The Vasco Era (11/06/2012)
The 59th Sound took some time out to catch up with Ted O’Neil, bassist for Rock/Blues outfit, The Vasco Era, to talk about touring with brother Sid, taking time off to chill out, the freedoms of independent recording and not believing everything you hear about other bands.
Hi, how are you?
I’m cold at the moment actually!
Are you in Melbourne at the moment?
No I’m actually in Anglesea, which is down on The Great Ocean Road. I live down here now, just got out of the surf before it got dark, so it’s nice and cool. I have no reception at my house, so I’m like standing on a lookout at the moment!
The Vasco Era will be on hiatus for the rest of the year, mainly due to Sid heading off to Europe for a while, what will you and Michael (Fitzy) be up to during the break?
Well we’re both in our last couple of months of a teaching course, we do everything together, so we decided to start a teaching course at the exact same time, pretty much the exact same subjects. So we’re just trying to finish that up at the moment and just chill out, maybe play some guitar and stuff at home.
There was a mention of mountaineering and marrying?
Yep we’re doing both of that, not marrying each other though, Fitzy’s marrying his long term partner in December, which is like the day after she gets home, so it’s going to be exciting times.
Your last show for the year is in the next couple of weeks at The Corner Hotel, how are you feeling in the lead up?
I’m pumped for it I can’t wait, I always like playing The Corner and because it’s our last show we’re just going to have a big party, just have lots of fun yeah just make it as fun for ourselves and everybody else, as we can. The two supports we have Fraser Gorman and Luke Legs & the Midnight Specials are our mates, we chose them because we wanted to play with them for a little while, so we thought we’d keep it all nice and fun and friendly, should be good.
What’s it like touring and working with your brother, he seems to play a pivotal part in the band’s future.
Yeah it’s good, we generally don’t fight that much, we never really had an argument on the road apart from stupid little things like drinking each other’s drink or something like that. But him and Fitzy are both really good to work with, we all are musically and generally on the same page, so generally we’ll agree with everything that each other wants to do. With this upcoming tour and with Sid going over to Europe, we sort of had a meeting, when we first started doing the pre production for this album, we said alright we’re going to do this album, we’re going to give it everything and then we’re going to have six months off.
Since we started pre production for our first album in 2006, we haven’t had a break either from playing gigs, writing or recording in that whole time, and there just hasn’t been a time where we haven’t been doing anything. It’s been six years of really heavy touring and playing and then there was probably four years before that of gigging and working on songs as well. So we thought we need six months of just going that’s it, not thinking about it for a while. Sid’s always wanted to go over to Europe as well, he wanted to do it when he first left school but we’d already started the band so he’s never had the chance. It’ll be good to go away and then all come back fresh and see how we go.
I see you guys are one of many bands getting on board with Spotify, there’s been a bit of discussion about financial gain versus exposure with that kind of technology, do you have any thoughts on that kind of thing?
Well I only just figured out what Spotify was a week ago, we’ve been on it for a while I think, but I had no idea what it was. I kept seeing it on Facebook and I’m like ‘what’s this weird Spotify thing that keeps coming up in the feeds’ but I don’t know enough about the whole thing to make comment properly on it. In royalty terms it does seem pretty bad towards the artist, but having said that I don’t really know enough about it, but yeah it is a really good way of getting your music out there too.
The band has released their third self titled album, independent of a label, did you find that a liberating experience?
Yeah definitely, Universal were great to work with, but there was always this perceived pressure which we mainly put on ourselves, we always felt this pressure to make music a certain way, thinking in terms of singles and all of that sort of thing. But when we became independent it became a lot more relaxing, we didn’t feel like we had to force the songs into a certain idea of how they should sound or anything, just let them go the way that it felt like they needed to go, if that makes sense. This album, the pre-production of it came out a lot quicker and easier than the other two which was good.
‘Lucille’ we were obsessing over everything, like every kick drum, every snare, trying every possible note within a riff to try and make it the perfect riff and all that sort of stuff. I reckon we probably overdid it a bit in ‘Lucille’, whereas with this one if it worked we did it, we didn’t try to play around with it too much.
What was the writing and recording process like? Was that pretty free flowing as well?
Yeah it was, we did it in Melbourne and that was the first time we recorded at home, it was really good. The producer Steve Schram (San Cisco, Eagle And The Worm, Shihad), the way he wanted to do it, was to do it almost completely live. I think we recorded two guitar overdubs and then a couple of vocals, but most of the stuff we did as a band as if we were playing it live. He was very good at, he didn’t really obsess over every single sound, he wanted to get the overall sound sounding really good so he didn’t spend like ages on a guitar, mike and that sort of stuff which is the way that we sort of work as well, it was good fun.
So what was it like working in Sound Park Studios?
Awesome, I loved it, it’s got some really cool old gear and it’s a really good room, it sounds really good. It’s unreal, the walls are made from getting sound objects and you know stuff that they’ve got either for free or really cheap, so it sort of really feels banged to together but it feels really comfortable. Whereas other studios you go to, can be, because they’re so nice and so pristine, you don’t feel comfortable in them, you feel like you can’t touch anything, whereas this has got real wear and it’s got a real uplifting feel, a bit grungy. But as I said all of the gear in there is really good, all this old analogue stuff.
So are you happy with this album? It sounds grungier than your previous stuff.
Every time we do an album, like the first two, I’d be happy with them for a couple of months and then go oh we could’ve changed this we could’ve changed that, whereas with this one it’s been about seven months since it came out and I’ll go back and listen to it every now and then and go ‘yeah this is really good’ it sounds grungy and it’s sort of something that I’d want to listen to and it still stands up I reckon now, which is good.
You’ve toured extensively, played loads of festivals and supported some great musicians including ‘The Black Keys’, ‘The Violent Femmes’ and recently ‘Mariachi El Bronx’, what have been some of the highlights for you so far?
The Violent Femmes tour was unreal, I grew up listening to them and just to get to go and we got to play on stage with them at the last show in Adelaide. So we got up, all of us were up playing a Violent Femmes song with The Violent Femmes and we were like ‘holy shit this is awesome’ that was pretty amazing. We played a gig in London with Wolfmother, in a place called The Astoria, one of the first times we’d ever played overseas and we played to I think it was about two and a half thousand people there when we started playing, it was just amazing. Everyone at the start, they weren’t paying much attention, but they got right into it and enjoying it by the end, which was unreal.
Just getting to meet bands, like the majority, about ninety five percent of the bands we’ve met are all really nice people, they’ll all sit down and have a chat to you. You hear all these horror stories about bands being asses and that sort of stuff. For example, we played with Placebo maybe two years ago and I’ve heard things about Brian Molko like he can be really hard to get along with and be quite mean, but he was lovely. He was really nice to us and spent time talking to us, so it’s just refreshing to see the majority of people are actually nice people.
The band’s musical style has been described by some as ‘Punk Blues’, who do you think influences you and your sound?
Well Nirvana was a heavy influence, we all grew up listening to Nirvana, Pixies and Pavement, they’re that grungy sort of thing but we also grew up listening to Tom Waites through our parents and we’ve kept listening to them since like Tom Waites, Neil Young, Dylan, Beatles, Van Morrison, Cat Stevens, that sort of stuff. So a lot of that has influenced, not our specific sound but there’s ideals of them throughout the music, like it might be lyrically it might be melodically. So there is a lot of different influence coming through there.
What’s next on the cards for The Vasco Era? Can we look forward to some more touring maybe next year?
Yeah I’d say for sure, Sid will get back, we don’t have anything planned for when he gets back yet. I’m not sure when he gets back whether we’ll do some touring or whether we’ll start writing straight away, we’ll just have to see what all of our mindsets are when we all get back together. We might be ready for another album, we don’t know, we might want to go play some shows again.
The Vasco Era play The Corner Hotel June 22nd, click here for details.
Nazia Hafiz
Hi, how are you?
I’m cold at the moment actually!
Are you in Melbourne at the moment?
No I’m actually in Anglesea, which is down on The Great Ocean Road. I live down here now, just got out of the surf before it got dark, so it’s nice and cool. I have no reception at my house, so I’m like standing on a lookout at the moment!
The Vasco Era will be on hiatus for the rest of the year, mainly due to Sid heading off to Europe for a while, what will you and Michael (Fitzy) be up to during the break?
Well we’re both in our last couple of months of a teaching course, we do everything together, so we decided to start a teaching course at the exact same time, pretty much the exact same subjects. So we’re just trying to finish that up at the moment and just chill out, maybe play some guitar and stuff at home.
There was a mention of mountaineering and marrying?
Yep we’re doing both of that, not marrying each other though, Fitzy’s marrying his long term partner in December, which is like the day after she gets home, so it’s going to be exciting times.
Your last show for the year is in the next couple of weeks at The Corner Hotel, how are you feeling in the lead up?
I’m pumped for it I can’t wait, I always like playing The Corner and because it’s our last show we’re just going to have a big party, just have lots of fun yeah just make it as fun for ourselves and everybody else, as we can. The two supports we have Fraser Gorman and Luke Legs & the Midnight Specials are our mates, we chose them because we wanted to play with them for a little while, so we thought we’d keep it all nice and fun and friendly, should be good.
What’s it like touring and working with your brother, he seems to play a pivotal part in the band’s future.
Yeah it’s good, we generally don’t fight that much, we never really had an argument on the road apart from stupid little things like drinking each other’s drink or something like that. But him and Fitzy are both really good to work with, we all are musically and generally on the same page, so generally we’ll agree with everything that each other wants to do. With this upcoming tour and with Sid going over to Europe, we sort of had a meeting, when we first started doing the pre production for this album, we said alright we’re going to do this album, we’re going to give it everything and then we’re going to have six months off.
Since we started pre production for our first album in 2006, we haven’t had a break either from playing gigs, writing or recording in that whole time, and there just hasn’t been a time where we haven’t been doing anything. It’s been six years of really heavy touring and playing and then there was probably four years before that of gigging and working on songs as well. So we thought we need six months of just going that’s it, not thinking about it for a while. Sid’s always wanted to go over to Europe as well, he wanted to do it when he first left school but we’d already started the band so he’s never had the chance. It’ll be good to go away and then all come back fresh and see how we go.
I see you guys are one of many bands getting on board with Spotify, there’s been a bit of discussion about financial gain versus exposure with that kind of technology, do you have any thoughts on that kind of thing?
Well I only just figured out what Spotify was a week ago, we’ve been on it for a while I think, but I had no idea what it was. I kept seeing it on Facebook and I’m like ‘what’s this weird Spotify thing that keeps coming up in the feeds’ but I don’t know enough about the whole thing to make comment properly on it. In royalty terms it does seem pretty bad towards the artist, but having said that I don’t really know enough about it, but yeah it is a really good way of getting your music out there too.
The band has released their third self titled album, independent of a label, did you find that a liberating experience?
Yeah definitely, Universal were great to work with, but there was always this perceived pressure which we mainly put on ourselves, we always felt this pressure to make music a certain way, thinking in terms of singles and all of that sort of thing. But when we became independent it became a lot more relaxing, we didn’t feel like we had to force the songs into a certain idea of how they should sound or anything, just let them go the way that it felt like they needed to go, if that makes sense. This album, the pre-production of it came out a lot quicker and easier than the other two which was good.
‘Lucille’ we were obsessing over everything, like every kick drum, every snare, trying every possible note within a riff to try and make it the perfect riff and all that sort of stuff. I reckon we probably overdid it a bit in ‘Lucille’, whereas with this one if it worked we did it, we didn’t try to play around with it too much.
What was the writing and recording process like? Was that pretty free flowing as well?
Yeah it was, we did it in Melbourne and that was the first time we recorded at home, it was really good. The producer Steve Schram (San Cisco, Eagle And The Worm, Shihad), the way he wanted to do it, was to do it almost completely live. I think we recorded two guitar overdubs and then a couple of vocals, but most of the stuff we did as a band as if we were playing it live. He was very good at, he didn’t really obsess over every single sound, he wanted to get the overall sound sounding really good so he didn’t spend like ages on a guitar, mike and that sort of stuff which is the way that we sort of work as well, it was good fun.
So what was it like working in Sound Park Studios?
Awesome, I loved it, it’s got some really cool old gear and it’s a really good room, it sounds really good. It’s unreal, the walls are made from getting sound objects and you know stuff that they’ve got either for free or really cheap, so it sort of really feels banged to together but it feels really comfortable. Whereas other studios you go to, can be, because they’re so nice and so pristine, you don’t feel comfortable in them, you feel like you can’t touch anything, whereas this has got real wear and it’s got a real uplifting feel, a bit grungy. But as I said all of the gear in there is really good, all this old analogue stuff.
So are you happy with this album? It sounds grungier than your previous stuff.
Every time we do an album, like the first two, I’d be happy with them for a couple of months and then go oh we could’ve changed this we could’ve changed that, whereas with this one it’s been about seven months since it came out and I’ll go back and listen to it every now and then and go ‘yeah this is really good’ it sounds grungy and it’s sort of something that I’d want to listen to and it still stands up I reckon now, which is good.
You’ve toured extensively, played loads of festivals and supported some great musicians including ‘The Black Keys’, ‘The Violent Femmes’ and recently ‘Mariachi El Bronx’, what have been some of the highlights for you so far?
The Violent Femmes tour was unreal, I grew up listening to them and just to get to go and we got to play on stage with them at the last show in Adelaide. So we got up, all of us were up playing a Violent Femmes song with The Violent Femmes and we were like ‘holy shit this is awesome’ that was pretty amazing. We played a gig in London with Wolfmother, in a place called The Astoria, one of the first times we’d ever played overseas and we played to I think it was about two and a half thousand people there when we started playing, it was just amazing. Everyone at the start, they weren’t paying much attention, but they got right into it and enjoying it by the end, which was unreal.
Just getting to meet bands, like the majority, about ninety five percent of the bands we’ve met are all really nice people, they’ll all sit down and have a chat to you. You hear all these horror stories about bands being asses and that sort of stuff. For example, we played with Placebo maybe two years ago and I’ve heard things about Brian Molko like he can be really hard to get along with and be quite mean, but he was lovely. He was really nice to us and spent time talking to us, so it’s just refreshing to see the majority of people are actually nice people.
The band’s musical style has been described by some as ‘Punk Blues’, who do you think influences you and your sound?
Well Nirvana was a heavy influence, we all grew up listening to Nirvana, Pixies and Pavement, they’re that grungy sort of thing but we also grew up listening to Tom Waites through our parents and we’ve kept listening to them since like Tom Waites, Neil Young, Dylan, Beatles, Van Morrison, Cat Stevens, that sort of stuff. So a lot of that has influenced, not our specific sound but there’s ideals of them throughout the music, like it might be lyrically it might be melodically. So there is a lot of different influence coming through there.
What’s next on the cards for The Vasco Era? Can we look forward to some more touring maybe next year?
Yeah I’d say for sure, Sid will get back, we don’t have anything planned for when he gets back yet. I’m not sure when he gets back whether we’ll do some touring or whether we’ll start writing straight away, we’ll just have to see what all of our mindsets are when we all get back together. We might be ready for another album, we don’t know, we might want to go play some shows again.
The Vasco Era play The Corner Hotel June 22nd, click here for details.
Nazia Hafiz