Palmer sisters pursuing dream of music career in L.A.

WASILLA — Local residents might remember Jamie and Jennifer Christensen from high school basketball games, but few know the sisters’ longest-held dream – a dream they’re living right now.

Born in Barrow and raised in Palmer, the Colony High School graduates have been living in Los Angeles since 2011, working to make a name for themselves as the pop duo Jamie and Jenny.

Jamie, 25, said she and her sister have wanted to be singers since they were in elementary school, when their desire to do so was printed in the school yearbook. But it took a while for them to accept their goal as something achievable.

“God placed a dream in our hearts, and this dream is so big, and it’s so far beyond us that we were afraid, and we kept it a secret,” Jamie said.

The sisters focused on sports in high school, suppressing their dream of singing professionally until Jamie graduated in 2008 and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, which she called the “hip-hop capital of the nation.”

Jenny, 23, followed after her graduation in 2010. Shortly thereafter, the girls decided they’d rather get more into the electronic-pop scene, and moved to L.A.

The duo listed Black Eyed Peas and Britney Spears among their influences in terms of their musical style, as well as pretty much anything that has aired on Anchorage stations KFAT and KGOT.

“That's what we grew up on, so that’s what we’re aiming for,” Jenny said.

The sisters (who are Eskimo) have also utilized their Alaska Native heritage, in more ways than one.

First, they’ve made a pact to incorporate some part of their Inupiat culture in at least 50 percent of the songs they write, record and produce. Their first recorded song, “On Top of the World,” for example, features a sort of bridge that reflects the vocalizations in traditional Inupiaq songs, Jamie said.

“We definitely wanna take from our culture and let the world hear a unique side (of music),” Jamie said.

The striking physical appearance the Christensen sisters have inherited from their ancestors has also caught the attention of many L.A. residents.

“When we come across people here, they just start speaking to us in Spanish. They don't even realize that people live in Alaska, that Eskimos are real and they don’t live in igloos,” Jamie said.

The girls’ heritage has also helped fund their venture, in a way. Though Jamie and Jenny spend most of their time in L.A., they've spent the last several summers working on a boat with Alaska’s Marine Mammal Observer Program. The job has brought in enough revenue to support the girls year-round and help them invest around $30,000 in their own studio.

Still, it takes more than money to build a dream or achieve a goal. The sisters thanked their “aaka,” or grandmother, for playing guitar with them and teaching them how to sing and harmonize together at a young age, as well as their first formal choir teacher, Jennifer Dalby, who taught the girls at Pioneer Peak Elementary.

A rap producer the sisters interned for when they first got to L.A. was also instrumental in showing them how to get started, Jenny said. The entertainment industry can be intimidating, but less so when fellow up-and-coming artists know the difficulty of taking off.

“It’s hard to feel at home in a big city, but everybody’s chasing dreams and that’s something we can feel at home with,” she said.

When they’re not making music, the Christensens play basketball with each other every day, but the trips back home to Alaska will be fewer in the coming years as the sisters focus on establishing themselves as artists. With their first album written and a couple of songs recorded, Jamie and Jenny are hoping to launch their debut album, “Here We Come,” this winter.

The album will consist of eight songs, including a single, “On Top of the World,” which they released on YouTube on Dec. 18. They’ve also completed a song called “All In,” which they described as a perfect “locker room warm-up” song. The message of their positive, up-tempo music is all in the name of the EP.

“If anyone has a dream, chase it with us,” Jamie and Jenny encourage their listeners. “Don't give up, don’t be afraid — tell the world, ‘here we come.’”

To stay up to date with Jamie and Jenny, visit their website at jamieandjennymusic.com, or “like” their page at facebook.com/JamieandJennyHereWeCome.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.