Villanova Junction – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW (I)

The occasional Tuesday at 4GBs will be dedicated to local bands.   All bands are local to SOMEWHERE, of course, but by this, I mean young, unsigned bands who just like to go out and make music.

Here’s an interview I did with a Sarasota band called Villanova Junction about six or seven months ago.  I first emailed Ryan, the guitarist/singer/primary songwriter, and asked if I could get a copy of their CD.  It arrived a few days later, and it’s been in rotation with me ever since.

Their lineup might have changed since then (I’ll be hearing more about this in a couple of days).  Still, I thought this interview was worth reproducing in its entirety.  Their self-titled album is really worth hearing.  Contact the band directly on how to get a copy:

myspace.com/musicbyvillanovajunction

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MH: What does it mean to be from Sarasota?  What kind of venues are around here?

Julian Leonard: I think it has to do with the slump of the music scene here, you know?  I feel that in high school it was pretty peaked… a lot of exciting things.  I felt like it went down on a slump, so to be in a band again now as it’s starting to rise, and hopefully even being a part of that rise, is kind of exciting, you know?  To try to bring that all back.

M: How many years ago was high school?  How old are you guys anyway?

J: 24.

Ryan O’Neill: 25.

Erin Johnson: I’m 28. 

R: I think the scene in Sarasota, it kind of happened spontaneously, right?  I mean, I think ’98 was really big.  There was a band called No Solution, there was Super Tuesday, but they were more, like, new-school punk.

J: We weren’t really stuck in a scene but… punk rock, you know?

M: Would you say you are part of the punk rock scene?

J: That’s a problem that we are trying to … and a lot of the venues we played at, like we played in St. Pete at The Garage, and I don’t think we’re necessarily … we’re undefined, because… the owner there, he was very much into the punk rock scene, but he’ll play anything that he can, you know.  Obviously he’s a venue guy, but he’s like, ‘I wanna put you guys in with…” because we played with a cover band, a 90s-rock cover band, and he was like, “We’ve gotta put you with … I just don’t know where to put you guys right now,” you know?  Where is our little beat?

M: Here in Sarasota, there’s Pastimes and there’s Steel Can Alley.  Is there anywhere else to play for your kind of music?

R: Sarasota Olive Oil has shows.

E: Digital 3 used to be really good.  Digital 3 was good but they just relocated.  They used to put on a lot of good shows.

M: Where was that?

E: It was on Central and Boulevard of the Arts.  That was a good scene.  Mainly it’s just Gulf Gate right now.

M: Maybe it’s good to have a centralized place where people know… it’s kind of like an Uptown / Downtown kind of thing where you have Downtown… that’s where the edgy/original stuff gets played.  Whereas if you want to play here on Main Street or anywhere else, you have to play cover tunes.

R: Sometimes that’s the way to do it.  If you want to play, like, a three-hour set, you make your money that way, you know?  it’s a good business-side of things.

M: Tell me about your CD a little bit.  What was cool about the recording of this?  When did you record it?

J: How that was recorded was pretty damn cool, I think.

M: Was this the first recording by you guys as Villanova Junction?

J: Yeah, I mean if you don’t count laptop recordings.

M: Let’s go even further back.  Somebody give me a history of how you guys got together.

E: We met at a Super Bowl party.  Me and Ryan met at a Super Bowl party, which was hosted by a mutual friend.  I don’t want to disclose at this point who that was… no, a really good guy.  So we met there, and we introduced ourselves, and he found out I was a keyboard player and I found out he was a guitar player, and I was like, “Oh, that’s pretty interesting.”

R: I’ve been looking for, like, two years, for a good organ player, someone who plays good keys, and he was just kind of like, “Hey, how’s it going?”  I didn’t even want to go out that night.  I met Julian before I met Erin at a party, I think it was, and we decided to, you, “Let’s play some Misfits because Halloween’s coming up.”  I think it was two or three years ago.  “Halloween’s coming up… let’s play some Misfits.”

 J: There’s no Misfits cover band in Sarasota, so we were joking around about that idea.  There was a bassist and a guitarist and a singer.

M: So what year was that?

J: Halloween of ’06.

R: Then we just ventured off and did something else.  We wanted to go more towards originals.  I started cranking out some songs, and they all liked it.  But we kept that same grasp of that old-school punk, like Iggy Pop, Misfits.  So if we were to be classified as punk, it would be more in the sense of the old-school influence of those characters.  But we ventured off and did our own thing.  I guess that’s how we first started.

J: It’s funny because one night we sat around, just shooting the shit, and I hadn’t really known Erin too much, but he was like, “You know, I really like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.”  And I was thinking, “Okay, I like those groups, but that’s weird,” you know?  Ryan’s iPod, flipping through it, I saw bands that I’ve never heard before.  So, us three together, it’s real interesting.

R: Hendrix, Cream…

M: There’s kind of a … I don’t know if it’s the organ or what, but there’s a Deep Purple-ish, Doors kind of vibe.

J: It’s weird to say what it is because all of us are so different.

M: You [Ryan] kind of sing in a low voice too…

E: Jon Lord of Deep Purple… Jon Lord is my favorite organ player.  There are a lot of really good organ players out there: Jimmy Smith, of course, who Jon Lord was listening to, and, you know, Ray Manzarek is obviously unique and awesome and legendary.  Jon Lord I used to listen to quite a bit, just his sound…

M: That distorted sound…

E: The distorted, overdriven organ is what I’ve always wanted.

J: He’s always looking for a pedal.  He’s like, “Oh, this buddy of mine lent me this pedal.”

M: How do you get that sound?  What’s your setup like?

E: Well, actually, basically, right now, I’m a senior in college.  I go to Ringling, and I’m majoring in illustration, and right now I’m working on my senior thesis, and so I don’t have a lot of money.  And actually, when I moved here from Vermont in 2005 to go to Ringling, I didn’t bring the bass amp that I normally play through, so I showed up with no amp and haven’t really gotten an amp since then.  But what we do, and I think it sounds good – is I just plug directly from the jack on the organ just right into the PA and we just kind of mix the signals from there.  The distortion that I get is a natural, mechanical thing, because it’s so loud.  I’m trying to experiment with different sounds.  I don’t want to completely emulate one player or another.  All these influences are good, but I’m trying formulate my own sound.  The natural distortion I get …

M: You obviously have a classical, jazz sort of background.

E: Well, basically I started taking piano lessons when I was nine.  I took piano lessons for six months when I was nine.  When I was eleven through thirteen I took piano lessons for a couple of years.  It was your normal, traditional piano-teacher type of thing.  So, I stopped doing that because she raised her rates.  My dad’s a musician.  He’s a guitar player and a bass player and a drummer.  He’s been in tons and tons of bands long before I was born.  When I was growing up he was playing in bands, playing bass, playing rhythm and lead guitar.  He writes a lot of original material.  He’s a wicked good player.  He taught me how to improvise with other musicians, to read the flow, follow your drummer, follow your bass player, and the difference between… there’s a fine line between fine verses and playing too much, and just how to solo.  Once I learned how to solo, you know, here we go into the solo and you just kind of take off, and that’s where a lot of the magic happens.  I really enjoy playing the rhythm too.

R: We are only a three-piece, so he fills in that bass line.

M: You are only a three-piece?

J: As of right now.

M: You don’t have a bass player?

R: No, and that’s the trick.

M: So, do you [Erin] have to play bass with your left hand?

E: Yeah, I play the bass and I’m always working no matter where it is on the keyboard to improve my technique and improve every sound and just to make it really damn good.  So I practice every day.

R: Since we don’t have a bass player, we’re kind of under the concept of the garage band, and I kind of like that idea that it’s something a little different rather than the same four or three piece kind of band.  I think it’s interesting to see just an organ and just a guitar and just the drums connect … and onstage, I’m surprised that I don’t hear anybody shout out, “Where the fuck’s your bass player?”  At the end they think, “Well, this is great.”

M: What’s the stage response like when you play out?  Do you have a following that comes out and sees you everytime?

J: Here, mostly, yeah.  And what’s really funny is once in awhile someone will have a camera and we’ll get to watch the video.  I don’t really pay attention, but we’re sitting around watching it, and we’re like, “Wait, there’s people dancing.”  And it’s really cool.  I just never really got that idea, and it’s cool to see that people were dancing and getting into it.

E: Also, my grandfather’s a musician as well.  He was in jazz and Dixieland bands during the Big Band era in Massachusetts.  So I’m from a line of musicians.  One thing about solos is: when I’m playing a solo, I don’t want to play it the same way every time.  It might be a couple/few notes that lead into the solo, your hook that brings in the next part.  Roger Glover [bass player of Deep Purple] said of Jon Lord that he was a Zen Archer soloist, that he would hit it the first or second time, but that his solos were always different.  He never wanted to play the same thing.  Part of that is that you can’t remember how to play it.  I can sit down and learn technically how the exact solo goes for any given song, and I can memorize that stuff…

M: But why would you want to?  You want to create something different every time.

E: It’s all about reaching into the ether and pulling out that …

R: Creamy goo?

E: Yeah, that stuff.

TOMORROW: Part Two.