The latest girl group trying to make a splash has a trick up its sleeve — and he goes by the name Bruno Mars.
Meet “The Lylas,” Bruno’s four sisters attempting to launch a music career via a new reality show premiering Friday on WE (9 p.m.).
Like many a girl group before them, each glamorous, photo-friendly member has a marketable identity. There’s Jaime Kailani, the eldest who calls herself “the mama bear of the group.” She’s followed by Tiara, “the bossy one” and Tahiti Hernandez, “the dramatic one.” Baby of the family Presley Hernandez rounds out the group as “the goofy one.”
The women brush off questions about their age, saying only that they’re in their 20s through 30s. (Bruno, born Peter Hernandez, is in the middle at age 28; their other brother, Eric, who plays drums for Bruno, is in between the two older sisters.)
The show follows the Lylas — an acronym for “Love Ya Like A Sister” — as they head to LA to start their career. But despite their famous ties, they say they’re doing it on their own. Bruno was busy promoting his second album while the series was filming and does not appear on the show. (Their mother, Bernie and father, Peter, do appear on the series.)
“He’s so supportive of us. He gives us advice, of course — we’re his sisters,” Tahit says of Bruno.
His inability to appear on the show, though, worked out just the way they wanted.
“We want to just make sure that the show comes across as being about us,” says Tahiti.
“And you’ll really see that we’re doing this on our own,” adds Presley. “A lot of people assume that because we’re his sisters, everything’s just going to come easily.”
“I’m trying to find that coattail now!” interjects Tiara, laughing. “I’m trying to ride that thing! This is hard work.”
Raised in Hawaii, the girls got their start in music when they were young — their late mother, Bernie, was a hula dancer and their father, Peter, played percussion. He famously loved the ’50s and ’60s, and their home was outfitted with two jukeboxes. Their mom had the girls harmonize any time she could.
“It was like the Von Trapp family minus the Nazis,” says Tiara.
But things didn’t get serious for the young women until two years ago when they recorded a “We are the World”-type song with Jaime’s charity for the Philippines, where their mother was from.
“It sort of woke up the dream again,” says Jaime, who like Tahiti, is now a mom. “As a little girl you definitely say, ‘One day I want to be a famous singer!’ And then real life happens, and you say, ‘Okay, well, I need to have something to fall back on.’ ”
Recording that song led the women to write and record more, incorporating radio-friendly pop with the island music they grew up on. Though they don’t yet have a record deal, their first single, “Come Back,” is out now on iTunes, and more songs will be issued as the show progresses. While optimism is high, the ladies know that some people may wonder why they’ve gone the reality route. “There’s a stigma with reality shows,” says Tiara. “Are people going to take us seriously? ” But after their mother tragically died from a brain aneurysm at age 55 last June, the experience became something entirely different.
“After everything that had happened in our situation with our mother passing, it turned out to be a blessing,” says Tiara. “All of that fear over whether our show did well or not went away because what’s more important now is that we have this footage of her.”