Siblings go boom

Taryn MANNING knows what you’re thinking. And it has something to do with that actor-slash-rock star thing, which is a tricky career move for anyone.

Not even Jennifer Lopez can get past the insults. But Manning is serious about the music she makes as part of Boomkat, enough that’s she’s put a successful acting career on hold.

Boomkat is the funk-pop duo Manning shares with her big brother, Kellin Manning, 30. The pair’s sound is a swirl of electronic pop and hip-hop and attitude, finding a straight musical line from the Beatles to the Beastie Boys and still ending up far more like Chaka Khan than Ashanti.

Manning has become an increasingly recognizable face through a series of film roles (“8 Mile,” “White Oleander”) and a continuing high-profile Gap ad campaign. But her music also won some early encouragement from Eminem, who put Boomkat’s “Wastin’ My Time” on the multi-platinum soundtrack for last year’s “8 Mile.”

The duo has even enjoyed some critical support for its debut album, “Boomkatalog One,” from the likes of the Village Voice, which called the band “two talented Hollywood kids proving how fun it can be to watch ‘TRL’.” But Manning also has been stung by the occasional critic calling the whole operation “manufactured.”

She insists that she is no hobbyist killing time between film roles.

“If a film actor tries to sing, it’s all of a sudden not credible,” says Manning, 24, not hiding her frustration. “It’s really disturbing for me, and it’s my mission to try and change that outlook if I can.”

Manning is in the midst of a European promotional tour of television appearances and live showcase performances. Boomkat will be back in Los Angeles in time for Saturday’s Wango Tango festival at the Rose Bowl, opening the pop music concert with a short daytime set.

She’s been in close proximity to artists who straddle the line between acting and making music, notably as Eminem’s estranged girlfriend in “8 Mile” and Britney Spears’ sidekick in “Crossroads.”

“I love music,” Manning says. “Right around age 21, I started writing songs, and I realized I had become mature enough to express myself in that way. When I first started acting, I was young and I wasn’t writing songs yet. I didn’t really have anything to talk about the way that I do now.

“I feel real rewarded by my singing because it’s all mine,” she says. “I don’t have to audition to be in my band because it’s my band and no one can tell me what to do.”

At the band’s label, Dreamworks Records, Boomkat has been championed by Robbie Robertson, executive producer of the debut album. That largely amounted to consulting with the band in transforming its home demos into final album tracks.

He describes Taryn and Kellin Manning as “two young people who were like a little force down in the basement somewhere.” Robertson was drawn both to Boomkat’s blend of modern hip-hop and classic pop elements and Taryn’s natural flair as a front-woman.

“She’s the real thing,” Robertson says. “She just happens to do this other gig [as an actress] as well. It just happens to be that the camera really loves to look at her too. But it’s not like so many of these [Hollywood] people that are wannabe music people. This is completely who she is. She is a little fireball.”

Taryn and Kellin were raised by their mother in San Diego. Money was tight, but both were encouraged to explore their creative urges. For Taryn, that initially meant dancing and drama, and for Kellin it amounted to endless hours of obsessive writing and recording music in his bedroom.

“Me and my mom couldn’t pry him out of his room for two years because he was having this creative explosion of music,” says Taryn. “He was half-depressed but half-amazed that he was making these songs out of nowhere. We were basically putting food under the door: ‘Here, eat! Come out! Are you alive in there?’

“He wouldn’t work, he wouldn’t eat. It was all about music. When someone discovers a talent within themselves, they explode to get it out.”

They decided in 2000 to team up musically and did their first live performance for several friends in a rented cabin in Big Bear. The initial plan was to be a rap duo, to be “the first boy-girl, brother-sister rap team,” she says. But that direction began to shift with “Wastin’ My Time,” a song originally designed to be a rap tune, before Manning slowly turned it into a dynamic ballad.

Their early collaborations also included the song “Crazylove,” written by Kellin with his sister in mind, listing many of the things he knew she cared about. “A couple things he listed just to rhyme, like Honeynut Cheerios,” says Taryn. “But I don’t love Honeynut Cheerios. He does.”

At Wango Tango, they will be joined by a DJ and keyboardist. And Kellin expects to step out from behind his computers, samplers and keyboards into the spotlight for a moment or two of dancing, shaking it like a member of the Temptations.

“We call ourselves the ‘Boomkatastrophe’ because you never know what you’re going to get,” says Taryn. “That’s what we are. We’re a brother and sister trying to make music. It’s very cool, but it’s like a roller coaster ride.”

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Boomkat

Where: Wango Tango festival, Rose Bowl, 1001 Rose Bowl Drive, Pasadena

When: Saturday, noon

Cost: $31.19-$151.19

Info: (626) 577-3100