Exposed Vocals Interviews The Vinogrooves

The Vinogrooves: We are quite an international band. Fred (guitar) grew up Kanses and Texas in the US, Clair (vocals) is from Shropshire in the UK, James (guitar/keyboard) is from a county called Cumbria in the UK, Simone (bass) is from Rome in Italy, and Gleb (drums) grew up in Novosibirsk in Russia. Our musical backgrounds are pretty diverse; James and Gleb both trained in music from childhood, James started on the Piano at the age of 7 and Gleb on the flute also at the age of 7. The rest of us started a little later. Clair started singing at the age of 10 and entered theatre school when she was 12. Fred started learning to play when he was 17 having always been a huge rock fan, and Simone started on classical guitar and switched to bass when he was 23. We all knew we wanted to be performing artists pretty early on in life, and we have all played in various other bands and projects previous to this one. Our tastes and personal influences are quite diverse as well, including heavy metal, blues, classic rock, soul, disco, pop, and even musical theatre! Our collective band influence however probably comes mostly from the great rock and blues legends from the 60s, 70s and 80s. We all have our particular niches and styles that we prefer.

The Vinogrooves: The core group of the founding members all used to live in the Vinohrady district of Prague, which is a very hip, cool, international part of the city. Partly the name is a homage to Vinohrady, and of course the word vino, meaning wine, seems fitting because we all like to drink quite a lot!

The Vinogrooves: Mixed feelings. It is a great way to promote your music outside of your geographical location, but on the flip side it makes it potentially harder to make a living from music. We have given lot of music away for free to people who have helped us out getting the music made or been involved with the band in other ways, as well as for promotion and airplay.

The Vinogrooves: Play any place, anywhere you can find at the beginning. Don’t be afraid of showing your music, just playing anywhere will help build your confidence and give you contacts. It is also important not to underestimate the industry/ admin side of being in a band. This is at least as important as the quality of your music if you want any recognition. Be bold, creative, innovative, relentless in your self promotion. Make yourself into a brand/product that you can show people and advertise as an entity in itself. Be a package. Get good recordings, get a sexy logo, and promote promote promote!

James: I like to work with a lyricist when I write. I can come up with chord structures, riffs and melodies all day long, but lyrics really tend to stump me. The most effective method for me is to start with a cool sounding riff/ chord sequence, then develop it into a structure extending it, trying to be objective and admitting when something isn’t good enough. I will often suggest a melody over the music, then I give what I have to the lyricist, and see what they can do with it. I like to work with lyricists who can really bring something personal and creative to the song; if they can come up with a better melody idea than what I have then that’s great.

Fred: Typically one of the guitarists comes up with general idea, riff or chord progression from simply something bouncing around in our heads. Then the whole band generally works out the arrangement together and the fine points, all the while fitting the songs to lyrics that Clair writes.

The Vinogrooves: At this point we prefer to use all the usual social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, ReverbNation, YouTube etc, which basically amount to the same thing in many ways. Social networking is a great tool for promoting a band and it gives you a massive reach. It’s also interesting as some of the sites give you insights into your demographic, so we can see who is listening to our music and where. This is helpful when booking venues etc.

Clair: Half a million dollars is a hell of a lot of money in the Czech Republic so I would probably have a long holiday and look in to opening a music club that has unsigned acts play every night and pays all the bands; there isn’t enough opportunities for new bands to promote themselves and develop a following. A lot of venues you approach ask you to guarantee a minimum number of attendees and it’s impossible to develop a following if no one gives you the chance to play for new audiences.

Simone: I don’t know what I would do with half million, but I can tell you what I’d do if I had 1 million dollars; I’d buy a big boat and make it into a floating studio! How cool would that be, travel and making music.

James: I’d probably buy a property somewhere, stick a recording studio in there, and then spend the rest on travelling, partying, and hopefully recording/ touring/ something music related

The Vinogrooves: Social networks seem to work the best these days. A lot of people respond to that. But gigs are also great to get yourself known to a wider audience.

The Vinogrooves: We have a lot going on this year. We have just confirmed our first UK so we’ll be heading over there in June to play for 10 days. We’ve got some awesome venues lined up all across the country, very exciting! We are also planning to play some festivals in Germany and Poland and would like to tick off a few more countries in Central Europe. We are also currently working on the theme tune for an indie film. We shot our first music video last year with a company called Rotunda Films in the UK and they have asked us to write for their new feature film, Enter The Cage. Getting back in the studio is high on our list of priorities too and we are hoping to record a full LP of originals.

James: Making sandwiches. Or doing something manual

Simone: Probably I’d be thinking why I wasn’t making music :-))

Fred: To be honest, I’d probably spend even more time in bars listening to live music, having a good time

Clair: I have no idea. I’ve been committed to music and performance since I was 10 so I haven’t really given much thought to anything outside of this.

The Vinogrooves: It’s pretty tough. At the moment, we are managing ourselves and there is an awful lot to take care of. We try to split the responsibilities so that no one gets overloaded and we still have time for our own lives.

The Vinogrooves: Anyone in the UK can look forward to rocking with us when we tour, and hopefully we’ll get some great new songs down towards the end of the year. It going to be an exciting year for us and we can’t wait to see where we end up! Maybe New York??