|
|
 |
The Violent Femmes.
The Violent Femmes formed nearly twenty-five years ago in Milwaukee, USA, and have forged an enduring reputation as a popular and energetic live band. When they last toured Australia in 2003, the demand for tickets was so great the band had to extend the original two-week tour out to a packed out five-week concert series.
"They underestimated the demand. People don't believe that a band is popular unless it's having a current hit or a new record or something like that. The fans understand it but the people in the business don't understand it," says bassist Brian Ritchie. "The Australian tour's going to be big. I think it's gonna go on for close to six weeks. Considering how many markets there are, that's a lot of touring. We are going to some fairly obscure places."
The Violent Femmes are a bit of an anomaly in today's music
landscape. Their debut album is the only record ever to go platinum
without entering the Billboard Top 200. They are well established
despite never having had any 'hits' (despite having such well-known
songs as Kiss Off, Add It Up, American Music
and the evergreen Blister In The Sun) and they continue
to play to capacity crowds. Their fan base is wide and extremely
diverse and crosses several generations.
"The Newport Folk Festival put together a tour, we played at the folk festival, and of course we played acoustically but people were going nuts. We opened for The Grateful Dead: people went nuts. Played a heavy metal festival: people went nuts. So it's like we can just basically get in front of almost any crowd and people are gonna be satisfied, which is interesting because everybody will say 'oh, I'm a 'Femmes fan' when they certainly have very little else that they might have in common. I don't know, maybe we're kind of like the underdog or we're kind of like... um... music for misfits," he considers while dragging on a cigarette.
A factor in the equation might be the Femmes' typical onstage set up; with drummer Victor De Lorenzo up front of stage in a row with Ritchie and singer/guitarist/songwriter Gordon Gano, presenting an equal, open front to the audience, not to mention providing a direct outlet for De Lorenzo's animated antics who are often regarded as the 'fourth member' of the band.
"Yeah, usually the drummer's in the back and I think that's one of the things that contributes to the general neuroses that most drummers have, because why wouldn't they be neurotic, they're in the back. With us, everything is there, all on the surface, nothing is hidden; it's just three guys playing really simply and directly. I think people respect that, they can see that we're not using technology to pull the wool over their eyes.
"It's an outgrowth from when we were busking. When you're busking, it's kind of like, well, the drummer's stable but then Gordon and I were able to move around the drums real easily because we weren't in front of microphones or anything like that. So we developed this kind of in your face performance style and then when we got back on stage we just kept it going. We started out as a conventional rock band, we even had the drummer in the back and all that. We did a few gigs like that, then we started busking and we realised that that musical approach actually suited the material better than playing it like a regular rock band. So that's the kind of genesis of the 'Femmes' sound."
A vital ingredient in the Violent Femmes sound is their use of an acoustic bass guitar as a standard instrument instead of a novelty. "I had already been playing for a while and I started to think rock music was over simplifying itself and that it needed some more subtlety in terms of just the sound itself. Victor was of that mind, he plays a lot with brushes, you know most drummers are banging away with sticks as hard as they can. So we were into a lot more of a subtle sound as a result of our interest in jazz. We didn't really want to play jazz, we wanted to play rock'n'roll but we wanted to play it like it was jazz; like a rock'n'roll mentality but with a jazz influenced sound. And that's the reason why we've been able to continue for so long because that sound is timeless rather than basing your sound upon a kind of effects unit or keyboards that become obsolete within a couple of years."
Something else that epitomises the Violent Femmes is their use and exploration of a wider range of instruments both on stage and on record. Of this Ritchie is particularly guilty, having recently reached the level of teaching master of the Shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute. It is this kind of openness towards music combined with the flexibility of the band that makes the Femmes' music so rich, yet so simple.
"You're painting a picture with sound, so most of the time we can say what we have to say with the guitar, bass and drums but, for example with Gone Daddy Gone, when we had a xylophone that has now become a big trademark of the sound also. It's a good song but that's probably the thing that made it memorable. So if you use it judiciously you can do it just about anything as long as you are not doing it gratuitously. If it's natural and it sounds good, then it works.
"For example my favourite era of the Rolling Stones is when Brian Jones was in full swing and besides being a good guitar player he was using the marimba, the dulcimer, the 'cello and the flute, the mellotron; he really gave those songs their individuality just by doing that kind of stuff. He's a big hero of mine and I try to follow in that kind of mentality."
Whilst he's open about most things, Ritchie does skim over questions of whether there's new 'Femmes material on the way.
"The only thing that we can agree upon is that we need to keep bringing the music to the people. You can be sure that we'll continue doing shows but as far as recording is concerned we're still trying to figure that one out," he laughs. "We might make another record but we might not depending on... uh, whatever kind of circumstances happen. We don't really look into the future very much because every time we have, we haven't been able to control it. We just let things happen, we react more than we instigate things. It seems to work for us over the long term not to get too worried about things."
Blake Lewis
 |
dB Magazine proudly presents The Violent Femmes at Heaven on Sun 3 April with The Vasco Era.
|
|
|
The latest issue
available now!
|
