Voodoo Vegas Interview

Voodoo Vegas, hailing from Bournemouth in the United Kingdom, have been around for a while, but have been making big waves over the last few years especially. These guys (and girl!) are a rocking, high-energy, feel good band that never fail to get the crowd moving. Their debut album - The Rise of Jimmy Silver - was released in March of this year and has been very well received. We sat down with some of the band backstage at the Cathouse in Glasgow during their second time touring as support for Fozzy to find out what it is that makes them special, what it was like recording at one of the biggest recording studios in the world, what they have planned for the future and more.

Leese: For anyone that's new to Voodoo Vegas, can you describe the band and the kind of music that you make?

Lawrence: Classic rock... bluesy classic rock. I think we've got classic rock with a modern twist from what a lot of the reviews have said, so it's kind of like that. It's not like... Zeppelin-ey or really old stuff. We were all inspired by those dudes, but it's kind of our own thing as well.

Matt: I dunno... classic rock with a blues twist. Upbeat music at the end of the day.

Law: Fun rock... stuff! Gets everyone moving and having a good time. It gets stuck in your head like an... infection.

L: Who are your particular musical influences?

Law: For me it's Aerosmith, Bon Jovi... all those bands like that really. Guns N' Roses... That's for all of us, really. We're all inspired by those bands. I like the whole front person thing. The great frontmen. I think Jon Bon Jovi's a great frontman... Getting everyone to sing along and having a good time.

Matt: Skunk Anansie was a big part of my music taste growing up, but I've got loads really. Punk, funk... everything. Just anything with a beat and a groove.

Joobs: My first opinion when I first saw you come on stage, Lawrence, was that you're like the Russell Brand of rock n' roll, without the bad hair.

Law: Really? That's quite cool. I know I've got better hair than Russell Brand. What makes me the Russell Brand of rock n' roll though?

J: It's just your whole persona on stage. How you act and how you sort of prance around a lot.

Matt: It's quite comical.

J: It's the hand movements!

Law: I was telling the guys... I do that when I talk.

Matt: I've never noticed this.

J: You will now!

Law: I don't even know I'm doing it. Sometimes halfway through I'll be going "Why am I doing this with my hand?!"

J: Just turn slightly so Matt can see it from the drums. It's brilliant. It's fantastic. It gets the crowd going.

Law: It does, yeah.

L: Your debut album, The Rise of Jimmy Silver, was released in March. What has the feedback been like on that?

Law: It's fantastic. All of it. All the reviews have been great for it. So it's good to know that people... Well, I knew that it was going to down quite well because all of the songs we play live, as you've seen from the tour, everyone's into the songs, so as long as we recorded them the best they could be, I knew they would go down really well.

J: Well you recorded them in the best place possible as well.

Law: Yeah, one of the best recording studios in the world at Rockfield, with one of the best rock producers in the UK. He's Portuguese, but based in the UK – Pedro Ferreira – so it was gonna sound great. He changed the songs around a bit and it was just... it was fantastic. I listen to that now, you know, a year after recording it and there's not one part of me that thinks, "Oh, I wish we'd changed it there," or, "I'm not happy with that bit." I listen to it and I love it. I always say that if you don't like your own songs, you must write shit songs.

L: It's true. If it's not something that you'd want to listen to yourself, how do you expect other people to want to listen to it?

Law: Yeah. I love Voodoo Vegas' music. I think it's good.

L: What was it like recording at Rockfield? Obviously, it's one of the best studios in the world and bands like Black Sabbath, Queen, Rush, Coldplay have all recorded there.

Law: Hectic.

Matt: Fun, but hectic, yeah. Take after take after take... 'cause it had to be perfect.

Law: But the vibe there, as well... It was amazing. Of course, we only got there because everybody pledged towards our album. That's how we could afford to do it. For me it was something that I'll always remember for the rest of my life. There's like a combination area, of a house on top of a hill and I was walking down the hill to the studio on the first morning with Ash and I was just like, "How are we here, dude? How are we at Rockfield?" I'll tell you what, if you go there you can honestly feel the vibe. You can feel that these people were there. We were sitting in the control room and we were playing... I can't remember what Sabbath album with Pedro, just playing it through the big speakers and you think... "This was recorded here. There's every chance they were all sitting here doing the same thing we are." Just listening to music, you know, when you're not recording.

Matt: And the grand piano that Freddie Mercury played on Bohemian Rhapsody and stuff like that.

J: Wow. Did you just rub it to get some creative juices off it?

Law: You can honestly feel it there. There's a vibe there. I know there's all this home recording, and people can record at home and record in their attics or wherever it may be, but unless you're in somewhere like that... I'm so happy we did it for our first CD. We released a live album and a few other things we'd done, like a demo and different recordings of some kind and that sort of stuff, that was all done in little studios or at home, but to do our first proper recording in a place like Rockfield is an amazing thing to do, I think. For me, it's just... I never thought I'd ever get to do like that. I'd highly recommend that any band going to do that. Your first recording should be the best that you can get out of it.

(Meryl arrives)

L: You were recently voted as Best New British Band in the Classic Rock Magazine poll...

Law: On their website, but now they've got another one going. It was great to win it. We've got great fans and they all went balls out to get us the votes, so it was fantastic to win and we're very happy that we won, obviously, and we can say that we won that in May this year, but they didn't write about us in the magazine at all.

L: Oh, it was just an online thing?

Law: It wasn't published. It should have been, because a lot of the other bands were written about who were in that poll with us, but they didn't pick up on us at all and I don't understand why.

L: We should write to them and complain.

Law: There's obviously something going on there but, you know, we won it and we can say we won it and that's what it says on their website, so I'm happy with that. I just wanted to get into the magazine, and we were in it and we got two songs on their cover CDs, so I'm happy with that.

J: What's next for you guys now?

Matt: Work on a second album, hopefully.

Law: In the next three weeks we're going to Holland to play some shows, and then France. We've got a big festival down in Switzerland to play in September. That'll be good.

Matt: With Skindred.

Law: Yeah, Skindred are playing, so that's gonna be a good thing and we've got a few other shows... odd shows like at the Borderline in London, and hopefully we can get another big tour like this Fozzy tour. That's kind of the plan to promote the album. It works well. You can see it online, on Twitter and Facebook, and everyone just goes nuts don't they? I think it's great.

J: We're just over halfway through the Fozzy tour now. This is your second time with these guys. What are your highlights so far?

Matt: Well it's my first time so, I'm over the moon. I'm happy.

J: Have you got any favourite moments from the four gigs so far?

Matt: I've been drinking quite a lot after the shows so I don't really remember much. Last night was awesome, and Stourbridge kicking off the tour was just crazy. They really did Stourbridge proud I think, to be honest. I'm really looking forward to tonight. The biker bar (Yardbirds in Grimsby) was awesome, as well.

Law: Last night was great. I enjoyed getting up on stage and singing with Fozzy last night. That was good fun. I think I'm doing it tonight as well. It's my favourite song (She's My Addiction) off their album so it's really great to go up and sing it with them.

L: This tour is seven straight shows with no off days in between... We've worked out it's over a thousand miles, we're starting to struggle already, and we're not the ones playing shows every night. You have two shows tomorrow... You've got the festival in Hull, and then down to Leicester for the show with Fozzy. How are you handling it and do you have any survival tips for life on the road?

Law: You guys are probably doing better than me because I don't eat before I play. We've gotta play at... What time is it now? Half-past five... So we're on in less than two hours, because it's early doors and we have a curfew, so I probably won't eat now until after we play, and then you get all wrapped up in having to do the merchandise so... I eat hardly anything.

Matt: Or if we do it's late, late on at night.

Law: Yeah, and then I've gotta get up and sing with Fozzy so I'm not gonna eat before I do that either, so... I dunno. Just try and get as much sleep as you can, really. Travelling kills you, even though you're just sitting on your ass doing nothing, it still kills you. It's really weird.

Matt: I can't seem to stay awake in the van, so...

Meryl: No, I can't either. I just drink loads of water and eat as healthy as I can.

J: Who does the driving then?
Law: Me and Nick. We swap it. When I'm not driving I just chill out and don't have to worry about it, go on the tablet and do whatever.

J: All the travelling gives us a really good appreciation of what bands go through, especially the support acts that don't have the tour bus and the driver.
Meryl: Or the roadies.
L: Yeah. The bigger bands can sleep as they're travelling and sleep through load in...

Law: Yeah, we're doing all our own merch too. Literally as soon as we finish playing I run to the merch stand and stay there all night. We're kind of on the clock as soon as we get here. There's "hurry up and wait" gigging... The Stereophonics song "Hurry Up and Wait"... I know what it means now. You hurry up; you rush to get to the gig and as soon as you get there you wait around for a couple of hours and then it's all go.

L: Our blog, Invading the Pit, is written by female fans of mainly hard rock and metal music for other female fans. We travel to see bands a lot, obviously, and we've had all the stigmas thrown at us, you know, people thinking that we're groupies, because we get to talk to bands and hang out with them... And yesterday Joobs went into the pit during Fozzy's set and everybody stopped because there was a girl in the pit...
J: I was well up for it! I went in there and started pushing people and they all stopped. So, you do get a lot of stigmas about it and you are treated differently. Meryl, with you being a girl in a rock band, have you had any sort of negative experiences?

Meryl: Playing wise, in a band, I've had none. It's all been super positive. A lot of people have come up to me after shows loads of times and said "Oh it's great to see a girl who isn't just doing rhythm guitar and standing all still like a little mouse, or doing bass guitar, or singing... you're actually doing lead rock guitar, and I can see you're enjoying it and it's rare..." So that's been good.

Matt: And you shred as well.

L: You don't really get all that many mixed gender bands around; they seem to be either all guys or all girls.

Meryl: Yeah, there is that.

Matt: We've got Lawrence for the ladies and Meryl for the blokes...

Law: And you for the in-betweens.

Meryl: I did have a lot of negativity in teaching, because I teach guitar, and when a student would come to the music school I used to teach at and realise they were gonna be taught by a girl, they wouldn't give me a chance sometimes. They'd instantly say, before they'd even heard me play a note, "I'm not having a lesson. I'm not interested. I don't want a lesson." But anyone who's given me a chance... they're positive about stuff and everything's fine.

L: From a fan side of things, it seems to be if you're a guy and you're travelling to gigs and getting to hang out with rockstars, it's a cool thing... When we do it it's like "oh, you're groupies! You're this, you're that..."

J: "You just wanna sleep with the band!"
Meryl: Yeah, that's the trouble when you're a girl. You get judged wrongly. But it's good you have morals. I'm the same.

J: It's about the music.

Law: Exactly.

Matt: Yeah, definitely.

L: A lot of bands now, especially ones that tour with bands like Fozzy, it's all about who can play the fastest and make the most noise, and they kind of lose the groove and melody which is what you guys are all about. Do you think there should be more of the classic rock sound coming back up in the British scene again?

Meryl: If it was up to me there would be.

Matt: Everything seems to have gone towards hardcore/thrash and, you know as you said, quick and brutal but... you look at the older bands and how much groove was there and, you know, it's still rock n' roll. It's good old rock n' roll but you get to dance!

L: That's what I think's great about you. It's not about watching someone play as fast as they can or hit the drum as hard as they can... It's a nice change.

Law: That's not songwriting though, is it? It's just... brutality.

Meryl: I like a song that I can hum.

Law: Yeah, something that gets stuck in your head.

Matt: I do love thrash and all that, but it's all about the groove with us.

(Ash walks in)

Matt: When you've got Ash playing bass you've gotta have a dance.

L: Ash, you missed it all.

Ash: Oh, have I? Excellent!

J: One more question... Finally... who rocks hardest girls or boys?

Matt: That's a hard question.

Law: Me!

Voodoo Vegas' rocking debut album The Rise of Jimmy Silver is available to purchase now. To keep up with the band and find out when they are coming to a place near you, check out their official website at voodoovegas.com, and their Facebook and Twitter pages.