Despite being touted as “incredibly annoying” by Simon Cowell, Jedward’s distinctive gelled-up hairdos and excessively loquacious personalities have managed to garner themselves a loyal Singaporean fan base who thronged the airport to welcome them on Jul 15.

Jedward’s crazy fangirls at Changi Airport

It was jepic.

The flamboyantly exuberant 21-year-old twins rose to fame by clinching several top spots in talent competitions like The X Factor (UK), Eurovision 2011 and Eurovision 2012.

Having garnered an overwhelming 2 million views in just 2 weeks for their music video on YouTube, the Irish pop duo’s latest release, Young Love has soared up music charts locally, as well as in the Philippines and Ireland.

The zestful twins

Style

Famed for their stiffly brushed-up gravity-defying hair which sparked off fans creating twitter accounts for their blond tresses, it must have been a shocking surprise for fans that in their latest album, they sported a new hairstyle in their latest album that must have shocked fans – flat hair.

John Grimes, the older of the 2, asserted during an interview with UrbanWire, “Me and Edward will never ever ditch our spiky hair [for good] because spiky hair is like crazy!”

The twin started experimenting and gelling up their hair at the tender age of 7 to land themselves a unique hairstyle.

“I’ve singed all my hair [before]. So it was crazy. But then after that, I got better and better at doing my hair. And now today, you’ve got your hair,” smirked John.

Besides their prominent sky-high ’dos, the pair is also conspicuous for their unique and sophisticated fashion sense. They are often seen matching bright-coloured glittering costumes on stage.

“I get my [fashion] inspiration from objects, like if [it’s] a water bottle, I’ll go ‘Oh my god, I wanna make an outfit out of that! Like a dispenser outfit’”, envisaged Edward Grimes, the brother who is only just 10 minutes younger than John.

Edward’s sudden influx of ideas was cut off when John revealed to UrbanWire that their fashion inspiration came from cartoons and magazines as well.

Continuing his vision, Edward shared cheekily, “I actually want to make a bubble gum outfit and when I see popcorn, I will want to make a popcorn outfit.”

Music

At variance with their previous works, which were more upbeat, their new concept album featured a few songs that were leaning towards the ballad genre, such as their title track “Young Love”.

“The reason why we have 3 slow songs in our new album is because when we’re [performing] live in concerts… it kinda adds a different [mood]… because we can’t be dancing the whole time on the stage. We’ve gotta kinda bring up the high energy and then bring it down and then bring it up again… Slow songs don’t really ever get old and they’ll (fans) listen to them all over again,” explained John.

Ballads have been included because “you get a lot of emotions when you’re listening to the songs,” Edward added, “What I think is that the songs are a lot more emotional and when we’re singing it, you can actually feel it.”

The hyper duo also revealed to the UrbanWire that they are fans of K-pop acts such as Big Bang and 2NE1.

Singapore

2 days into their stay in Singapore, the twins have been making an earnest effort to blend into this unfamiliar place by attempting to pick up some choice Singlish words.

“Oh yes we’ve learnt some of those words today like ‘sheeeem’ (cheem),” John said, showing off.

“Ya ya papaya!” Edward added, pleased with himself.

When asked about their favourite food in Singapore, John answered, “Chicken rice!” without much hesitation and so enthusiastically that he seemed ready to rush to a stall to have a plate almost immediately.

In spite of the difficulty pronouncing and remembering the word “prata”, Edward told UrbanWire that he prefers prata and the fragrant drink of sugar cane juice.

Jedward trying Laksa

Jedward has been constantly updating their Twitter page and YouTube page on their experience in Singapore for the past few days.

Compared to One Direction, the British-Irish pop boy band that was also discovered by The X Factor (UK), Jedward graduated from the music-talent competition one season earlier.

And sure, their following might not be as fanatical as One Direction’s, but Jedward has displayed a much more honest and candid personality, which is what has made them attractive and genuine to their fans.

The twins disclosed that they’ll be holding an Asia tour soon and Singapore is on the list. So Singapore fans, you can start getting jexcited for a jepic performance from the ever spirited duo, Jedward, soon!

JEDWARD AUTOGRAPH SESSION

Date: Thursday, 19 Jul
Time: 6.30 pm
Venue: Bugis Junction, Bugis Square @ Level 1

*AUTOGRAPH SESSION IS LIMITED TO JEDWARD ‘YOUNG LOVE’ CD ONLY. TO ENTER AUTOGRAPH SESSION, SIMPLY PRESENT ‘YOUNG LOVE’ CD!

[image credits to Ashley Yong U-Lynn and feature image credit to ecsdaily]