PHEW, done..........
It's really difficult to translate some of the technical, guitar thingies, but I did the best I could.
So, enjoy, all four pages......... I sure hope it fits........
Sorry about the mix-up concerning the family-relationships, but this is how it was published.
He also spelled Kipp's name wrong, but I did change that.....
Intervieuw Venice from “De gitarist” (sorry, I don’t know the date it was published, but it was in December 2004)
Washed Ashore
The Californian band Venice is known for it’s vocal qualities, but is not to be underestimated in the area of their guitar playing abilities. Gitarist spoke with the guitarist Pat and Micheal Lennon about recording, touring and David Crosby’s guitar.
Somewhere along the Californian coastline, near LA, where David Hasselhof and his colleagues worked as lifeguards, where the sun is always shining, everybody is relaxed and problems don’t exist, there lays a town called Venice Beach. They named it Venice Beach because it was supposed to look like Venice, Italy, at least as far as the water was concerned. And long ago four young boys formed a band there, called Venice. Now, just about 20 years later, the former quartet has grown into a band with impressive vocal qualities. The style is little of Crosby, Stills & Nash mixed with the Beach Boys, which, considering the location this all is taking place, is not strange. It is no guitar music in the sense of solo’s every other second, and a couple of riffs to top it off, but this instrument is the base of the music.
The guitars are the musical accompaniment, nothing more, nothing less. However, it is always done well, and in a functional way.
One interesting fact is that Venice is best known in the Netherlands, and a bit known in Germany. They are a little known in the States, but that is very locally. They had their break-trough in the Netherlands when they preformed in Jan Douwe Kroeskens “Twee meter sessies“. (Aka 2 meter sessions, hosted by Jan Douwe Kroeske, ed.). The new album by Venice, Pacific Standard Time, is a continuation of their previous albums, of which “Born and Raised” and “Spin Art” are the two best-known albums. Guitarists Micheal and Pat Lennon just received the first production model of the new album when they arrive in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel in Amsterdam. They excuse themselves for a bit in order to study the printing more closely. We do the same, after we received a copy too. We already had the opportunity to listen to the music in a promo.
Authenticity
To be honest, I did expect the new album to be more different from your previous work.
Micheal Lennon: “I am surprised you say that, most of the reactions we hear this far say exactly the opposite. I don’t know, we just start to write, and the new album evolves as we work on it. We tried to use some different instruments, things we had never done before like a muffled trumpet, some violins scattered around. On the other hand, I am happy you can’t really hear that much difference between this album and our previous ones, because people love Venice because of the music, and that should not be different. We can hardly just sit down and decide to do everything completely different this time. We did everything ourselves, and I produced the album, so this is another Venice album.
You have been in the music business for about 20 years, and have seen every odd corner of this industry. What is important to you, after all these years?
ML: to me it is authenticity. Especially when you are writing lyrics they have to be real, authentic. Our first albums contained many songs where we made up the stories. You know a girl and a boy who doesn’t treat her well, that kind of stuff. Those songs can become great songs, but they don’t really connect to us or to our audience. Venice is all about authenticity. We play on real instruments; don’t use loops, or clicks. I don’t mind other people using them, but it just doesn’t work for us. We try to let everything be as real as it can be, organic even.
Pat Lennon: And if we don’t, those are the songs our audience likes the least. The songs that originate from our own experience are the best songs.
You mean like the song you wrote, without the other band members?
PL: No, that is a completely different story. I am not a productive writer as the other guys are. They write as if they are possessed. Usually when I came up with an idea for a song, like a melody of a guitar lick, they took of with it. Then by the time they were finished with it, it turned out completely different from my initial idea. So, this time, I bought myself a four-track recorder, and had my idea completely worked out before I let them hear it for the first time. I had already recorded the bass line, two guitar parts and the melody. It was kind of interesting to do it this way, to be honest. The other guys appreciated this. They were well aware that it would have been a completely different song if they had been the ones working on it. And I am proud of the finished result.
ML: When we speak about authenticity, we mean that we write about things we see or experience ourselves. This is also true when we record. Kipp (Mark’s brother, and those two are cousins of Pat and Micheal. The sir-name of all four is Lennon, not the worst name to be known by in the music industry) is a perfect singer, but sometimes I need to remind him of the meaning of the song. There just has to be an amount of feeling in a song. Not everything that you hear on the new album is perfect, but that is the way I wanted it to sound, to prevent it from sounding clinical.
PL: Like my song. The day I let them hear it, we immediately sat down and recorded the guitar part, right there in Michael’s living room. It is the second take, but it was the whole song in one take, and Micheal then later added the piano part. That afternoon our initial plan was to change things later, but we never got round to it. It worked out fine the way we had recorded it, and there was no need to change things.
ML: Right, that piano, that used to belong to my parents, and I just opened the top, shoved a mike inside, and started playing. I am not much of a piano player, so I needed a couple of takes, but this is how it was done. Pat was sitting there with my laptop and one of those little ProTools Mbox, and he helped me.
Guitars arrangements.
How do you normally record your songs, with all those voices?
ML: Usually the lead is the first thing we record. It depends on the song, but sometimes the three of us share a mike to do the backings. Those we double up, and speed them over to the left and the right. That thickens the sound. With other songs, the backings are being recorded individually, singing along to a take where we all sang into one mike. That gives an “IN YOUR FACE” kind of sound, without isolating the voice too much.
PL: and sometimes we add some extra little voices that sing a single line.
ML: But that is different with every song. Sometimes we do everything individually, just like if we were standing on a stage, and we all have our own mike, and sometimes we all sing everything at the same time, in one mike, and do it three times if need be.
And what about the guitar arrangements?
PL: on this album, Micheal did most of the guitar parts, because we recorded the album in his studio. This is not always the case, but it is this time. The funny thing was that we had to divide the guitar parts for the tour this time. Micheal would for instance really want to play a certain guitar part, but then it turned out that the solo would be mine, which Micheal didn’t like. And sometimes there were three guitar parts, and then we would have to decide which one we wouldn’t play.
The music on this album has much more layers than your previous work. The colours are much more subtitle.
ML: I love to put things into an album that you can only pick up on if you are wearing a headset when you are listening to it. In one of the songs, we had the bass player play two bass lines in the bridge, and then panned them out. It created a funny sound.
PL: Yes, it messes with your mind. And it keeps albums interesting for a longer time. I have a few old rock albums, and I discover new things every time I listen to them. Sometimes just a simple guitar effect.
Crosby’s Martin
Your guitar collection seems to be impressive.
ML: To be honest, I think it is. I never realised that, untill I spoke to someone about it a while ago. He asked me how many guitars I owned, and I replied that it was about 15, and he said it had to be more than that. So then, I made a list.
Really?
ML: I don’t remember how many there were exactly, but I use a few Gibson’s on the DVD, like the white Les Paul Special, and the red Firebird. I borrowed those from Gibson. So, I don’t own those. I do own the red Guild Starfire and the Les Paul Goldtop with P90’s. Just recently, I bought a custom made acoustic guitar; build by a guitar builder from San Diego. He had heard us, and build a guitar for me. I borrowed it to try it out, and I laid it to my side one day on a stool to listen to something in the studio. When I came back it wasn’t on top of the stool anymore, but on the floor next to it. It has sustained a little damage at the binding, so I had to buy it. But if a guitar can survive that kind of a fall, it has to be a good guitar. Besides that I own an old acoustic Guild F50, and Pat owns a very beautiful Martin D28 that David Crosby gave to him.
PL: That is my most important acoustic guitar for life performances, but during the last tour, it has been broken in two. We played a song, and the guitar technician that worked for us the first time that night, was supposed to hand me my D28. Somewhere backstage I heard a loud noise, and I just knew it was my Martin. So, I went to look, and the neck had been broken, split at the heel block, and a big piece of the top had been pulled loose with the fret.
ML: The guitar David Crosby had given to him
PL: Yes, and it had been mine for over ten years, and before that David owned it for ten years.
When I got home, I was hoping we could get it repaired. But one night David Crosby attended one of our concerts. He owns a mahogany signature model at Martin; I think it is a D-18. And that night he brought me one, as a gift, serial number 3. Number 1 had been given to his son, number 2 had been given to Nash, and number 3 was mine. A couple of weeks later he gave Micheal number 4. In the mean time, we had brought the broken Martin to Billy Asher, a well-known builder in LA, and he succeeded at repairing it perfectly. I use the D-28 on live performances now, and it sounds terrific. Billy left some damages around the rosette (sorry, can’t find the right word for it….) as a reminder.
Which guitars do you take with you to tour?
ML: I always take my Les Paul and the Starfire, and Pat always brings his Martin. Furthermore, we always bring two Godin Acousticasters, because they work fine. They don’t have feedback, are light, and play easily.
PL: We have a friend who lives in Holland, Marius, and he owns one we can borrow when we tour here.
ML: I want the guitars I bring along to match. I don’t want to mess with the EQ of the amplifiers in between songs; it has to be right immediately. I also use a Line 6 Variax over here, by the way. What that thing can do is unbelievable. I use it on our new album on the song opium, to get the sitar effect.
You use a beautiful vibrato (?) like effect on the album
ML: That is a Boss VB-2. An old second hand pedal. I once bought it in Hollywood, and I never saw one again anywhere else.
And the amplifiers?
ML: We always use Koch amplifiers. Pat uses a Classictone and I use a Multitone with a Fender Hot Rod Deville as back up. I also own a Hot Rob Deluxe and an AC-15, at home. Pat owns a Mesa Bogie Mark II top.
The great outsiders
How is it possible that you are so well known over here, but not in the USA?
ML: We were just more lucky over here. After we appeared at Jan Douwe, we received a lot of attention is a short amount of time. This is a small country, so the attention is more focused, and that worked for us. In the USA, we always signed with the wrong label, or we released our album at the wrong time, we just had too much bad luck over there.
PL: I think there are millions of people in the US that would love to hear our music. The problem is to get our music to them, to be known.
ML: And that is so hard in the States. Especially since, we live in LA. LA is where it all happenes.
It happens that three different world acts preform there at the same time. Try to get some attention over there. Touring the whole USA costs such a lot of money. You really need a compagny to back you up, get you some airtime on the radio stations and arrange everything.
What we will try to do now is to concern small areas at the same time. So, we will concentrate ourselves on Chicago, for instance, and then move on. We take more control of our career, and that makes us less dependant.
PL: And it is nice to not be responsible for such a large budget.
Jos Kamphuis.
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