’d have a bad time but you know what we mean.
We were seriously blown away by the quality of people that came to hang with us. They’re all amazing and are really super, awesome people that happen to like our music & us enough to come spend the weekend with us. What? How cool is that?
We feel super lucky.
And you guys. There is something really amazing about coming together as a team. You have no idea how inspired we are/were by the folks that surrounded us. It opened our eyes to the fact that yet again, people are AMAZING. The stories of friendship we heard brought tears to our eyes. The funny stories we heard made us laugh ’til we cried. The heartbreaking stories of struggle and pain. Of sickness and the unknowns. We all toughed out 3.1 miles together. Cheering for each other. We were a team.
We weren’t only a team out on the course that day either. We were a team during the 55 minutes we hit record and played a show. Even if you weren’t in the room we knew we had our team in the room with us. We felt love from all over the world cheering us on for our live recording…thank goodness for technology because we felt the love…we saw the tweets, the FB messages, the Instagrams…we saw the smiling faces in the room and we heard the voices singing along. We are a team.
Much love,
j&k
