What are some of your greatest
influences?
My family and my upbringing are
the greatest influences of all. That
also involved music as a big part of it,
whether it was hymns at the church
or my father when he played guitar.
There was always a guitar in a corner
of a room and whenever there was a
lot of family around he would play;
usually a lot of old country songs.
Also, my mother and father were both
in theater and musicals. I was told I
could sing the entirety of several musicals, one I actually remember doing.
Even without knowing what all the
words meant I could do it after I had
listened in repetition as children often
do. I grew up with music completely
intertwined with my experience. Music is still my life. Music is involved
in everything.
Do you have a specific process as
a songwriter and what was it like
preparing for your latest album?
I don’t have a specific process. Preparing for this album involved a lot
more than any other time in the past
because it’s been a long time since
we did a Violent Femmes album. I
thought now would be a good time to
archive all the songs I put on cassette
tapes for decades and get everything
down into digital before they
deteriorated.
There were songs I remembered
and some I completely forgot about.
There are many more than what is
on this album. We really picked the
songs we thought we could dive right
into.
Most of this album was recorded
on the road. A lot of what you are
hearing on the album is from the first
time we made it through the song.
We are really good at that, doing
things without much planning.
What’s next? Can you tell me
more about what fans have
to look forward to and what’s
ahead?
We did a swing in the West, the East
and a Midwest swing with time to
get to a lot of places and play music.
There have never been long range
plans, and we have actually had
success without doing that. We are
all very happy with how this album
turned out. We have been getting
great responses from people and, we
like it too. There are more songs to
be written, so if we can just figure out
how to keep things from getting in
the way to the point that it stops the
music then there is a lot more music
we can do. Right now, we are just
getting out and playing live. Which is
a great and a wonderful way to share
the music and experience it with
others.
Rebecca Lloyd
Rebecca Lloyd is passionate
about covering the arts and
promoting the talents of
others. She is involved with
several businesses that
support artists and she
personally enjoys painting,
writing, graphic design and
traveling with her family and
friends.
Tour Schedule:
JUL 5 TUE First Ave Minneapolis, MN
JUL 6 WED First Avenue Minneapolis, MN
JUL 7 THU Summerfest Milwaukee, WI
JUL 9 SAT The Vogue Indianapolis, IN
JUL 10 SUN The Fillmore Detroit, MI
JUL 12 TUE Concord Music Hall Chicago, IL
JUL 13 WED Vic Theatre Chicago, IL
JUL 14 THU Pageant St Louis, MO
JUL 16 SAT KRZZ Beach Ball Buzz Kansas City, MO
JUL 17 SUN Cains Tulsa, OK
JUL 19 TUE House of Blues Dallas, TX
JUL 20 WED Stubbs Austin, TX
JUL 22 FRI Newport Folk Festival Newport, RI
JUL 23 SAT Kerfuffle 2016 Festival Buffalo, NY
JUL 24 SUN Massey Hall Toronto, Canada
SEP 24 SAT The Park at Harlinsdale Farm Franklin, TN
Violent Femmes
Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz
July |August 2016 27