This past week I was able to chat with the Boston-based rock band The Venetia Fair. Though they’re currently busy touring with the likes of Less Than Jake, Reliant K, Attack Attack, and The Expendables on Vans Warped Tour, The Ventia Fair band members Mike and Benny took the time to answer some questions for me.
Beholder Media (BM): First things first: How’s Warped Tour going? What’s been your favorite part of the tour so far?
Mike – Warped Tour has been going great so far. We have all been really productive in getting our music out to new people, meeting new friends, doing interviews etc. My favorite part is probably seeing all of our hard work pay off right in front of us.
Benny – We hit the crowds hard and promote all day and then get to see an audience full of new friends and already familiar faces. Instant gratification for all the hard work makes it easy to stay motivated.
BM: I know that you guys tour quite a bit. Are there any towns or specific venues that are your favorite to play?
Benny – I mean, our favorite shows are always in the Boston area since that’s where we’re from and every band loves that hometown audience, y’know? The sick narcissist in me just wants to be wherever people like me the most, I guess. We’ve played some really wild venues in some pretty wild areas but to be honest, I’m the worst dude to ask since I never know anything about where I am. Ever. In all honesty, I’m at a warped tour date today, and I have literally no idea what state I’m in. I’m just at Warped Tour, USA. I don’t know why, my brain just doesn’t seem to keep track of shit like that.
BM: I’ve been wondering where the name of the band came from… Is there a story that goes along with it?
Benny – The band is named after Venetia Phair, the woman who named the now dwarf-planet Pluto. She’s dead and the planet’s not a planet anymore and we changed the “Ph” to “F” and added a “The” because sometimes things change, y’know?
BM: What were you guys up to before music became your full-time job?
Benny – We were in college for a little bit, but we were really just waiting and working towards getting the opportunity to make music our full-time job. Once that opportunity came, we dropped everything and left. Ask me in a couple years if I regret it. My mom says I will, no matter what happens with my band. She’s a pretty wise lady so we’ll see if she’s right, I guess… so far that’s one of the only things in my life that I DON’T regret.
BM: Twelve years old or not, let’s say you were to start that secret club that you mentioned in your bio (or have you started it already…?): What would it be called? What would you have to do to join said secret club?
Benny – The clubhouse would definitely be called The Shit Palace since that’s the name of the apartment we were living in while we wrote “The Pits” and has since become the name of our tent at warped. As far as getting into the club, I don’t know, you’d probably have to drink a lot of piss… The boys have been drinking a lot of piss lately…
BM: You also mentioned that none of you – except Mike – have any substantial training on your instruments. How did you guys get started playing and then how did you end up playing together?
Benny – Mr. Chark and I have been playing in bands together since before we had any idea how to play anything. We just wanted to be in a band, y’know? Like that episode of Boys Meets World where Shawn and Corey start that band and get a gig at the school dance but don’t know any songs yet and then maybe they learned a lesson or something. So that’s how we got started, we just wanted to know how to play our instruments enough to be in a band. That was in like 7th grade probably.
Mike – I started playing guitar in about 5th grade and immediately started forming bands through out middle school, high school and college in search of musicians that had same goals and musical interests as myself. I met The Venetia Fair kids when my band Kiss Kiss toured with them a little over a year ago and we all got along great and became best of friends. After Kiss Kiss went on hiatus and the TVF boys were looking for a bassist, I realized that it was these kids I wanted to write, record, tour and be with due to our common interests, motivation, personalities and music styles.
BM: What training does Mike have?
Mike – I had gone to college at Five Towns College of music. One year I went for audio production, recording and engineering. My second year I went for performance on guitar which included arranging, composition, ear training etc. My last two years I did my student teaching and graduated with a degree in music education. I guess I will always have that to fall back on (and keep the parents quiet) but my passion is doing exactly what we’re doing now.
BM: I try not to ask this question but the music nerd in me always wants to know: What is your songwriting process?
Benny – We hole up in a practice space for 9 or 10 hours a day 5 days a week and talk about ideas for things and every once in a while we play something. Sometimes we’ll sit in silence for like 4 hours and then all of a sudden pop up and start feverishly working on something. You never really know when an idea might come so we’re like hunters just waiting… biding our time until we can snare one. Songs usually start with a word or a concept that we can keep looking back to for inspiration. Then there’s one part that’s really fun to play and we get excited (like children). Once most of the song is written, we sit and tweak these tiny, stupid details until we hate the song so much that we love it.
BM: Your newest album, The Pits, was released almost a month ago now – how has it been doing? What kind of feedback have you been getting?
Mike – We have gotten nothing but positive responses which have been very encouraging. All of us are very proud of every aspect of it as far as the performance, structure, and production. We show it to hundreds of kids at Warped Tour and the majority are immediately hooked, or say that they have never heard anything like it which is always a great compliment to us.
BM: I don’t want to keep you guys for long so one last question: What’s happening after Warped Tour this year? More touring? Taking a break? Shenanigans?
Benny – What the fuck is a break? We would never do that. We’re talking about ways to stay out and keep touring and hopefully make it out to the west coast since it’s been a while since we were over in that part of the country but if we can’t nail down any solid plans that makes sense for us we’ll find a practice space and finish the full length. We have about 75%-80% of a full length written right now and we’re getting pretty antsy about getting it recorded and put out. So one of those two things. Definitely no fucking breaks….
To keep tabs on The Venetia Fair, their new album, and where they’re going to be playing next, follow them on Facebook and Twitter!
Image source: The Venetia Fair official Facebook page
