Try Wait: Life with the LYLAS

BY GARY CHUN / gchun@staradvertiser.com

Peter Gene Hernandez — better known to the world as Bruno Mars — has realized his dream to become one of the biggest pop stars in the world.

The question is, can lightning strike twice for his four sisters?

The LYLAS (from top to bottom): Sisters Tiara and Tahiti Hernandez, Jaime Kailani Bayot and Presley Hernandez. (Courtesy WIN Public Relations)

Jaime Kailani Bayot and Tahiti, Tiara and Presley Hernandez will find out in the fall when, as the LYLAS (an acronym for Love You Like a Sister), they’ll offer up a double dose of  their talents in the form of a debut album and a docuseries on the WE tv cable channel. Filming will begin this month over a proposed five-week period.

The upcoming album’s breakout track and calling card, the ballad “Come Back,” is already out and was celebrated last month at a party at M Nightclub in Waterfront Plaza.

During a conference call with Bayot and Tahiti Hernandez on Wednesday, Feb. 27, Bayot said the song was co-written with Jacob Luttrell, who has penned hits for the likes of Justin Bieber and Enrique Iglesias.

Luttrell has also worked with David Garner — “our musical producer and vocal arranger,” she said. “We met him through Bruno because David used to be his keyboard player on tour.”

The sisters are all too familiar with show biz. Along with their brother Peter (better known then as the youngest Elvis impersonator around), they performed in their parents’ Waikiki showroom revue. With music filling their home life in Hawaii as well, it should’ve been no surprise to find out that their voices still blended so well together when “a couple of years ago, through my charity 4 m.a.m.a. earth,” said Bayot, “we got together in the Philippines to sing the bridge of a song for a benefit compilation there.

“It was so much fun. Now that we’re grown, we realized there was something here that we could work on and take advantage of, since we have a lot more opportunities due to our brother’s success.”

So a plan went into effect. Doing an album was going to kick off the process.

“We needed our own show to document our making of the album in Los Angeles,” said Hernandez.

“We also have a bit of social media following, and our fans have been petitioning for a show as well,” added Bayot. “It will pretty much show us four being sisters, all together, as real as can be. We chose to go with the WE network because they emphasize family.

“I think our story can be very inspiring. We’re all in four different places in our lives but we all share the same dream.”

The LYLAS at M Nightclub last month. (Star-Advertiser File)

“I mean, we do get into it sometimes,” Hernandez said of occasional sisterly disagreements. “But we’re family, we work it out.”

The Hernandez sisters will share a house while in L.A., with Bayot already established there with career, charity and family.

“I first moved here after graduating from Kaiser High School for music and school, but I had a family first with my husband Jesse,” she said. “Since my boys, 14-year-old Marley and 7-year-old Jaimo, are old enough, I can start working with my sisters on our career together.”

Hernandez is a single mother of two.

“I have a 3-year-old and a 2-year-old. I’m a divorcée, but I get along with the father. We’re still good friends. The kids mean everything to me.

“I cannot lie. I’m stressed out,” she admitted. “The kids have always come first, but I’ll be flying back and forth between Hawaii and L.A. for the recording and the filming. Still, it’s very exciting.”
———
Gary Chun is a features reporter at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Email him at gchun@staradvertiser.com and follow him on Twitter.

Related video: