The Velvet Hearts: The Live Experience
Exclusive Interview with British ‘Rock Band with Ballads’
Oct 25, 2009
The Velvet Hearts are quite possibly one of most loved bands in the Home Counties. And with their rich melodies, blazing power, and electrifying live line up, it’s not hard to see why. Suite 101 caught up with the band’s Steve Jones and John James Newman to find out just what it is that makes their live performances so special.
Suite 101: The Hearts really are still a pretty new group aren’t they? You only really came together, as we know you, in 2008?
SJ: Yeh that’s when we started to get a bit stronger.
JJN: Yeh, finding the real core of what the Velvet Hearts are to us, which is still a bit of a mystery sometimes, perhaps that’s just being a musician, but that real core developed then, that ‘rock band with ballads’ vibe.
Band Intuition and Musicianship
Suite 101: You’ve obviously got the history together, but even so, for a new band, in a new format, you still all sound incredibly tight, like you’ve been playing together for years.
SJ: That’s partly about being a musician. A proper one.
JJN: Yeh. Ollie [Richmond Jones - drums] been playing in bands since he was 15. From rock to blues to jazz. Lidia [Cascarino-Close] is the same, she’s been playing bass since she was 15. She’s played in function bands, rock bands, blues bands, she’s a total muso. Quest [Quinton – electric guitar] is a lot younger than us he doesn’t have the same sort of history, but he’s really into his music. We listen to each other as musicians.
Suite 101: I suppose what I’m getting at is the intuition of the band.
SJ: Lots of bands are from a town or from a ‘place’. And because they’re mates and they happen to be together they end up with a certain sound and they play in a certain way. But we want people who are great and who inspire us. In TVH, one’s from Surrey, one’s from Bournemouth…
JJN: The ideal of the band is organic, but the presentation is essentially being musicians. We’re a bunch of friends and we love each other, but when we present what we do it’s all about musicianship.
SJ: We’re all musicians. We’re used to turning up to a bunch of guys that we don’t know, going into a studio and getting paid money, we need to play in time, play intuitively. Ultimately it all comes down to following the singer. Whoever that is, all singers do different things, and they always do their own thing, they might f%$£ up. But that’s a musician’s role, you’ve got to be there with it.
Bob Dylan, the Live Mindset
JJN: Bob Dylan is famous for f%$£ing up and doing whatever he wanted to do! Really, the best way for us to rehearse is at a gig.
Suite 101: Interesting. You are essentially a live band aren’t you? I get the sense that maybe the studio stuff is a slightly different route for you than it might be for other bands?
SJ: And that’s the way it should be I think. Making a record is one way to go. But when you see a band it should be a different experience.
JJN: When you’re in a studio doing all that writing and all that production, it’s all kind of spacey and chilled out, or it’s heavy and rocking, or it’s funk or pop. When you’re in a studio and you’re producing something, it’s a totally different mindset to doing it live, where you’ve got to think how you’re going to do it:- right we’ve got strings, how are we going to do that live? And you can take that a little bit further, so you can have a jam when you’re live on stage, and things can build or drop down…
SJ: And sometimes those bits can become features, like there’s a bit in ‘Serotonin’…
JJN: Or ‘Build One For Me’. That song came from something I made up on the spot one night, it’s about building a toy! So jamming can create music as well.
Shining with Soul
Suite 101: Where do you think The Velvet Hearts shine – live or on the album?
SJ: Live, unquestionably.
JJN: Yeh, live – what do you think?
Suite 101: Agreed, totally live.
SJ: For me, all good bands should do that.
JJN: The ultimate goal would be to have them in tandem. If you could get that energy that you have live onto a record that would be brilliant.
SJ: But then great records don’t have to sound live. Good records can convey a song beautifully through production techniques, but that doesn’t mean you want to use those techniques live, you want to give more soul live.
Suite 101: The album is great, technically, musically it’s more than competent, but…
SJ: You don’t get our energy, the energy that we have live.
And that energy is something that has to be experienced. The Velvet Hearts will launch a new version of album Into the World at Sound in Leicester Square on November 12th. Visit The Velvet Hearts’ website for more details.
Further Reading
Check out Indie Suite’s review of album Into the World.
Read about The Velvet Hearts’ old school roots in this further exclusive interview.
 |
 |
 |
