I have fallen head over heels for Venice Is Sinking lately. I can't get enough of their music. I would also like to hang out with this group, as they seem like some of the most relatable people I've had the pleasure of interviewing.
The sounds that come from this group are gorgeous. The double vocals and the amazingly orchestrated music are guaranteed to grab your attention. Both the Okay EP and the full length AZAR are must-haves for those of us who enjoy simply lovely electro-indie work. Venice Is Sinking will be one of your new favorite bands.
How was Venice Is Sinking formed?
We are actually golems, created out of Fimo Clay to enact revenge against those who had wronged our creators. When that was all finished up, we wandered about for years, listless, until we found each other and decided to form a band. Occasionally we'll go out and kill somebody bad for old times' sake. This story may or may not be true.
How/why did you choose the band name?
Daniel chose the name when he was in high school for a 4 track recording project that we should probably release for funsies. That stuff is great: the work of young men who were equally influenced by Sebadoh and The Cure. Lots of yearning on display.
How would you describe your sound?
Gosh, that's a tough one because I think we're pretty amorphous, relatively speaking. Each record is slightly different. I can tell you what other people say. Some people call us slow-core, conveniently forgetting our fast songs. Sure, we're slow, but we're not THAT slow. Low comes up a lot with the male-female singing thing. I've heard shoegaze bandied about, and I don't think that's terrible, especially given that our live shows aren't jumping around the stage affairs, but we don't use that many guitar effects. Other people call us orchestral pop, which I think is nice, though we have never employed the services of an orchestra. We do like to get really fussy over arrangements and stuff. Karolyn plays viola and flute and Daniel and James play trumpet: together we'd make the most dessicated orchestra of all time. Mainly I tell people that we like to write pretty songs, for the most part.
Tell me about the Okay EP.
We had other versions of Ryan's Song and Okay sitting around that we'd recorded before AZAR, so we wanted to get those out. Also, the song Okay is a reference or tribute to the band Okay, a one-man project from Marty Anderson in the Bay Area, that we think is just the best. So we recorded two of their songs, "Compass" and "Give Up". And then we tacked the song on the front of the whole thing to make it like a CD maxisingle from the 80s because we loved those. Voila! EP!
Okay
What is next for the band musically?
Our third album will be coming out in a few months, and we're very excited about it. It was recorded live with only two microphones at the now-defunct Georgia Theatre. We're releasing it on vinyl, which will be our first vinyl release. That's fun! We're gonna play SXSW and hit the road as best we can to support it. We're starting to write album number four, too. Not bad for a bunch of golems.
What inspires you?
I think other people's music is, of course, inspiring. I'm constantly hearing things that blow my mind and that I want to rip off--or "pay homage to," if you will. We hear tons of stuff in pop music that I wish we could bring into our songs, but so far, we've had a hard time getting it to be musically congruent. Still, if you listen to nothing but indie rock, you'll make nothing but indie rock, and that really doesn't interest us that much. Most of our lyrics are about geography and things that happened to us in other places. It's kind of nice to have a theme.
How do you stay focused?
Have you ever seen Karate Kid and how Mr. Miyagi makes Daniel-san do all of those breathing exercises, so he can pound a nail into a board? We don't do anything like that. Mostly we just like to focus on talking about food.
How did you get started as a musician?
I think a few of us were marching band types, including me, and then a few others picked it up. I really don't have a great answer to this question. I'm not that great of a drummer, so I'm celebrating my twenty-third year of "getting started as a musician."
What have you been listening to lately?
Hmmm...sadly, Vic Chesnutt is no longer with us. I've been going back through his catalog. It's an amazing body of work. I've also been into Moondog, whose stuff I'd skirted around but never really delved into. I feel like I'm always listening to Brian Eno. We would like to take the time as a band to say that we think Keri Hilson's record from last year--though it spawned some big hits--was overlooked as an album. I'm trying to decide whether I love or hate Ke$ha like everybody else. After starting off shaky with Lady Gaga, consider me resolutely pro-Gaga, "Love Game" aside. You know, it's lame to say it, but The Beatles: Rock Band has given me a new appreciation for the complexity of their music. Guys like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and Stevie Wonder were able to pull off some remarkably complex song structures and arrangements while never sacrificing pop directness. It's no easy thing to do.
What are some of your favorite releases of 2009?
Oh, I just said it, but Keri Hilson's In A Perfect World was great. I loved the Odawas The Blue Depths a lot. Also, I was a fan of a bunch of stuff on the Hometapes label, like Slaraffenland, Megafaun, and Bear in Heaven. I was completely surprised by how much I loved the Flaming Lips' Embryonic, considering how lukewarm I'd been on recent output. I thought that Raekwon was great, though I set it aside after a week or two. Not much has staying power for me these days, and I worry it's a product of over-saturation.
Is there anything else you would like to add? If you haven't ever heard us, I swear we are not too crappy.
[For more on Venice Is Sinking, you can find them on MySpace, on Tumblr, and on Twitter.]
Photo by Ian Darken
