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VOX PALMA interview–April 2008
Photos by: Jen Cray (live photo, black and white portait),
“Paper Scissors” (pictures in header), and “Freckles” (video shoot)
Hardcore punk alternative fusion? Garage crunk? What in the hell is Vox Palma? Don’t feel bad if you don’t know because as I found out, they’re not too sure of it either.
“Made for Moderns” is an almost radio friendly pop anthem while “Leader Line” is a mixture ofdistorted, manic chanting and demands that sounds like front man AA Villain could eat your radio.
The Orlando 5-piece (with possibly the greatest names ever) may not know exactly what kind of music they are, but they certainly know what they do and how to do it. Rock. Dirty, face-melting, life altering, soul crushingly awesome rock. The faceless, lifeless, and soulless need not apply.
I recently got to talk with AA Villain and guitarists Earl Slick and Joey the Fink about the origins of Vox Palma, being the odd band out, and what’s coming up for them. I also found out what happened to that third guitar player!
Amanda Mack: So, who’s the keeper of the ‘How Vox Palma got together’ story?
AA Villain: It was actually a band before Vox Palma that I had wrote with another guy and Earl was in that band also. It was called Fashion Dive.I had done all the production work on some of those songs and that band played for a few months and broke up. Earl wanted to continue writing with me and he wanted to start a band again so, we found some new members and got a new name and that’s Vox Palma.
AM: And how’d you come up with the name Vox Palma?
AAV: It was going to be a Latin term. I was trying to piece together ‘all people die’ but it didn’t come out right [laughs].
AM: How do songs usually come together for you guys? Do you write all of the songs, Villain?
Earl Slick: A lot of the stuff you hear as far as recordings is old. It’s been around for a while actually. A lot of it is from a lot of different people who aren’t even in the band at the moment. But, there are a lot of songs that are just Alan (AA) and me. Most of the stuff that we do now is all band collaborative.
AM: Does that mean there’s been a bit of a line up change since you guys started?
[Laughter]
ES: I think the most static people involved would probably be me. Even before when I was doing this stuff [in Fashion Dive], Alan wasn’t even singing in it. He was doing like…
AAV: Songwriting, and did all the production work.
ES:Wrote it, recorded it, mixed it…that kind of stuff. So me and Alan would be the guys who have been around the longest.
AAV: Our newest member is Fink, our lead guitarist now.
Joey the Fink: It’s probably almost been a year now since I’ve been [a member].
AM: Just wanted to make sure! I’ve been a fan of you guys for a few years and I think when I first started listening to you guys, there might have been six of you or something.
ES: Yeah, there was a lot of us!
AAV: I guess the original idea was for us to have this really loud, crazy intense stuff going on that would really overwhelm people when they would watch it. And I think we just kinda realized at this point that we didn’t need all that.
AM: You guys have a very unique sound. One of the first things I remember saying to you guys was that you reminded me of Modest Mouse and it wasn’t so much that your sound was like Modest Mouse, it was that Villain’s vocals had that bullhorn delivery that Isaac Brock had. So, what’s the strangest band you’ve ever found yourself being compared to?
ES: Well, I think Modest Mouse probably is. I mean, I totally get what you mean with the vocals thing.
But we’re so focused on the music that we’re playing, when people say ‘Modest Mouse’, we’re like ‘man, that doesn’t sound anything like Modest Mouse’. Then we’ll think about the vocals and we understand that. We usually compare ourselves to the Pixies, a lot of Rockets From the Crypt kind of stuff.
JTF: We try to make the music more interesting. One verse musically isn’t the same as the next verse necessarily even though the vocals may be all the same vocal lines. We just try not to make it boring so we’re not bored when we’re playing the song.
AAV: Yeah, I’m definitely more comfortable screaming than trying to [actually] sing.
AM: What group of people do you feel your music is most for? I know you guys have the ‘Cowards unite. Strength in numbers’. So, do you feel it’s more for cowards or maybe the underdogs?
ES: We’re looking for those people!
AAV: Orlando’s a very unique spot to be playing this kind of stuff because we’re usually paired with other bands that have nothing to do with the style that we’re playing.
ES: The kind of stuff we’re doing right now doesn’t seem to be like…[what] the hip crowd’s into at the moment. Around here, it’s very indie rock influence kind of thing. Not that they don’t like us, it’s just that it’s a little different than what most people are into at the moment.
JTF: I don’t think anybody really knows where to place us.
ES: Promoters have a really tough time with us. We have a lot of good friends that do stuff for pretty much all of the places to play in Orlando. We’ve never had an issue getting gigs or anything like that. We’ve been lucky and fortunate with that.
AM: Do you feel that since you’ve started that people are starting to get it a little more?
AAV: Yeah, I think definitely now.
ES: I think especially since we’ve dropped the extra guitar. We’ve had a lot more positive response. I think people get it more and kind hang on to what’s going on a little bit better.
AM: That was one of the things I loved about your music. It was unique. But, I immediately got it. And usually, when I first hear a band, it doesn’t exactly click. And I heard ‘Happy Dagger’ and I immediately got it.
AAV: ‘Happy Dagger’ may be a little bit [of a] different song than what we were used to writing together.
ES: It was ballot-esque but not quite.
AAV: And dynamics from quiet to loud. And it did have a few crazy sound effects happening in it. We like playing that song but, we haven’t played it out in almost a year. It’s hard to do that song without the third guitarist.
ES: We used to play a lot of shows with backing samples and stuff like that. We took that out, too. We’ve stripped things down a lot.
AM: Before you perform, do you have an preshow rituals that you like to do?
ES: Try to find everybody and hope they’re not completely wasted.
[Laughter]
AAV: I can’t eat the day of the show.
AM: You can’t eat?
AAV: Yeah. That’s the only thing. Hope everyone shows up, hope everyone’s not too wasted to perform…
ES: The too wasted thing I think is probably the main one.
[The guys talk about how they haven't had that problem in a while, but can recall losing band gear when they did.]
AM: What are you guys doing right now? As far as recording and whatnot?
AAV: We’re writing new songs right now. We’re concentrating on the new material that we’re trying to start getting down so that our next show, we can have half a set of new songs.
JTF: The CD’s [“Wearing the Wire”] mastered, we’re just a little short right now to get the pressing done. And then we have the video for “Made for Moderns” and that should be done in hopefully, the next two to three weeks.
AAV: At first, it was going to be “Leader Line”. We shot that but, we ended up changing the song.
ES: We shot the video three times now!
AAV: We’re very fortunate that we had a friend that we met that heard our music and liked it and he offered to shoot a video for us for free and do all the editing and stuff. He’s been very helpful with getting this done.
AM: You guys are picked up to be stars of your own reality show. What is it called?
AAV: That’s a good question. Because I do watch some of those reality shows and I always get pissed off at those reality shows!
AAV: I guess the original idea was for us to have this really loud, crazy intense stuff going on that would really overwhelm people when they would watch it. And I think we just kinda realized at this point that we didn’t need all that.
