If you do a good job of Tom Sawyering somebody they think they have Tom Sawyering themselves as a loochie for your manipulation of your close friend. Yeah. Hello and welcome to WNC original music episode 138 the Tullosa episode. Very happy to have on the podcast this week the Asheville based duo Ant Vicki.
And I'm just now realizing I forgot to ask him if it's Ant or Ant. I think it's Ant. I think they kept saying Ant. We'll see as the show goes on.
Maybe they'll mention the name of their band who knows who is Ant Vicki. I hear you saying they are a guitar driven ethereal folk duo with elements of retro rock old country and grunge. That sounds just like I didn't read it didn't Aaron and Lee met at Northern Michigan University where Aaron was studying sculpture and art and Lee was studying music theory and performance. They performed throughout Michigan New Orleans, Detroit, New York, Portland, Maine and many other also want to mention there's going to be two parts of this episode in a little different way.
The first part is going to be Aunt Vicki music and then Lee Dyer the Lee and Aunt Vicki is actually also a music producer and we're going to have a part two with selections from songs that he has produced. So that's going to be a lot of fun. But this episode is all about Ant Vicki and here they are right now. Ant Vicki living in a camper in New Orleans.
I typically write lyrics and vocals first and I kind of like get a melody in my head and vocals come come naturally up kind of home of melody and then write a song based off of that. This is one of those songs where I actually wrote the guitar part like kind of like the main riff of the guitar and it was I was just fiddling around in the camper where we were living and I kind of wrote a poem around it. And if I can remember correctly, I'd sort of been writing this poem already. It was like it was in like a notebook of mine and I wrote this riff and I was like, you know, I think that I could pair these two together, which I don't do that very often.
So it was an interesting exercise in me having a poem that I wanted to put to music and then finding this interesting music and then kind of merging them and seeing how that would go. And I kind of just thought of it as a love poem turned into a song. It was kind of about accepting where you are and being thankful for what you have and kind of manifesting what you want. And what is Bergamot?
Bergamot is actually it's a citrus but it's like a smell. So I was burning a lot of it on my little oil burner and I was using that scent a lot in my house and I'm kind of a ritualistic person who I like smell is really important for me for like ritual. As you can tell because the sage was just... For example, I just burned sage before this.
I just like to have like markers to help me get into the right like a head space, you know, like smell or sound and I was using Bergamot a lot in our little space. Like a cleansing thing or like a calming thing and I think there's like a line about it. I had something to do with putting it on my pillow and I was kind of incorporating that into being where I am, like angry me in the moment and being happy where I am and realizing what I have. And that sort of felt that came together.
You messed up my joke because for some reason I thought it was someone's name or a place and I wasn't gonna say it sounds delicious but I guess it actually sort of does sound delicious. It's sort of a thing. I've never even... Yeah, at least far as I'm like it's like a base note and a lot of like, you know, like, I don't know, wails and stuff like that.
I had never heard of it before so I thought it was a place as well. One thing I noticed about this is it has not like a, not like a, you know, definitely not a heavy metal. vibe but kind of a, you know, a lot of kind of hard instrumentation in the beginning. And then when your voice comes in, like it was a little bit unexpected because it was very smooth and it was a lot of contrast there.
So I'm curious when it was that from the beginning? It sounds like you might have like written it on the acoustic guitar or something and then the... And we're done on acoustic guitar. Yeah.
So he like, so the thing is I'm like a very, very basic musician. Like I like, I like to write songs and I love the sing and I can play guitar all right. You know, and like I use it as a tool for writing and I actually use it for performing too. But like I'm not super music.
I don't come from a background of music going into writing. I come from like an artist who's trying to write and then uses, like uses it in his train as a tool. So I wrote that song very simply just the main riff and then singing that kind of poem. And then it usually gets to its sounding like a song phase once Lee.
Like some of them stand alone on their own. Like some are just like okay songs on their own. But some of them like require Lee to hop in and do his thing with the music. Because she's not classically trained and doesn't have a lot of music theory in her brain.
She plays things that I wouldn't play. And so then I get to apply it to every I get to have fun with it. I get to put myself on that. Yeah, he's lashing up.
So if it sounded metal or rock at all, like it's probably his contribution to it. I'm not metal with art. No, but I guess I sort of write sometimes like like the tone. It's like a darker tone to some of the stuff that I write and that you know probably you're picking up on that and I'm like instrumenting that.
So all of these were recorded in your home. Is that right? So the first the first album, which is going to be the more pared down of the two songs. The one that doesn't have band sound is going to be mostly recorded in our camper in the Orleans or in our practice from New Orleans, which was full of death metal bands.
Yeah, we wrapped bands in metal bands. So like maybe that's part of the band. We rented a space at the fountain blue, which was like a shitty old hotel turned into a music space. And it was awesome.
It was awesome. It was such a gravel, but like every we could make noise anytime a day or night and it was mostly battle bands and rappers on our floor. We were trying to record like a kind of folk. We were literally walking down the stairs and there was a puddle of this and we had to step over the puddle of this to get downstairs.
But it was awesome. Like it could be like you could just be loud at all hours a day. So yeah, that was recorded and either in the camper wore in that space. During TU, if you like isolated an acoustic track off that album, you could zoom in and like hear someone screaming in the background.
So let's out is our is one of those our first single on our new album called Love in the Dark is about recording in places like Pumbler. It's about recording in our apartment. We're in our house now. We're running a house and it's awesome because it's standalone and we can make as much noise as we want.
And so far no one's really complained. But we lived in the apartment where literally every floor while ceiling was shared with a neighbor in the same building. And so even if I had a drum set at the time, I couldn't I couldn't ever play it without really business or enough. But even just singing felt really awkward.
And so it was basically the whole idea of the song was like, I better get this done before it's time to go to bed. So or before like curfew, like there was no real and post-curvy, but there's like, you can hear your neighbors start coming home. You know, it's way more and more awkward and you're like, oh my god, you know what I'm saying? Like it feels like it closes in on you like that hour when like it's not free anymore and there's people coming home.
And like how in Vumbler where you could hear metal bands on the back on here, you can hear the neighbor listen to VB. You could hear the bear rummaging in the trash outside. You could hear a dog barking or the car is bending. Birds even.
We had to stop tracks for birds like. Why would you stop tracks for birds? You just put the birds in there. Yeah, no, actually you can't have birds on every track though, but then you got like 150 birds, you know.
We're cool with ambient noise, like noise is within reason. We're cool, but with home recording, if you it's fine with one, but when you have 20 tracks of ambient noise, it starts to add up and it's just like the home recording. So yeah, that was kind of the songs about the frustrations in the awkwardness of home recording and also about like just kind of running out of time in general. Yeah, we were both also just like he was working at the post office.
He was a male carrier and we were both just like so busy all the time. And so it's also about finding the time like only around time of feeling like defensive of like wanting to create and not having the time to do it. And I don't know if you said you might say but you wrote this together? He wrote this song.
Yeah, I wrote. We so we liked we like the idea of writing songs together. We've only done a few of them where we've actually co-written the songs. Most of the time one of us will write the majority of the song and the other one will help with the instrumentation or the singing.
It's tricky when we're trying to share the song. I think we're both a little selfish when it comes. It's a little harder. We haven't found our perfect like meet in the middle.
There is one song actually I think that we'll be talking about at some point. That was the closest thing we've ever done over in the middle song. But for the most part he will write something and I'll write harmonies to it and add in that way or I'll write something and he has to do music. We write very different styles of songs.
So it's it's almost like I don't want to step on her feet when she's writing the song. She doesn't want to step on my feet when we compliment each other where we can but we don't want to get in each other's way either. Do you write music around? Yeah.
Yeah. I'm actually recording a working on a very long range project where I've got a bunch of songs. I've ever recorded a few songs with different bands. I've taken some of my songs about 20 of them but I've been over the years and I'm starting to do a hard recording and having people that have been on the podcast through the vocals.
Oh cool. You're not into the singing part. No I mean I can you know I can sing a little bit. I'll do like backing vocals here and there.
So I don't really know what that's going on. I don't think anyone does man. I think that's a problem for everyone. Taking your voices real.
You got a good voice that sounds natural. Like it's not. What's that? You got a voice.
Your voice sounds natural sounds like a good singing voice. Oh thank you. It's got a lot better. If you go back and listen to all that.
I don't even like people listen first you up because I'm like. Literally 20 minutes ago she's like how do I make it sound like I'm not like I'm not me. I was just like how do I not have to hear my own record. How do I not have my record voice on awful.
I sound like a fan. I speak. Yeah I really really took a lot of getting used to like believing that's what you're voicing. And I've noticed that like I'm recording like if you guys know I'm sorry but when you when you record your vocal if you why you're recording if you try to adjust everything adjust all the EQ until it becomes what your voice sounds like real to you.
You know you have to put like more bass and stuff on it because your voice sounds different. Yeah it was very strong. Then it becomes more comfortable to sing sometimes because you think oh yeah that's what I really sound like. And then you just have to record it you wipe that out.
And then you say okay here's what everybody else who makes it sound good. I actually know that. I wonder if that's more of like a talking kind of thing like I've never heard of doing that with vocals but I think it would help in singing if I wasn't always here because when you're listening really intently to what you're sounding like through your microphone it's really kind of mind. Yeah that's where I learned it like recording music and then I applied it to the podcast.
Yeah that's what they'll change the voice so much that it just doesn't matter if it's not even thinking about it because it sounds like you know it sounds like you put a phase in or something like that. So you're like oh this isn't even trying this is so processed it doesn't sound like I'm worried about it and then it just takes you out of thinking about it and then after you get recorded you just take all those effects off and start over and kind of build it back up to what sounds right. That is very interesting. I don't know we just learn something.
That's cool. Great but that's used. Yeah. Also double tracking.
When I first like real thought these guys do what I mean is like really got to do is the Beatles going to do as well and you know they double track almost all their vocals and when I heard people not do that I was like why don't you not go track your vocals. Yeah the Beatles is by far my favorite band but also like double tracking works with them because their their voices are amazing right so it doesn't always work. More from Aunt Vicki in just a few moments. I want to let you know that you can find them at aunt Vicki dot rocks that is an awesome website I want a dot rocks website.
Also search Aunt Vicki on Spotify and iTunes, Bandcamp, wherever you get your music for their existing material and upcoming material. Some of which of both you're hearing on this podcast. Also check the show notes for their social media pages so you can know when they're playing live and have other events and also when their new music is coming up. Hey this is Danny from the collect pond.
I wanted to let you know that my new single Man of Mystique is out now so check it out streaming everywhere. I work really hard writing, recording, mixing, mastering it so I hope you dig it. Learn more about the collect pond, add the collect pond, Instagram and Facebook so follow me there. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast where ever you get your podcast just search WNC original music or just go to wncoriginalmusic.com or check the show notes for links, convenient links to the podcast on all the major platforms.
Clarifications and corrections from last week's episode with Crave Amico. Esperanto is a universal language that is made to unite everyone. You would learn your home country's language and Esperanto. That way everybody would be united by that one common language.
It was a failure and then Esperanza is a car in the video game Rage Racer. So we were both right. Hey guys this is Rob Walsh from Crave Amico and thank you for listening to us on WNC original music. Did you guys have any musical impressions that you do?
Oh hell no. Oh no. Impressions? I tried.
I tried some. Oh hello. How do you think on that? Who can I do?
I think I used to do Mariah Careyale I want the Christmas back in the day but that's about I don't know. I'm not going to do that right now. This is a day. It might not be the day but it's like a day.
I don't think this is the day for it. I had a weird experience and then I kind of wrote a song about it. I had like a sound healing reiki experience. It sounds really woo-woo and it kind of is but my friends had this like crazy sound table where like it hooks in the table like vibrates with the frequency of the music which is the frequency of like your heart B which is like and she did this whole thing and I was like in this kind of meditation space on this table and I started going into this like feeling like I was inside of myself and inside of myself was this cave and there was just like energy flowing through it and it was this felt like clinging on inside of myself and inside of a cave was how I was visualizing it.
It was really weird and then it kind of gave me this whole idea for song that I'm a very typically very like need to be in control of everything person and control of myself person and that sort of that song and it talking about letting go and kind of like letting yourself you know realizing that you can't control everything and that there's more to things than what they appear and that's kind of what that song became. It was similar. It started as like a really simple kind of meditative thing very focused on the melody and lyrics first which is how I do most everything when I write and then Lee is the one that made that one musical like at all. Lee comes in there and adds all this beautiful like picking guitar over top and then like adds all the other instrumentation.
It's not like a jazz trumpet to it. Oh my gosh that is one of my favorite parts about it is when he plays trumpet on that. He uses the Harman Nute and just has this like really pretty kind of like haunting you know trumpet. What else instruments do you guys play?
I play mediocre guitar and I sing and he plays like everything so. Mostly piano, drums, guitar, bass and trumpet and I sing but if I can get a hold of some other stuff I'll try and play that too. I love that a cello but man I just cannot afford one yet. You get a little student cello for like $250.
What? Yeah. On wish.com. I guess I can afford one then.
I wish. He can play anything and he makes it look easy. It's not even fair but it like benefits me because he does that on my music so I can't complain. I'd like to have a guitar brand called mediocre guitar.
I think that would sell. Yeah I'm your girl. I'm the face of that. I'm the face of that brand.
Let me play that guitar and meet in a mediocre way and sell it. Because that would be like a I mean the commercial rights itself. Here's I'm playing mediocre guitar on my mediocre guitar. Yeah that kind of thing.
Advertising more than the quality of the guitars. A couple years ago the brand would have been very bad guitar. Right. I'm playing very bad guitar on a very bad guitar.
I'm generation X. I think generation X would kind of embrace that kind of thing. Like yeah it's like okay guitars. All right.
I know some amazing guitars that play on mediocre guitars. Yeah it's where my I'm coming out on October 8th as a single with a video. That's my birthday. Thanks guys.
For you. We did it for you. All right so tell me about visual. It's about me and my birthday but other than that.
Yeah it's about your birthday. First of all. The signs that your Virgo. No that's next month.
But are you a Virgo? Libra. Libra. Oh yeah favorite people.
Some of our favorite people are Libras. I'm not just saying that. That's actually for you. I assume any time somebody does it I assume at least one out of twelve of your favorite people are Libras.
Yeah yeah yeah. That's a Libra way. Okay so no visual is a song we were talking about earlier that is the closest thing we've ever done to like a straight songwriting collaboration. I started the song.
I wrote it originally for my brother who was having a very hard time and I lived far away and he's back in Michigan and just kind of the whole theme of caring about somebody who's having a hard time but not being able to fix a problem for them. You know you can care and you can try to send like you can give advice. You can send your wishes and prayers towards someone but like ultimately they're on their own journey and so for me it was sort of like a meditative like release of I can't live someone else's life for them. I can love them and I can want the best of them but I have to live my own life and it's sort of like being on my own we're all on our own path.
We can love other people and we can care about other people who are on their path. They're paths but like we can't we can't change a person's life. We can't make something better for them. We can't fix something for someone else.
And so I wrote the first and last verse in the chorus of that song in the melody and the guitar part for that but I was like stuck and I was like shoot I like I have like three quarters of a song but I just I don't I don't have anything else to say around but I said what I need to say and I don't want to like put something redundant in there and Lee went to work with the song in his head and it just so happens that he has three brothers and he is very much in same thing. We just love our family and we're very close to all of our family and I guess I can defer to you on this but he came home with a verse in his head and it was very personal for his own brother but it fit completely fanatically with the song. So it almost feels like a joint and I mean now we're married and so like his brother's my brother and my brother's his brother and we you know we care about equally about all these people so it felt like a very natural. Yeah it wasn't it wasn't intentional like we sat down and put our heads together and tried to write a song I was scrubbing the grill at Labo Cafe where I worked in the Orleans and the melody was circling in my head and I was like oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no and then I had a verse and so.
And so he came home and it's and so the way we recorded that song like I sing all the verses I wrote and he sings that second verse and it's really cool it brings a different energy to it I don't know we don't do that a lot where we switch off verses and stuff like that as a gimmick or whatever it just works really well with that song and as far as we're releasing that on October 8th with a video that we filmed in Asheville and I don't know if you know Laura Boswell. She's been on the podcast yeah. Yeah okay great she's awesome and she's gotten recently. I guess you don't listen to the podcast you would have known that.
We've been listening. We've been listening we've been listening to all your recent episodes though. Have you ever listened to the episode 3 because you told us not to listen to that. Oh yeah.
No so Laura's recently gotten into video and she has she's done the video for this and I'm really excited about how that turned out with the content like the way that we decided to film it. We did it in a you know those prayer mazes like those labyrinths like those stone labyrinths so we use one of those kind of dressed in all black sort of sort of funerary it definitely is song about letting go so it had a little bit of that element to it. It's a little goth. It's a little goth but we're all walking through this you know with candles and stage and she's got she has one of those cool drones that does the above shots so you can see us on our own paths like weaving through each other and kind of in this maze and there's a lot of content in the song having to do with like hoping that they find their way out and kind of walking in circles and so I'm really excited for that one to come out because I feel like it was one of those I feel like the visuals really Mary Ann really nice at the song in that video.
It also shows so it's sure it's just more first songwriting style of like dark and I don't know more sombre like in my mind is more like like like like like like like like more his style is kind of bubbling and lots of energy and yeah a lot of a lot of energy and a lot of like he's definitely more like positive and I'm more you know negative sorry so it's good but I have a little balance right yeah so I have two very different songs and videos but come out neutral that's good yeah I think we balance each other out yeah like Dungeons and Dragons sound they were roll a d8 what's that you have a roll a d8 did I ever roll a d8 i don't even know what it means it doesn't drag on this terminology if you know if you know if you know i'm going to know if you don't know then you know i'm going full nerd all right i want to thank Aaron and Lee of Aunt Vicki Aunt Vicki Aunt Vicki my mother's sister Vicki I think it's the full name anyway Aunt Vicki for being on the podcast i had a really good time talking to them don't forget to check out their website Aunt Vicki dot rocks and check out the show notes or search them on Spotify or iTunes or all the streaming and music download sites just search Aunt Vicki also don't forget to subscribe to the podcast WNC Original Music or go to wncoriginalmusic.com to listen to all the past episodes Christmas is coming up so make sure to consider buying some local band merchandise for the loved ones in your life those are like the coolest presents they can get their individual their unique it's the perfect thing if you're thinking um i don't know what to buy for this person i'm gonna get them a gift card no don't do that get them something really cool that they can't give them self or don't get for themselves get them some local band merchandise like a t-shirt and it's even better if it's a band they haven't heard of before because it'll introduce into that band and you know that everybody in their high school won't also be wearing that t-shirt providing the closing song this week is Presley Partude she's a singer songwriter originally from our own western of the carolina town of swan anoa and then ashwell but now she lives in centerville virginia all of which are my hometown she writes all kinds of music from heartfelt love songs to protest music you can find her music on spotify and apple and check the show notes for her social media links here is Presley Partude have a good week you haven't made her sandwiches for dinner if you want to stick around you're invited