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Photo: Daniel Araujo; courtesy of the band's MySpace page; L tp R: Kickball Katy, Cassie Ramone, Ali Koehler
The internet is a fickle bitch. Just as soon as a band gets hyped as “The Next Big Thing”, the nameless and faceless bloggers, music snobs and people who think their opinions are hipper than thou are on to the next “Next Big Thing”. Even before the Vivian Girls’ 2008 debut album was reissued on a proper label (In The Red), the tide was starting to turn. Thankfully, the album was strong enough to survive the backlash and it found it’s way on to many “best of” lists at the end of 2008 (including my own). Nine months later, Vivian Girls released their second album, Everything Goes Wrong, to just as much hype but much less backlash. The album features the same reverb drenched punk/surf/garage/60’s girl pop as their first, but with a noticeable growth and maturity in the song writing. I spoke to Vivian Girls singer/guitarist Cassie Ramone while she’s trekking across the southwest with the rest of her band.
When asked her opinion of being put through the ringer, Cassie said “It was pretty difficult to deal with at first because we just weren’t used to it. I’m sure it’s difficult for anybody to deal with, but at this point we have come to accept the way the internet works and we try not to let it affect us anymore.”
The most typical dismissal of Vivian Girls is someone saying something along the lines of “Whatever. They’re just cute girls who play guitar all sloppy.” I adamantly disagree. The “sloppiness” is too deliberate; it’s part of the aesthetic of their sound. “I would defiantly agree that our sound is very deliberate. We’re not trying to come off as being immaturish. We’re aiming at... We’re always trying to get better at our instruments and be a tighter band.” says Cassie.
While it’s true that Vivian Girls aren’t virtuosos; make no mistake, they can play. On their self-titled debut, there are two songs that are vastly different, yet work perfectly together on the same album. The hauntingly beautiful “Where Do You Run To” and the minimalist rocker “No” are embryonic flashes of what this band is capable of. Cassie told me “That’s an interesting observation. “Where Do You Run To” was written by our old drummer, Frankie Rose. “No” was second song I ever wrote for Vivian Girls, so the two songs come from very different places.”
There is a more than subtle shift to an increased sophistication in the song writing on .jpg)
Everything Goes Wrong. The dirgesque “Tension” stands out as a prime example. I told Cassie that I get a Velvet Underground meets Wire feel from the track, she said “Oh, thank you.“ When asked about their influences helping to push songs in one direction or another, she replied “We try not to think of influences as often as possible, if that makes any sense. We kind of just try to go with what we feel is natural to our band. The influences in “Tension” are the drumbeat from “Be My Baby” and the rest was just kind of all us. We didn’t really think about any other bands when were writing that song.”
After two albums, playing close to 300 shows around the world in the last 30 months and having already been chewed up and spit out by the blogosphere, a band has to keep grounded. “I think that all of our families are very supportive, they’re really cool.” said Cassie. ”They follow the band more than we do. My dad has Google Earth set up, which is really funny. Our friends, for the most part, have been really cool about it. We still have all the same friends as we did before the band took off. I think we have pretty stable relationships in our lives, so I think that’s been really good for us.”
Vivian Girls w/ Sleepy Vikings & Hippodrome
Tuesday, October 20th (8pm | $8 advance/$10 at the door | ALL AGES)
@ Crowbar
1812 17th Street N
Ybor City (Tampa), FL 33605
813-241-8600
Go here for my review of the show
Vivian Girls "When I'm Gone"
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