About five years ago Chicago band Verona Red came together with just one goal: to make people dance. After hearing their newest EP, Pound, we think the four-piece can go ahead and say “mission accomplished”. The infectious EP is chock full of rollicking tunes that make us want to shimmy, shake, jump, jive and create a general ruckus. Deep brassy vocals like those heard in “Sweet Rose” carry a hearty soulfulness and are paired off with an echo-y swell of electric guitar that reminds us a lot of the gospel like rock bands such as The Dear Hunter deliver. Other songs, like opener “Kitchen Song” are more of a rockabilly meets do-wop concoction, with jaunty drums, group harmonies and an auctioneer like pace to its chorus. At some points the front man’s vocals do fall a little flat, but his intentions always seem earnestly good, so we think that the little slip ups are permissible. Pound caught our attention in the first five seconds of its opening track and continued to hold on to it through the very end. We’d put our money on it doing the same for most listeners and gamble our entire savings account on this band putting on an awesome live show. You can take us up on our bet by checking out Verona Red tomorrow night at Subterranean, where they’ll be celebrating the release of Pound along with Bully in the Hallway and The Rails. Show starts at 9pm, is 17+ and will cost you $10.
Stream Pound from Verona Red’s Bandcamp here
Verona Red front man Chris Balzer caught up with us this past week to talk about Pound, his biggest influences and why he would bring Katy Perry on tour- we’ll give you a hint, its not for her singing skills.
Reviewsic: What are your top three musical influences?
Chris Balzer: This is hard. The focus of what artists we draw inspiration from changes from song to song. I think on this record I we were probably most inspired by grit, grease, and railroads…so maybe Neil Young, Robert Johnson and Queen.
Reviewsic: Is there any instrument you don’t play, but wish you did?
Chris Balzer: The computer…haha seriously though. I’d love to be quicker and more knowledgeable about composing arrangements with loops, samples etc…something that if you are proficient in pro-tools or logic you can maneuver more easily. It’s rough because I know I have the idea in there, but not the skills to get it down before I lose where I wanted to go with it.
Reviewsic: What are the last three albums or bands you listened to?
Chris Balzer: Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz, The Faint – Wet From Birth, Radiohead – The Bends
Reviewsic: If you could work with one person in the music industry (musician, label, producer etc), who would it be and why?
Chris Balzer: I would love to have sat in at any recording session with the Beatles. To even have one of them ask me what I thought about something would be pretty life-changing. Thinking of artists today, I would probably most like to work with Animal Collective. I only recently started writing music “inside the box” (creating arrangements from samples, synths and loops). I’d love to learn from these guys. I feel watching how the creative process develops in that band would be really interesting, to be able to input my own thoughts and ideas, and have their unique ability/ideas/talent mixed together would make for a really fun project.
Reviewsic: If you could book a tour with any 3 bands, past or present, who would they be and why?
Chris Balzer: Iggy & The Stooges – Anytime we go to Detroit, we always seem to meet someone who said they knew Iggy Pop personally and they 100% of the time verify that he is the craziest person they’d ever known. I really would like to see first hand what that is all about.
Muse - Just cause I want to be able to see them every night.
Katy Perry – Hopefully she’d get drunk and one of us would finally see a nipple.
Reviewsic: Lately we’ve been on this kick of revisiting band s we didn’t pay as much attention to in the past and wondering, “Why didn’t I listen to this 10 years ago?”- If you could go back in time and push 3 bands/records on your younger self, who/what would they be and why?
Chris Balzer: Eels - I remember being 12 and thinking “Novocaine for the Soul” was a pretty neat song. I also remember the video where they were all floating around being pretty sweet too. I don’t think many 12 year olds can really fully grasp the lyrical coolness of Mark Everett. I guess I wouldn’t really push these guys on my 12 year old self in fear that puberty-Chris may have taken it too much to heart and become crazy or depressed or something, but now-a-days I really enjoy older Eels stuff. Shootenany! is always a welcome appearance on my Ipod.
Daft Punk - I remember when Around the World came out in 1996. It was a seven minute song and I thought Daft Punk was the most boring repetitive group I’d ever heard. It at least makes me feel better to know that I’m still not a huge fan of that song. But for as much as I dig Daft Punk now I wish I could have gone back in time and told my 12 year old self to have faith and buy the record anyway.
Spoon – I’m honestly completely embarrassed to say that for the first ten years of their career I’d never even heard a Spoon song. Their style of rock and roll is so up my alley, it boggles me that I didn’t really get familiar with them until Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. It was like finding the perfect match for what you wanted out of rock and roll, but then knowing that it had been out there under your nose all along. It’s sweet, but makes you feel stupid.
Reviewsic: Tell us about this new EP, Pound- where did the idea for it come from? Did you set out with the specific intention to make the kind of record you did/is there any sort of theme or concept behind it? What do you hope listeners take away from these seven tracks?
Chris Balzer: We wanted to make a raw rock and roll record. On our previous release Side Effects we kind of stumbled upon this mix of blues and dance that sort of just happened when we were writing the songs. A lot of those dance elements were brought to life by synths and straightforward dance beats on Side Effects. The feeling of wanting to make danceable music didn’t change on this record. We just wanted to do it in a different way. We wanted the passion to arrive in the same way that early rock and roll music delivered emotion, just raw dynamics and energy.
The name itself implies that whatever you are doing, you shouldn’t just do it… you should pound it. Pound your drink, pound your drums, pound your girlfriend, pound that assholes face in! That’s how we recorded this album.
We played as hard as we humanly could on parts of this record. I bet it’s going to make for a really fun tour, too! The inspiration to go this route came from our live show. Over the past couple years since we released Side Effects, our live shows have gotten increasingly rowdy. I think something finally clicked in our heads in regards to the fact that there is an energy in music, that’s really basic and communal. The more we give, the more we get back from the crowd and it just builds from there. I know it sounds cliche, but it’s one of those truths that you like to hear yourself say when it finally becomes real to you. We wanted this record to be like a locomotive pounding down the tracks, some kind of digging/driving energy that would make listeners feel the same way.
Reviewsic: How would you compare yourselves as musicians at this point as opposed to when you first began playing together?
Chris Balzer: At the start, back in the college days, we (or at least I) was very insecure about song writing. I didn’t want to play chords that most songwriters played. I didn’t want anyone to think we ripped off anyone ever with our arrangements or song structures. We over-compensated and over-complicated things and didn’t think about the natural simplicity of what makes music actually enjoyable to create and to listen to. Something clicked two or three years ago, maybe it was just a leap in maturity or something…but we kind of just let go, and whatever came out came out and we could say “oh that kinda sounds real Elvis Costello-ish….sweet!” Now a days, it’s become almost a challenge to see who can most awesomely blend influences together in the most natural and fun way.
What does each member bring to the table to make Verona Red what it is?
Chris Balzer: Today we have myself and two other guys (Adam Knoernschild and Brad Howell) who were the singer-songwriter frontmen of their former bands. So having three songwriters including me in the mix makes for a lot of cool and different ideas flying around. Adam in particular has an amazing skill at developing harmonies and counterpoint on the spot. When you have been super-involved with your own song for some time, to have someone jump in with a new juxtaposing vocal melody or some kind of instrumental counterpoint that takes the song in a whole new place it can feel like like someone just threw you a really awesome curveball. Adam is also a really talented songwriter and I enjoyed working together with him on many of our new tracks. Brad has a lot of similar talents and can play a mean blues harp…which was tons of fun to work with on Toein’ The Line, the second track of our new record. Mike Panagakis is like our energy editor. It’s like one of us could have this idea and know that it needs to have a certain kind of energy… even if it’s hard to put into words, Mike will be like “well it’s not going to have that energy unless you do this, I do this, and someone else does that….” Again it’s like you have this idea and you aren’t sure if it’s working and Mike will re-adjust the way you are looking at it while somehow still being on the same page, it’s a chemistry that works for us and is a big part of what makes us who we are.
Reviewsic: What are some of your favorite cities/venues to play? Any places you haven’t gotten to that you’re dying to play at?
Chris Balzer: I personally love playing in Decatur, IL. It’s probably not a common trip for a lot of bands to take, but the crowd we have down there is one of the most welcoming good-time loving group of folks we’ve ever had the pleasure to play to, and I would highly recommend it. A couple of the venues down there are staffed by super accommodating and friendly people. I think there is something in the water down there that breeds a lust for rock and roll. We’ve had shows get canceled down there and local restaurants have opened up their doors to us cleared the dining rooms and hosted impromptu rock shows with very little notice. I’m not even sure if it was legal for them to do that, but it was awesome! I can’t wait to play this spring at The Bitter End in NYC. So many legendary acts have performed there over the past forty years, it’s going to be pretty special for us.
Reviewsic: What are the best and worst band moments so far in your career?
Chris Balzer: Best moment - 2008 record release show for Side Effects at Double Door in Chicago. It was our first time playing to a sold out room. I’ve never been more nervous and excited before a show. I remember having to stretch every ten minutes because my muscles would tighten back up almost immediately.
Worst moment – This worst band moment comes from a previous band Mike and I had been members of. We were driving back from a show, riding in a separate vehicles that just so happened to crash into one another about 15 miles away from home. Both vehicles totaled, 90% of equipment destroyed… by far the worst moment ever.
Reviewsic: What are your plans for your music in the next year?
Chris Balzer: The new record will be out on February 4, from there we’ll be on the road. Our first tour is nearly booked through the spring months, which will take us through a lot of places we’ve never been before, Austin, NYC, Nashville and a lot of other great music towns. We’re already working on post-tour dates for the summer so expect to be seeing a lot of us this year no matter where you live!
Tags: Chicago, Local Music, New Music, Release Show, Upcoming Release, Upcoming Show
