The Vasco Era
Before Mess & Noise’s recent Lunchbox Series Number 14 gig at the Workers Club, The Vasco Era’s frontman Sid O’Neil explains the band needs to perform three songs well so that these can be uploaded onto the website. He jinxes it. Three lengthy false starts, due to a faulty amp, mean The Vasco Era’s set, which was originally scheduled to run for half an hour, eventually clocks in at one-and-a-half hours. At one point he sings Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz a cappella, manually manipulating his larynx, to fill the silence while the venue’s techs investigate the problem. “Imagine the comments!” O’Neil jokes, referencing the chinstroker site's caustic forums. The trio's easygoing onstage presence and easy banter win over the crowd, making for a truly memorable 'I was there when' gig experience. Their onstage camaraderie is contagious. "We have to like each other, because we're brothers," the band's frontman points out, with a head-tilt towards his bassist brother Ted.
Post-show, both O'Neils are relaxing over a few beers, perched at a table in the venue's corridor. "Fitzy's not comin'," Sid explains of their drummer's absence before Ted offers, "We've gotta have everything packed up by 3.30. [Chuckles] This interview's going until five o'clock!" After their coping mechanisms in the face of technical difficulties are commended, Sid observes, "It always happens to us. Well I s'pose I haven't seen other bands as much as I've seen us, but shit breaks on us all the time."
The Vasco Era seem to be in a really good place right now; especially when you consider Sid called it quits post-Lucille (the band's second and previous album) and hightailed it to Brisbane. "Yeah, we are," Ted admits. Sid concurs, "Yeah, we don't take it as seriously anymore." They're no longer signed to a major label. So was it their label that tried to push the band into taking their music more seriously? "No, I reckon my age made me take it more seriously," the frontman counters, "'cause I was like 'YEEEeeeah, I'm gonna be this big rockstar!" The age Sid's referring to is "19 to 21 probably, when we just got signed". "I grew up thinking I was gonna be a musician and then, straight after school, we got signed to a major label. And then we went to America and met these people [who were] saying that we were gonna be really big, and when you're that age you're like, 'Oh, maybe that's true'."
Reflecting back on the band's early days, Ted reveals, "There was a bit of self-sabotage - not deliberate, but a bit of self-sabotage in the way that we recorded albums and stuff like that. I mean, that first album [Oh We Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside] is pretty brutal. It was the whole concept and everything. It wasn't polished enough for people to really go, 'Bang!'"
"I'm so glad it didn't happen," Sid reiterates. Ted adds, "The majority of bands that get big on the first album generally struggle to follow it up afterwards, so..." Hi brother interjects, "And I just don't think we were good enough at the time to get that big, looking back. But, whateever - I'm happy. We tell our manager that we don't wanna get any bigger, or don't care about it."
Having long been a believer in The Vasco Era's potential for international ascendancy, Sid's lack of confidence in his ability is mystifying. They should be Kasabian big. "I wouldn't like to be that big," the singer/guitarist confesses. "I wouldn't like to be in that position. I'd rather be normal, a normal guy." So, just to confirm: Rock & Roll Is The Only Thing That Makes Me Feel Good (a self-confessed autobiographical album track from their latest The Vasco Era set) means Sid's back for good, right? The frontman seems dubious: "Yeeeeah, no, like, I'm happy to be doing this now, but i still think - I dunno, maybe after this album we might have a bit of time off. Again." The band seem to have so much fun onstage, aren't they addicted to playing live at the very least? The bassist chips in: "Yeah, I love it. I love playing live. [Turns to his brother] That's also a bit of a defence mechanism, I reckon."
"No, I'm just saying. I've been in the band since I was 15 or whatever and I'm just saying, after this album cycle I don't wanna go straight into doing another one again... It's not so much a defence mechanism in terms of not wanting to do the band, it's more like: none of us have had any time to ourselves for longer than - none of us have done that holiday overseas that everyone does."
There's a newfound freedom to The Vasco Era's sound on their self-titled album. Is there a correlation between this impression and the band's newfound independent status? "To a degree," Ted considers. Did they feel restricted being contracted to a major? "To a degree," he repeats, "but it's also that we're all - all of a sudden the band's not our sole focus now whereas for years it was. And we'd just get - Sid especially, but all of us would just get consumed in it. It's all you do, so you've got all this downtime when you're not doing anything, but all you're thinking about is the band. Now we all study, Fitzy and I both work at schools a couple of days a week. Yeah, it makes you sorta - well, for me, when we go in to rehearse and that sort of stuff it makes it a more positive experience."
When Inpress last spoke to Sid circa Lucille, he dobbed his elder brother in for doing nothing. "No," Ted argues, horrified, "I started uni before him!" The bassist then stresses he commenced his course "six months before we started Lucille, before it was recorded". Sid cuts in, "Oh, who cares. You were donig nothing at one stage," and then Ted taunts, "YOU were!" before they both crack up laughing. Sid is studying to become a social worker and mentions The Vasco Era don't earn enough as band members to "get a wage". It's literally not one cent, so it's not feasible to just be a musician for us." They need to get syncing. Grey's Anatomy, perhaps? "That'd be all right," he concedes, "but I don't think our music's suitable."
"Oh, there was a movie," Ted interrupts, thumping his head trying to kick into recollection mode, "where someone syncs a song to this movie and - it was Belle & Sebastian in High Fidelity! I can't remember what song, but one of the guys puts it on Jack Black comes in and gets the CD out and throws it across the room and he's like "What the fuck are you listening to that shit for?' Yeah, we pay a bit more attention to our syncs now, haha." Sid continues: "Yeah, 'cause Jack Black's like, 'What's this?' and the other guy's like, 'Belle & Sebastian' and he's like, 'Well it sucks ASS!' and pulls it out and throws it."
As Sid goes to check on Fitzy's progress, he instructs his brother to "Hold down the fort". So exactly how ambitious are The Vasco Era? "At FIRST we wanted to be huge and take over the world, Ted recaps. "We didn't reallyt think about it in terms of success level, more critical acclaim. We always were into older bands and songwriters like Lou Reed and Neil Young, that's the sort of music we grew up on and we listened to, so we sort of wanted to - but we didn't understand, like, the scene's changed so much that if Bob Dylan were around now he wouldn't necessarily be as big as he was." Obviously The Vasco Era caught Dylan's Bluesfest sideshow earlier this year then. "Yeah it was awesome," Ted extols. "Did you see him at Rod Laver? 'Cause everyone was saying how shit it was. Fitzy did a recording on his phone and, like, the first song [Dylan] comes in and starts singing and you hear Sid turn around and say, 'His voice sounds amazing! I don't know what everyones talking about'."
The Vasco Era - CD Review
There's a school of thought that goes that whenever a band release a self-titled album, it comes as a statement that it represents their greatest body of work to date. While many throw it away on their first record, for others the blood, sweat, and tears are nowhere as evident as on that eponymous release. For local three-piece The Vasco Era, those tears are encased in a bottle of Jameson, and the album is The Vasco Era, one of the best local releases of recent memory.
The Vasco Era have been kicking it around these parts for long enough to carve themselves a nice little career, bursting forth from the coastal town of Apollo Bay in the mid-noughties and into the consciousness of soul-searching rockers and indie kids alike. Their debut, 2007's Oh We Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside, was followed in 2010 with the much-lauded Lucille, which paved the way for the trio to tour with the likes of The Hold Steady, The Black Keys and more.
Fast forward three years, and although it's been a little while between swigs, the results speak for themselves. Overflowing with Jagger swagger, singer/guitarist Sid O'Neil leads from the front, with rhythm section - brother Ted and Michael Fitzgerald - doing their thing without at all being confined to the background.
Rock & Roll Is The Only Thing That Makes Me Feel Good is a rambling success, first single Child Bearing Hips will have kids screaming at music festivals throughout the summer, and Avatar Blues is arguably the band's best song ever. It all makes for an absolute ball-tearer. The only fear is that this could be The Vasco Era's pinnacle. Sure as shit hope not, because this band could be massive. Dylan Stewart
Vox Music Academy singing students, The Vasco Era play at Karova Lounge (Ballarat) on Wednesday 23rd November, The Hi-Fi Bar on Thursday 24th November & The Pyramid Rock Festival, Phillip Island on 29th December to Monday 1st January.
If you are impressed by Sid's voice, get professional singing lessons at Melbourne's Vox Music Academy at either the Brunswick, Dandenong or Bayswater studios.
