They were married when Cara was eighteen. "Everybody and their mother decided it was their place and their job to tell us how to get along in life," she says.
āRight, like, āOh, you guys are gonna work together and be married? Have to get along,ā Nicholas adds. āIt was like a play on that; itās kind of satirical.ā
āIt was satirical, cause we didnāt listen to any of them,ā says Cara. āBecause, you know, itās hard to take a drunk divorcĆ©e in the bowling alleyās marriage advice very seriously."
Cara was thirteen and Nicholas was seventeen when they met. The band he was in with a mutual friend of Cara's was recording a backing track for her high-school audition demo. "I stole him," Cara says. "And now he's in my band."
Since they married in 2012, the path to Get Alongās success hasnāt always been without detours. They took a break from recording and performing when they had their daughter, Laika, who is now two years old.
āIt was kind of hard, after we took about a year off while our daughter was a newborn, to watch the meteoric rise of bands that were at our level and a year later were playing huge shows in Denver and winning competitions and opening for crazy national acts,ā Cara says.
āI canāt find one example in the world of wife and husband that are in a band and had a kid before they were successful,ā Nicholas says. "It kind of feels like everythingās against you. But at the same time, I donāt want my music career to mirror anyone elseās, so why not be the first example of that?"
Their creative process itself did not slow down through their break from performing. They wrote songs for a soon-to-be-released EP while Cara was pregnant and soon after their daughter's birth.
The couple recorded and released two live videos, for their songs āDNAā and āKaraoke," at the Spot Studios in Lakewood earlier this year.
āI think weāre the only two people who could put up with each other while creating something. You know what I mean? Like a bickering old Jewish couple,ā Cara says.
The process of writing songs together can be ākind of hostile,ā Nicholas says. āWe both have pretty intense creative vision every now and then, and that can really turn into tunnel vision. We like really different things, but we acknowledge that great is great."
Cara finds inspiration in fantasy novels and films. āI watch cartoons, I watch anime. Studio Ghibli ā I love all of that. Lord of the Rings, thatās like a crazy passion. Dragons, fairiesā that is totally down my alley," she says.
Nicholas is fueled by dramas like Breaking Bad and American Beauty, stories "that could be happening now,ā he says.
The disparity in their interests creates a genre mash-up that could be described as electronic post-punk soul. Itās a mix of styles their friends and supporters occasionally find confusing.
Talking about their video for āDNA," Cara says, āWe just felt like it was us in a song. We just loved everything about it, and we thought that everybody was gonna love that song. And when we released it, and you know, you show your family and your friends, and you get some feedback from fans, the general consensus was like, āThat was weird. I donāt know if I liked that,ā which weāve always kind of expected."
The two don't assume that everybody will love them. "I would choose people hating our music rather than being indifferent to it, because then at least we drew some strong emotion from them," Cara says.
The best response to "DNA," as she tells it, came from their daughter. While other kids gravitate toward singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Iām a Little Teapot," Laika loves "DNA," Cara says.
Laika's response reminds Cara, "Thereās a demographic of weird people out there for us that will love us and be into us, and theyāll get what weāre trying to say.ā
Get Along plays with Lola Rising and Turvy Organ at 8 p.m. Wednesday, December 28, at the Larimer Lounge.