The sound of Calla is hard to describe. Although based out of Brooklyn, the band departs radically from the current retro-garage that's been in vogue recently for bands in New York City. Their songs often crawl as if they're being dragged out by force, with vocalist and lead guitarist Aurelio Valle's voice rarely rising above a menacing whisper. If it's intimacy they're going for, it's an intense variant they've achieved.
Aurelio and drummer Wayne Magruder moved to New York from Texas in 1997 with their band the Factory Press. After the demise of that band, Valle and Magruder recruited their friend and former collaborator, bassist/keyboardist Sean Donovan, to join them in New York. The three formed Calla, and have released three albums together: 1999's Calla, 2001's Scavengers, and their latest, 2003's Televise.
I spoke with Aurelio recently by phone:
Keith Daniels: How's the tour going?
Aurelio Valle: So far it's going really well, we've basically covered most of the states. Went to the west coast last time, and the reaction was really good.
KD: The sound on Televise is a bit warmer than on your previous records, was that a conscious decision?
AV: I think every record reflects how we grow as a band live. Basically with every record we grow as a live band, and we try to capture what we're doing live with every record. So with a lot of the songs we were writing and trying out, they were basically more beat-heavy, aggressive, and we're more developed, more focused... our songwriting is definitely developing. It definitely was a conscious effort to make it, y'know, better than the last, but some people might not think that. ((laughs))
KD: Does that come from trial-and-error, when you play for an audience and their response, do you try to shape to get a better response? Or is it just to satisfy the members of the band?
AV: I think it's probably a little bit of everything, y'know? Some of the songs, not all of them, we try performing them live, different versions. We try out different things to see how they go over. Sometimes, y'know, it's not necessarily how the crowd reacts but how we feel writing it. We feel like if it's not together, it doesn't feel right or it doesn't sound right, or other songs we basically work on them at home or in the studio and just kindof build upon certain ideas. We'll start out with a very stripped down solid idea that we just start building upon and adding to.
KD: How does the songwriting process work in Calla?
AV: Most of the songs usually start out with a very simple acoustic demo. Basically I write a very simple verse, chorus, break, whatever, and we start passing it around, to where everybody starts adding their own ideas to it, building upon it. We'll get together and start performing it, deciding where we can take it and what we can do with it, and start cutting and pasti... redoing it. Sometimes a song will be completely different by the time we're finished with it. Sometimes it'll start out with a beat and I'll write something on top of it, or it'll start out with a bass line and we'll start building upon that. It's different every time really, but whatever works.
KD: What did you guys have to do to get by when you first got to New York?
AV: Wow. Well it was hard at first, when we first moved here, we basically lived on 13th street in Manhattan in a one-bedroom apartment. The four of us lived basically lived in lofts on top of each other, and we worked every job we could possibly work, like coffee shops and just random PA jobs: where you're running around picking shit up for people. Just like every job you can imagine. The four of us living together, it was a weird transition between being in Texas and living in your own bedroom in a house with relatively cheap rent and coming to New York and having to adapt to the living situation here. It was hard, we had to do that for about a year, and eventually I moved out to Brooklyn, and Wayne moved out, and the shit kindof hit the fan in a weird way. We kindof had to get a new game plan together, and that's when I started singing and Wayne and I got Sean into the picture. Sean was kindof like always the fifth member of the band, he was living in Texas at the time. It was difficult, but when we reformed as Calla in 1997 or so, we basically had to come up with a new concept of what we were gonna do, and the music we wanted to do, and just kindof experiment more.
KD: Why did you feel New York would be better for you than Texas?
AV: The kind of music we were playing. We were doing ok in Texas, but we were living in Dallas and the music scene was kindof stale. It wasn't exciting for us, the kindof stuff we were doing wasn't falling into place anywhere. The music that we did then was definitely more aggressive than what we do now, a lot more like Joy Division, Nick Cave y'know, very dark. And that wasn't what was going on out there.
KD: I know you've played with Nick Cave now, was it exciting to meet him?
AV: Yeah, well, it was definitely strange, for some reason I knew we would get that chance. He was such an influence, and living in Texas, we were all into Gun Club, Birthday Party, the Cramps, all these bands that were somehow, someway affiliated with Nick, and we wanted to move to New York, because we felt that it would be a challenge and we felt like what we were doing would fit in better. Of course we were wrong ((laughs)) ...the challenge was definitely there, but as far as our music fitting in, it didn't.
KD: Do you still feel that way?
AV: I think that now it doesn't matter. Then we kindof didn't know what we were doing, we didn't know anyone, we were playing this music that didn't have anything to do with garage music, which was what was going on then..
KD: ..even back in 97?
AV: Yeah, bands like Speedball Baby, John Spencer Blues Explosion, Jonathan Fire*Eater, they were all playing garage music. I mean, everybody's still playing garage music now, and we're doing something that doesn't deal with that, but it's taken us this long to build up that reputation... whatever you wanna call it... to kindof make a name for yourself. It's been a long time. When we first moved to New York we went and saw Kid Congo Powers and at the time we didn't know anybody, and we spoke to him after the show and asked him "Would you be interested in producing our next record?" for our old band. He called us from LA and said he was moving to New York and he would love to do it, and it was amazing for us, 23/24 years old and that was amazing because it was like we were a valid band. So we did the record and it took over a year for the record to come out, and by that time everything just kindof fell apart. But y'know, you live and learn, trial and error. You live in New York, meet people, and we slowly started meeting everybody, and from meeting Kid was where we started meeting everybody that played in the Bad Seeds, like Jim Sclavunos, Mick Harvey, everybody whenever they'd come through town we would meet them. Like what I was saying before, where I felt like eventually we'd meet Nick Cave, we'd met everybody else, and when the Bad Seeds were coming through, basically they invited us to play with them, so I met Nick Cave. He was really cool, and so down to earth, y'know, you're intimidated at first but he was just a completely honest person.
KD: Do you think there are still some elements of Texas in your music?
AV: Yeah, I would say so, and it's not necessarily that it's a conscious effort to do that. I think that when we get reviews for whatever record we do, there's always a mention of that. They always say it sounds like something...
KD: ...the desert...
AV: Yeah. The desert or out... wherever... When we were living in Texas growing up you're basically surrounded by this music, where you can't avoid listening to country music and the blues, and anything southern. That was definitely a huge influence for me, being a guitarist, listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan, ((inaudible)), that sound, it's very intriguing y'know. The older you get the more your tastes evolve and you start looking into other things, and I don't know, we developed this sound, and coming to New York, with Calla, we started experimenting more, and listening to hip hop and more urban-type music, and trying to incorporate samples and stuff. The way I play is always in that vein, whatever I do, regardless of whether I try something new or not, something will always have that very southern type of charm and feel to it. It comes off in the music, it definitely does, but it's never like a conscious thing.
KD: What inspired the name Calla?
AV: We liked it because it has several meanings. First of all it looks good written down, it's simple, there's nothing to it y'know. Basically it was in reference to a photograph of a calla lily, and then also in Spanish it means "silence". And we found out that in Roman slang it meant "rip-off". So it had a lot of meanings in it, and it's short and simple, and it looks good, and it... ((inaudible))
KD: Have you begun working on your next album?
AV: We're always working on ideas, y'know? Wayne is always doing some kindof ..((inaudible)) .. I'm always writing songs, constantly writing, I get bits and pieces, sometimes I'll have a few chords, or sometimes just a hook, and I'll record lots of things, and then when it comes time to do a record, if things go the way I would like them to go we'll probably start recording in the fall. When that time comes we'll start sifting back through everything we've recorded and really start picking and choosing and narrowing everything down and really concentrating on putting songs together. We love recording.
KD: Do you enjoy listening to your previous albums?
AV: Y'know, it's kindof random, like right now I can't listen to Televise, because we play so many of the songs live, y'know, it's so fresh in your mind... what it sounds like.. It's hard to listen to the album, whereas if I hear, say, one of the songs off the album, it's a little more ((inaudible)) I like hearing what other people think of it, because I have a very demanding perception of it right now. But when I get away from the record for a while, like the first record for example or say Scavengers.. like the other day I was listening to "Love of Ivah"-- I just happened to find a live version that we have of it -- and I was listening to it, and I thought it sounded fucking great. I hadn't listened to it in a while, so it takes getting away from a record for a little while to be able to come back and appreciate it.
KD: What was it that made you decide that you wanted to be a professional musician?
AV: Well, I grew up in south Texas, and I was listening to bands early on, everything from like Suicidal Tendencies to New Order, this was in like the mid-80's, and living in such a small town where you needed to drive an hour and a half to go to a decent record store and you needed to drive four hours to go to a show, there was nothing there, and that music led me to believe that there's a lot more out there. It's just one of those things... that drive that you have that you've just got to get out of that fucking town somehow.
KD: ..the music was a window to the wider world outside..
AV: Yeah, and listening to all these bands was very inspiring, like I was saying, listening to Suicidal Tendencies, listening to that band for the first time kindof made me realize that anybody can do it. Not because it was bad but because it was so raw, and so... like nothing I had heard before. I started discovering bands like the Jesus & Mary Chain and the Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen, all these bands and it was like... shit y'know? I want to do this, and as soon as I got out of high school I was out of there. I moved up to Dallas with the guy who's playing second guitar with us now, who moved with us to New York, I've been playing with him since high school. He was actually in the band we moved up here with, and he's come back up to New York and he's playing second guitar so it's kindof like everybody from where we started is together.
KD: What's in your stereo nowadays?
AV: Well, let's see... what have I been listening to? "Nashville Skyline"...
KD: Dylan?
AV: Yeah... Van Morison's "Astral Weeks"... and ((inaudible))
KD: Did you hear the Stone Roses are getting back together?
AV: Y'know, I did hear that. I don't really know what to think about it, I mean, y'know...
KD: "Second Coming" wasn't all that...
AV: ((laughs)) Yeah, it was a huge disappointment. After hearing Johnny Marr's attempt at a solo record, I was like... wow... if the Smiths were to get back together, geez I don't know, y'know, or at least Morrisey and Marr, if they were to doing anything again I don't know how good it would be. So, y'know, the Stone Roses never really being able to follow up that debut record, I would imagine it would be really hard to follow something like that, but especially years and years afterward when they've all been doing their own thing.
KD: Were you in New York City on September the 11th?
AV: Yeah... yeah. That, if anything, made me realize a lot more... For two months after that happened I couldn't touch my guitar. I was completely, me and a lot of people actually, a lot of friends, were just kindof... lost. We really weren't sure what the hell we were doing, it didn't seem to be that important. A lot of things really inspired me, made me feel like, y'know, we need to try ten times harder than we ever have. So eventually when I did start writing songs, it was definitely very very inspiring and... the fact that a lot of people when that happened were moving away from New York and the things that they came here to do -- they basically gave up and left. What had happened... watching it on TV... day after day ten times a day... it was grinding, y'know? I'm sure that everybody was effected the same way, it kindof kicked everybody into gear if you ask me. Shortly after that, seems like bands started springing up everywhere in New York, cuz before that there were really good bands, the Strokes were just coming up, there were a lot of bands getting attention and stuff, but once that happened it was like.. Shit... I don't know if everybody drew their attention to New York, or if to everybody it just became an inspiration. I think that maybe it was a combination of everything.
KD: Music does seem to get better when things are bad in the world.
AV: Yeah... I always read that, but I had just never had something that traumatic happen, in my lifetime growing up. It's definitely important, a lot of great art does seem to respond to tragedy.
KD: Before those events Mayor Guliani was fairly unpopular, but afterwards he was viewed as a hero. Do you think he deserved that distinction?
AV: I think the fact that he kept his composure, and really stepped up, and really took charge when everybody was sitting there glued to their television, almost in a panic, not knowing what the fuck was going on. The first hour that that happened, we felt like.. Basically the country was under attack, after the Pentagon got hit, so it was like "So what now? What the fuck now?" And, y'know, shortly after that, the only person you could really sit there and listen to was the mayor. I think that he really did take charge and put a lot of people at ease, calmed everybody down, when that should've been the job of the President. I think the President did go on and do that, but I was never a Bush supporter so y'know, but the mayor... it's hard to explain... did you feel that way?
KD: About Guliani?
AV: Yeah. I don't know if it was just a New York thing, just the people in New York, or if it really was everybody around the country.
KD: I felt it, I mean, every time he would get up and talk it was... rapt attention, and what he had to say was very important, more important than Bush, because it felt unscripted.
AV: Yeah, exactly, it was almost like you had this sense of "We are all in this together".
Before that, I wasn't a supporter of mayor Guliani, I really didn't care for him, and Bloomberg I'm definitely not a supporter of.
KD: ((laughs)) I was just about to ask...
AV: Y'know, looking back, seeing the situation that we're in now I think that Guliani was a pretty good mayor.
KD: What do you feel about the possibility of war in Iraq?
AV: Um... y'know, it's hard to talk about those things in an interview...
KD: We can skip that one if you want.
AV: No no no, it's fine. It's one of those things it's hard not to talk to your friends about, I have a brother-in-law who's a pilot...
KD: Air Force pilot?
AV: Yeah, and I was talking to him about it, and I really, really sympathize with the people who are having to go over there. I'm in support of a lot of people protesting. I don't think it's right, [war in Iraq] doesn't make must sense to be completely honest, but I don't think we have much of a choice anymore, y'know what I mean? Regardless of what anybody does, it seems like the government is hell-bent on doing this. So... I don't think there's much else we can do but support the troops who are going over there. I don't think they have much of a choice. I really hope that it doesn't happen, if there were other means of getting rid of Saddam I wish they would really consider them. If anything I think North Korea's a lot more ((inaudible)) If think that if we get involved in Iraq, and we end up there longer than say, two months, North Korea's gonna see that as an opportunity. They're gonna say "Hey, why don't you pick on somebody your own size?"
KD: Are you happy with the level of popularity Calla has achieved at this point?
AV: Yeah, I wanna say that I definitely feel like this is a big transition for us. We definitely feel like there's a new chapter opening up. Everything that we've been waiting for, not to be overly dramatic, but everything we've dreamed, is basically happening.
To have that support, from like, a lot of the magazines, especially in the U.K.
KD: Yeah, they seem to be more attuned to what's going on in the U.S. than the American magazines.
AV: Yeah, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we do have a lot of influences that come from. When we read reviews that come from America they sit there and try to compare you to like Nine Inch Nails and Yo La Tengo, y'know, "Come'on what're you doing?" But when we start reading your English reviews they're sitting there saying Echo & the Bunnymen, early Cure, and some early Verve, and I'm like "Oh ok, they got it." At the same time they're saying Massive Attack and Tricky and Portishead.
KD: What does success mean to you -- at what point would you sit back and say "We're a success"?
AV: Right now, I think that we're very happy with the... I guess... notoriety? I guess finally being in that spotlight, and I think that we're very happy with that position. But as far as us being completely satisfied and not struggling anymore, not even, it's not true. We're still trying to figure out ways to pay our rent, we're still sitting here really trying to figure out ways to make ends meet. It's too early in the game to say whether we'll be in a comfortable position at the end of the year, y'know, all we know right now is we need to work the shit out of this -- more than we ever have. I think success comes in different patterns and sections, the fact that we're getting this kind of attention right now I would consider a huge success, but as far as us living comfortably, it tends to be an issue. But y'know at the end of the year, or say two years from now, if we can just record music all day and tour, and be able to live comfortably and pay rent I think that would be considered success. It really depends what you had in mind.
KD: So MTV Cribs isn't knocking at your door?
AV: ((laughs)) Oh Jesus Christ no, God forbid.
The videos for "Televise" and "Strangler", as well as MP3s, can be found here.
For more information on Calla go to Callamusic.com.
Aurelio and drummer Wayne Magruder moved to New York from Texas in 1997 with their band the Factory Press. After the demise of that band, Valle and Magruder recruited their friend and former collaborator, bassist/keyboardist Sean Donovan, to join them in New York. The three formed Calla, and have released three albums together: 1999's Calla, 2001's Scavengers, and their latest, 2003's Televise.
I spoke with Aurelio recently by phone:
Keith Daniels: How's the tour going?
Aurelio Valle: So far it's going really well, we've basically covered most of the states. Went to the west coast last time, and the reaction was really good.
KD: The sound on Televise is a bit warmer than on your previous records, was that a conscious decision?
AV: I think every record reflects how we grow as a band live. Basically with every record we grow as a live band, and we try to capture what we're doing live with every record. So with a lot of the songs we were writing and trying out, they were basically more beat-heavy, aggressive, and we're more developed, more focused... our songwriting is definitely developing. It definitely was a conscious effort to make it, y'know, better than the last, but some people might not think that. ((laughs))
KD: Does that come from trial-and-error, when you play for an audience and their response, do you try to shape to get a better response? Or is it just to satisfy the members of the band?
AV: I think it's probably a little bit of everything, y'know? Some of the songs, not all of them, we try performing them live, different versions. We try out different things to see how they go over. Sometimes, y'know, it's not necessarily how the crowd reacts but how we feel writing it. We feel like if it's not together, it doesn't feel right or it doesn't sound right, or other songs we basically work on them at home or in the studio and just kindof build upon certain ideas. We'll start out with a very stripped down solid idea that we just start building upon and adding to.
KD: How does the songwriting process work in Calla?
AV: Most of the songs usually start out with a very simple acoustic demo. Basically I write a very simple verse, chorus, break, whatever, and we start passing it around, to where everybody starts adding their own ideas to it, building upon it. We'll get together and start performing it, deciding where we can take it and what we can do with it, and start cutting and pasti... redoing it. Sometimes a song will be completely different by the time we're finished with it. Sometimes it'll start out with a beat and I'll write something on top of it, or it'll start out with a bass line and we'll start building upon that. It's different every time really, but whatever works.
KD: What did you guys have to do to get by when you first got to New York?
AV: Wow. Well it was hard at first, when we first moved here, we basically lived on 13th street in Manhattan in a one-bedroom apartment. The four of us lived basically lived in lofts on top of each other, and we worked every job we could possibly work, like coffee shops and just random PA jobs: where you're running around picking shit up for people. Just like every job you can imagine. The four of us living together, it was a weird transition between being in Texas and living in your own bedroom in a house with relatively cheap rent and coming to New York and having to adapt to the living situation here. It was hard, we had to do that for about a year, and eventually I moved out to Brooklyn, and Wayne moved out, and the shit kindof hit the fan in a weird way. We kindof had to get a new game plan together, and that's when I started singing and Wayne and I got Sean into the picture. Sean was kindof like always the fifth member of the band, he was living in Texas at the time. It was difficult, but when we reformed as Calla in 1997 or so, we basically had to come up with a new concept of what we were gonna do, and the music we wanted to do, and just kindof experiment more.
KD: Why did you feel New York would be better for you than Texas?
AV: The kind of music we were playing. We were doing ok in Texas, but we were living in Dallas and the music scene was kindof stale. It wasn't exciting for us, the kindof stuff we were doing wasn't falling into place anywhere. The music that we did then was definitely more aggressive than what we do now, a lot more like Joy Division, Nick Cave y'know, very dark. And that wasn't what was going on out there.
KD: I know you've played with Nick Cave now, was it exciting to meet him?
AV: Yeah, well, it was definitely strange, for some reason I knew we would get that chance. He was such an influence, and living in Texas, we were all into Gun Club, Birthday Party, the Cramps, all these bands that were somehow, someway affiliated with Nick, and we wanted to move to New York, because we felt that it would be a challenge and we felt like what we were doing would fit in better. Of course we were wrong ((laughs)) ...the challenge was definitely there, but as far as our music fitting in, it didn't.
KD: Do you still feel that way?
AV: I think that now it doesn't matter. Then we kindof didn't know what we were doing, we didn't know anyone, we were playing this music that didn't have anything to do with garage music, which was what was going on then..
KD: ..even back in 97?
AV: Yeah, bands like Speedball Baby, John Spencer Blues Explosion, Jonathan Fire*Eater, they were all playing garage music. I mean, everybody's still playing garage music now, and we're doing something that doesn't deal with that, but it's taken us this long to build up that reputation... whatever you wanna call it... to kindof make a name for yourself. It's been a long time. When we first moved to New York we went and saw Kid Congo Powers and at the time we didn't know anybody, and we spoke to him after the show and asked him "Would you be interested in producing our next record?" for our old band. He called us from LA and said he was moving to New York and he would love to do it, and it was amazing for us, 23/24 years old and that was amazing because it was like we were a valid band. So we did the record and it took over a year for the record to come out, and by that time everything just kindof fell apart. But y'know, you live and learn, trial and error. You live in New York, meet people, and we slowly started meeting everybody, and from meeting Kid was where we started meeting everybody that played in the Bad Seeds, like Jim Sclavunos, Mick Harvey, everybody whenever they'd come through town we would meet them. Like what I was saying before, where I felt like eventually we'd meet Nick Cave, we'd met everybody else, and when the Bad Seeds were coming through, basically they invited us to play with them, so I met Nick Cave. He was really cool, and so down to earth, y'know, you're intimidated at first but he was just a completely honest person.
KD: Do you think there are still some elements of Texas in your music?
AV: Yeah, I would say so, and it's not necessarily that it's a conscious effort to do that. I think that when we get reviews for whatever record we do, there's always a mention of that. They always say it sounds like something...
KD: ...the desert...
AV: Yeah. The desert or out... wherever... When we were living in Texas growing up you're basically surrounded by this music, where you can't avoid listening to country music and the blues, and anything southern. That was definitely a huge influence for me, being a guitarist, listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan, ((inaudible)), that sound, it's very intriguing y'know. The older you get the more your tastes evolve and you start looking into other things, and I don't know, we developed this sound, and coming to New York, with Calla, we started experimenting more, and listening to hip hop and more urban-type music, and trying to incorporate samples and stuff. The way I play is always in that vein, whatever I do, regardless of whether I try something new or not, something will always have that very southern type of charm and feel to it. It comes off in the music, it definitely does, but it's never like a conscious thing.
KD: What inspired the name Calla?
AV: We liked it because it has several meanings. First of all it looks good written down, it's simple, there's nothing to it y'know. Basically it was in reference to a photograph of a calla lily, and then also in Spanish it means "silence". And we found out that in Roman slang it meant "rip-off". So it had a lot of meanings in it, and it's short and simple, and it looks good, and it... ((inaudible))
KD: Have you begun working on your next album?
AV: We're always working on ideas, y'know? Wayne is always doing some kindof ..((inaudible)) .. I'm always writing songs, constantly writing, I get bits and pieces, sometimes I'll have a few chords, or sometimes just a hook, and I'll record lots of things, and then when it comes time to do a record, if things go the way I would like them to go we'll probably start recording in the fall. When that time comes we'll start sifting back through everything we've recorded and really start picking and choosing and narrowing everything down and really concentrating on putting songs together. We love recording.
KD: Do you enjoy listening to your previous albums?
AV: Y'know, it's kindof random, like right now I can't listen to Televise, because we play so many of the songs live, y'know, it's so fresh in your mind... what it sounds like.. It's hard to listen to the album, whereas if I hear, say, one of the songs off the album, it's a little more ((inaudible)) I like hearing what other people think of it, because I have a very demanding perception of it right now. But when I get away from the record for a while, like the first record for example or say Scavengers.. like the other day I was listening to "Love of Ivah"-- I just happened to find a live version that we have of it -- and I was listening to it, and I thought it sounded fucking great. I hadn't listened to it in a while, so it takes getting away from a record for a little while to be able to come back and appreciate it.
KD: What was it that made you decide that you wanted to be a professional musician?
AV: Well, I grew up in south Texas, and I was listening to bands early on, everything from like Suicidal Tendencies to New Order, this was in like the mid-80's, and living in such a small town where you needed to drive an hour and a half to go to a decent record store and you needed to drive four hours to go to a show, there was nothing there, and that music led me to believe that there's a lot more out there. It's just one of those things... that drive that you have that you've just got to get out of that fucking town somehow.
KD: ..the music was a window to the wider world outside..
AV: Yeah, and listening to all these bands was very inspiring, like I was saying, listening to Suicidal Tendencies, listening to that band for the first time kindof made me realize that anybody can do it. Not because it was bad but because it was so raw, and so... like nothing I had heard before. I started discovering bands like the Jesus & Mary Chain and the Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen, all these bands and it was like... shit y'know? I want to do this, and as soon as I got out of high school I was out of there. I moved up to Dallas with the guy who's playing second guitar with us now, who moved with us to New York, I've been playing with him since high school. He was actually in the band we moved up here with, and he's come back up to New York and he's playing second guitar so it's kindof like everybody from where we started is together.
KD: What's in your stereo nowadays?
AV: Well, let's see... what have I been listening to? "Nashville Skyline"...
KD: Dylan?
AV: Yeah... Van Morison's "Astral Weeks"... and ((inaudible))
KD: Did you hear the Stone Roses are getting back together?
AV: Y'know, I did hear that. I don't really know what to think about it, I mean, y'know...
KD: "Second Coming" wasn't all that...
AV: ((laughs)) Yeah, it was a huge disappointment. After hearing Johnny Marr's attempt at a solo record, I was like... wow... if the Smiths were to get back together, geez I don't know, y'know, or at least Morrisey and Marr, if they were to doing anything again I don't know how good it would be. So, y'know, the Stone Roses never really being able to follow up that debut record, I would imagine it would be really hard to follow something like that, but especially years and years afterward when they've all been doing their own thing.
KD: Were you in New York City on September the 11th?
AV: Yeah... yeah. That, if anything, made me realize a lot more... For two months after that happened I couldn't touch my guitar. I was completely, me and a lot of people actually, a lot of friends, were just kindof... lost. We really weren't sure what the hell we were doing, it didn't seem to be that important. A lot of things really inspired me, made me feel like, y'know, we need to try ten times harder than we ever have. So eventually when I did start writing songs, it was definitely very very inspiring and... the fact that a lot of people when that happened were moving away from New York and the things that they came here to do -- they basically gave up and left. What had happened... watching it on TV... day after day ten times a day... it was grinding, y'know? I'm sure that everybody was effected the same way, it kindof kicked everybody into gear if you ask me. Shortly after that, seems like bands started springing up everywhere in New York, cuz before that there were really good bands, the Strokes were just coming up, there were a lot of bands getting attention and stuff, but once that happened it was like.. Shit... I don't know if everybody drew their attention to New York, or if to everybody it just became an inspiration. I think that maybe it was a combination of everything.
KD: Music does seem to get better when things are bad in the world.
AV: Yeah... I always read that, but I had just never had something that traumatic happen, in my lifetime growing up. It's definitely important, a lot of great art does seem to respond to tragedy.
KD: Before those events Mayor Guliani was fairly unpopular, but afterwards he was viewed as a hero. Do you think he deserved that distinction?
AV: I think the fact that he kept his composure, and really stepped up, and really took charge when everybody was sitting there glued to their television, almost in a panic, not knowing what the fuck was going on. The first hour that that happened, we felt like.. Basically the country was under attack, after the Pentagon got hit, so it was like "So what now? What the fuck now?" And, y'know, shortly after that, the only person you could really sit there and listen to was the mayor. I think that he really did take charge and put a lot of people at ease, calmed everybody down, when that should've been the job of the President. I think the President did go on and do that, but I was never a Bush supporter so y'know, but the mayor... it's hard to explain... did you feel that way?
KD: About Guliani?
AV: Yeah. I don't know if it was just a New York thing, just the people in New York, or if it really was everybody around the country.
KD: I felt it, I mean, every time he would get up and talk it was... rapt attention, and what he had to say was very important, more important than Bush, because it felt unscripted.
AV: Yeah, exactly, it was almost like you had this sense of "We are all in this together".
Before that, I wasn't a supporter of mayor Guliani, I really didn't care for him, and Bloomberg I'm definitely not a supporter of.
KD: ((laughs)) I was just about to ask...
AV: Y'know, looking back, seeing the situation that we're in now I think that Guliani was a pretty good mayor.
KD: What do you feel about the possibility of war in Iraq?
AV: Um... y'know, it's hard to talk about those things in an interview...
KD: We can skip that one if you want.
AV: No no no, it's fine. It's one of those things it's hard not to talk to your friends about, I have a brother-in-law who's a pilot...
KD: Air Force pilot?
AV: Yeah, and I was talking to him about it, and I really, really sympathize with the people who are having to go over there. I'm in support of a lot of people protesting. I don't think it's right, [war in Iraq] doesn't make must sense to be completely honest, but I don't think we have much of a choice anymore, y'know what I mean? Regardless of what anybody does, it seems like the government is hell-bent on doing this. So... I don't think there's much else we can do but support the troops who are going over there. I don't think they have much of a choice. I really hope that it doesn't happen, if there were other means of getting rid of Saddam I wish they would really consider them. If anything I think North Korea's a lot more ((inaudible)) If think that if we get involved in Iraq, and we end up there longer than say, two months, North Korea's gonna see that as an opportunity. They're gonna say "Hey, why don't you pick on somebody your own size?"
KD: Are you happy with the level of popularity Calla has achieved at this point?
AV: Yeah, I wanna say that I definitely feel like this is a big transition for us. We definitely feel like there's a new chapter opening up. Everything that we've been waiting for, not to be overly dramatic, but everything we've dreamed, is basically happening.
To have that support, from like, a lot of the magazines, especially in the U.K.
KD: Yeah, they seem to be more attuned to what's going on in the U.S. than the American magazines.
AV: Yeah, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we do have a lot of influences that come from. When we read reviews that come from America they sit there and try to compare you to like Nine Inch Nails and Yo La Tengo, y'know, "Come'on what're you doing?" But when we start reading your English reviews they're sitting there saying Echo & the Bunnymen, early Cure, and some early Verve, and I'm like "Oh ok, they got it." At the same time they're saying Massive Attack and Tricky and Portishead.
KD: What does success mean to you -- at what point would you sit back and say "We're a success"?
AV: Right now, I think that we're very happy with the... I guess... notoriety? I guess finally being in that spotlight, and I think that we're very happy with that position. But as far as us being completely satisfied and not struggling anymore, not even, it's not true. We're still trying to figure out ways to pay our rent, we're still sitting here really trying to figure out ways to make ends meet. It's too early in the game to say whether we'll be in a comfortable position at the end of the year, y'know, all we know right now is we need to work the shit out of this -- more than we ever have. I think success comes in different patterns and sections, the fact that we're getting this kind of attention right now I would consider a huge success, but as far as us living comfortably, it tends to be an issue. But y'know at the end of the year, or say two years from now, if we can just record music all day and tour, and be able to live comfortably and pay rent I think that would be considered success. It really depends what you had in mind.
KD: So MTV Cribs isn't knocking at your door?
AV: ((laughs)) Oh Jesus Christ no, God forbid.
The videos for "Televise" and "Strangler", as well as MP3s, can be found here.
For more information on Calla go to Callamusic.com.
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
unstuckman1 said:
Sorry folks, but I beg to differ. I saw them opening up for Interpol here in Richmond VA a few months back and was nearly bored to tears. They weren't bad, but neither were they good. Uninteresting, in my opinion.
Feel free to like what you like...
Everybody has their off nights I guess, and I've never seen them live, but the fact that people like Interpol and Nick Cave choose them for their tours says something, to me, anyway.