Essential 8: Vaud and the Villains

Courtesy of the Artist

Bringing face-meltin', heart-thumpin', rock 'n rollin', light emittin' music to the masses, Vaud and the Villains are a 10 to 16 person orchestra-cabaret outfit that play with a dynamite energy and utter joy. On May 18th, the collective will release their new album, Bigger Than It Looks, a fifteen-song project that captures their individuality and versatility on rollicking country flaired tunes ("Ain't That Bad"), sultry jazzy ballads ("A Good Man Bad") and jaunty ragtime tunes ("Out of My Mind") that will make you want to cut a rug. 
In advance of its release, frontman Andy Comeau answers his Essential 8 and talks about the new album, loving the adventure, Red Rocks, and more!

With any particular song, was there an “a-ha” moment when you knew the song was completed and perfect? 
Not exactly, but the song on the record, "This Time"…was sort of long in the forming.  When you hear musicians talk about sitting down and songs just tumbling out of their noggin’ fully formed…it was like the polar opposite of that.  It was more like trying to get out of one of those elaborate old English estate garden mazes.  I just kept going down these promising looking but ultimately fruitless paths.  I would walk the dogs and hum parts into my phone so I wouldn’t forget it.  I did four or five demos of it and by the time I showed it to the band, I was called it This Damn Song. Such a simple song…shouldn’t have been that hard!!!
 
Is there a story behind your album’s title, Bigger Than It Looks?
The meaning is probably a bit of this and a bit of that.  Initially when my wife and I were batting around ideas, we both liked the duality suggested by it.  It could be a warning or a sales pitch.  It could be a seduction or a turn off.  And it just sort of stuck and then other interpretations evolved…the memory of this “ah ha” moment we had a few years into it all when we realized that there is a richer component to it all; to the life choice of making art.  In our case, the personal journeys, the relationships with each other in the band, as well as with our fans.  Music can be so powerful and uniting in a very subtle way.  And a part of it is this ever present shock at how many people we are on a sometimes very small stage.  And the metaphor of that…how connected people really are to each other.     

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How do you kill the long hours in the van? 
Podcasts…I guess this answer will date this interview, but last tour, we were all at different episodes of S-Town.  Every gas station stop became about recapping where you were with people in these little groups  that would run off down the candy aisle so you wouldn’t ruin it for the people who were an episode behind.
 
What do you love most about being on the road?  
We’re gypsies at heart…so the driving, the cheap motels, the late nights, the shenanigans…that is all fire that burns long after you have to come back home.  And hopefully one that burns until you get to go out again and do it all over.  The thing I love about it is the entire adventure.  Not just the getting to and playing of the show, but the people you meet along the way, the places you go and probably would have never gone.  If you can make a living traveling around entertaining people, that’s hard to beat.
 
What has been your biggest struggle so far?
Getting out on the road enough.  Our band is so large, its pretty expensive  for us to be out there.  We have to go for short little runs. The great thing about being out playing every night is you get real tight.  But anything less than a week or 10 days, it can be a real drag because you are just hitting a groove when you got to come home.  

What has been your biggest success?  
I guess on paper, they would be playing the Cannes Film Festival or the Hollywood Bowl (with the Simpsons tv series cast and lots of others).  But on a personal level, we’ve played shows to big blue collar crowds back East who had never heard of us and to win those folks over, and to have them up on there feet at the end, those nights always burn into my brain like a brand.    

What’s your dream venue and why?  
I know we would love to play Red Rocks Amphitheatre someday. Something about that place is amazing.  We started playing in an open air venue on a hay floor for a circus in downtown LA one entire summer. Red Rocks would be like the higher class but still throw down version of that incredible time.  

Have you met any of your heroes? If so, how did it go?   
He wasn’t exactly a hero, but I did a movie with Joe Pesci once. I always loved his work and was thrilled to get to be in a movie with him. He was always a gentleman to me and was real nice to my folks. I mainly avoid my heroes though.  They’re just darn people after all and I want to remain inspired by their art or words or whatever it was that connected with me and made me feel alive and not alone.  Its like trying to talk about a song, or trying to explain an emotion you get from reading a novel…you can use language and try to explain but some things are intangible…intangible but unmistakable.       

Is there a recent release you cannot stop listening to? 
Yeah, I just went to see Low Cut Connie at the Troubadour and I’ve been really into them.

Is there a professional “bucket list” item you would love to check off?
We would love to go play shows Europe…with a circus!  

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