Long Island kids chat with YouTube stars Max and Harvey Mills
YouTube stars Max, wearing hat, and Harvey with Kidsday reporters, from left: Ava Silverstein, Sofia Caruso, Lili Duggan and Isabel Ramos at the Courtyard Marriott in Times Square. Credit: Newsday / Pat Mullooly
We met YouTube sensations Max Mills and Harvey Mills, 14-year-old twins, when they were visiting Manhattan recently.
How does it feel to be a YouTube star, and do you ever get tired of it?
Harvey: It is actually quite fun to make videos and things like that and share them with people. I don’t think we have ever gotten tired of it, really. It is a lot of fun, especially when we make it with our friends and things like that.
How do you come up with your ideas for your videos?
Max: We kind of think: What is easy to get, what is fun to do, what will people watch and then what is easy to break! And then we go out and shop for stuff or even find it at our house and see what we can do with it, basically. We have done many things with the blender, which then broke. We have done too many things with drinks and food.
Have you had to travel a lot for your music career?
Harvey: This is probably the furthest we have traveled for our career so far. We have been here [New York City] before, and we love New York. We are going to be doing a lot more traveling this year.
Do you have any other siblings, and do you let them participate in your videos?
Harvey: We have two other siblings, Leo and Tillie. They are in a lot of our videos. They just love joining in.
Where do you think you will be in 10 years?
Max: Hopefully not in our town! I will tell you that! We are hoping to go to as many countries as we can and make ourselves as big and as worldwide known as we possibly can. We just love different cultures and the ways people react to what we do. We love that so much.
What is the most amount of likes you have gotten on a video?
We had a challenge that got about a million likes: “One More Day in Love.”
How old were you when you started?
Max: There is a picture of us when we were 2. I was on a toy piano and he was singing into a fake microphone. When we started to make music that people actually started to enjoy, that was probably from the age of about 9 or 10. I actually learned how to play the guitar. We started to learn to harmonize a bit earlier than that. But we started to get attention from family and friends and other people when we were busking.
How many fans do you think you have, and do you enjoy having fans?
Harvey: I am not entirely sure. There are a lot of people who follow us. It is amazing the amount of dedication they have and all the things they do for us. It is so nice to see. It was just a year ago, and it is just so weird to see this happen.
What is your favorite social media outlet?
Harvey: Probably YouTube. I just love making the videos and all the background stuff that goes with it. That is my favorite.
Max: I think YouTube as well. It is where we have our longer videos and our covers of us singing and properly show our talent.
Do you earn money for what you do?
Harvey: We do earn a bit of money.
Max: We don’t control that side of it. We leave that to our management and to our parents to control that side of things.
Who inspired you to become social media sensations?
Max: Probably someone like Shawn Mendes or Justin Bieber. Especially Shawn Mendes, because he started off on social media and then went into music. We followed them and how they became full-on musicians.
What is the best thing is about being a twin?
Harvey: The best is probably always having someone your age to talk to or hang out with. We have similar abilities with things.
Max: Probably the worst thing is when people say, “Which one are you? Max? Harvey?” No, just say one and we will say yes. And we really know how to annoy one another. We know each other too well.
Do you plan to keep making videos?
Harvey: Yes, definitely. We will do it as long as we can. They are so much fun to make.
How many YouTube videos have you made?
Harvey: A rough guess? Probably between 50 and 75. We have a quite a lot of covers. We used to upload busking videos, but we took them down. Not sure why, but we did.
Do you feel like a celebrity when you go to school?
Harvey: Not really, because everyone knew us before this all happened. They don’t treat us that different.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Max: Go to Gravity Force [a giant trampoline park]. I used to play soccer all the time, but I don’t play for a team anymore.
Do you fight?
Harvey: We do fight a lot, I gotta be honest with you!
Max: When people say “fight,” that comes across in the wrong way. We never get physical with each other. We don’t get into a full-on scrap.
Do you have any pets?
Harvey: We have a dog named Pippa. She has just given birth to puppies. There are seven of them, five girls and two boys. We are going to keep one of them. We also have a cat named Minnie.
