this image was snatched from jeffandvida.com. Give it a look-see.

the Jeff & Vida interview

Here it is…finally. I met up with Jeff and Vida on my birthday at the end of last year. They travel to Chicago around three times a year and play Fitzgerald's (just outside the city limits in the suburb of Berwyn) almost every visit. It's a great venue with a restaurant, main stage/bar area and a side bar reminiscent of Cheers. They host an annual Americana fest over the fourth of July weekend where Jeff and Vida have performed the past three years. I was able to get there early and interviewed them in the seating area next to the Side Bar before their two-set duo show. Unfortunately their bass player, Mike Kerwin was not able to make the trip. I'm sure there are typos and missed grammatical items, but the sentiment of the interview is still in tact. So here it is, the second Stage 7 interview….enjoy.
__konzaswamPete

[typed 12.19.04]

KSP:Uh..the first um questions is, "what were your musical influences growing up?"

Vida: Well you start Jeff.

Jeff: Uh…Bob Dylan, Bill Monroe, Doc Watson..uh…I don't know…

Vida: All right, (chuckle) I'll go. I, I uh…let's see, I grew up with straight up rock n' roll so I started, when I was really young it was like Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, lots of that kind of stuff. And then, when I was about thirteen I found uh Highway 61 revisited. Oooh, Dylan and that was, like, meant the world to me. And then I moved on to, like, well…just before I found Highway 61 revisited I was really into the Beach Boys. (Chuckle) And then right after Highway 61, I got into the Sex Pistols and the Stones and the, I don't know, the Beatles were alright I didn't listen to them too much, but like the Pretenders and…stuff like that. And uh, through all of that though I was listening to lots of Dylan and country music - My dad had a huge music collection, and uh so then when I started playing guitar with Jeff we sort of dug up that old acoustic stuff, but like the first song I ever learned on guitar was Sam Cooke's, uh, what was it, Don't know much about History song (chuckle) something like that. I was, I don't know I was totally across the board with that stuff, I was listening to everything. Um, with country, the stuff that really got me was Merle Haggard. I really like the drinking songs and like bar room songs. That was cool. And then just went from there after we started playing.

KSP: Um, (cough) when did you guys first pick up an instrument, and, I guess, what was it?

J: I picked up, well I played drums since I was four..

KSP: really?

J: Yeah, then I picked up guitar at a….when I was 12 and played guitar for a lot of years and uh, then uh just picked up the mandolin and the banjo in the last 5 or 6 years, you know, just sort of piece-meal. But, First a drummer then a guitar player. I can't play the drums anymore.

KSP: No? not at all?

J: No. No..I tried recently and it like uh..there's no hope for me as a drummer.

KSP: (laughs) was it electric or acoustic guitar?

J: it was electric first. I was into classic Rock n Roll, which I guess helps answer more of the first question too. And had a classic Rock n' Roll cover band in high school like a garage band. We did like a lot of like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and a couple original tunes did some Who songs you know and uh some Beatles songs. See, I learned on a little electric guitar and then a couple years later a friend of mine took me to the Philadelphia Folk Festival where him and his family went every year. Sorta like uh..They camped out, you know, a lot like Winfield. Where They had their whole family there at a big campsite and played music until dawn and that was the first I'd ever seen of that, like acoustic kind of jamming, you know, thing. The next day or the next week or so I went and bought an acoustic guitar and sorta put the electric away for…until like last year.

KSP: you still have the same one?

J: No. no I had a really nice electric guitar that I really liked and I sold it to get my really nice acoustic guitar that I play now. And that's ok cause I got a different kind of electric guitar now which I like, so….

V: Yeah, I, I didn't really play uh until like high school and then I just learned three chords, the same three chords I know now, and uh I was just strumming along to try to figure out songs, cause I was writing a lot and that was my main thing. I didn't really want to learn how to play the guitar great, but uh… I think it was for my 14th birthday my dad got me a black epiphone les paul electric. It was awesome. And I, you know, lock yourself in your room and I could play all those power chords and just like go at it and then I came home and he had sold it and bought me an acoustic guitar. He bought me a uh nice old martin, he thought it would suit me better. And so from there I started playing some different stuff, but that (laughs) I was really upset, I was sorta heart broken I had these big aspirations for being in a loud punk band. And uh I couldn't really be in one after that. But uh..

KSP: Do you think he sold it because of the noise of it?

V: No, he just thought that you know that he seemed to think that for a song writer I really needed this beautiful acoustic guitar and actually you know the guitar itself is gorgeous. Tripelo NY New York model its sort of this folk guitar, cause I was in my room playing Dylan, like power chords Dylan songs. It didn't really make sense I guess and uh, so yeah.

KSP: Do you guys collaborate on writing of lyrics or do you just bring them to the table?

J: Vida writes most of the lyrics. I don't really collaborate hardly at all on the lyrics. There's a couple tunes I have, but mostly its Vida you know coming up with lyrics, its sort be like, I only collaborate in like a negative ways. Like don't sing, don't say that (laughs).

V: Oh get off it.. come on. Yeah as far as writing the songs we do different things like…some songs I'll sit down and write alone and then see what Jeff thinks of it and then he'll take it in a different direction or help with the music but other times Jeff will be sitting there and just playing out a song or melody or something that he's got down and I'll sit down next to him and write out some words and if he likes it keep going with it and if not then you know scrap it (laughs).

J: I've been good every once in awhile to come up with like uh I come up with lines, like one line, I'm not a very good lyric writer but I come up with one line and then I just say Vida look isn't this a good line. Then she goes and writes like 20 lines and makes a song…

V: There usually the best lines in the song though like in the song Road to Abilene the murder scene was Jeff's you know stuff like that.

J: Don't leave the lights on for me, that line, no just that line…was mine… from a Motel 6 commercial so it really wasn't mine either.

KSP: that's right…or the anti Motel 6 commercial.

J: mmHmm.

KSP: This one I kind of know, but are you born and raised in New Orleans, or, were you born and raised in New Orleans?

V: No I was born in California and grew up all over…and uh yeah, that's it..

J: No..and I'm from New Jersey and I make no apologize for that. It's not my fault, its just where I'm from. So my roots are starting to grow on me now every year, it's like I lost… I don't wear the hat anymore but I don't quite wear a headband yet either but that might be coming soon.

KSP: All right well the next question was taken care of …um what were you doing from the ages of 18 to 24?

V: um

J: Well both of us were in college for the first couple of years of that.

V: I went to Madison for a year, Madison Wisconsin, to the university there, I uh I didn't like it very much. And uh cause for me it was just like I was used to the city and I couldn't get used to the jocks and the cheer leaders and not going to the bars and not being able to hear music…it killed me. I'd never seen a beer bong before, and they like, that was thing to do - go to parties and oh it was horrible. So then I met Jeff and moved to NYC and I tried to stay in school but I was just waitressing and checking out the town and dropped out. I was just hanging out there and writing and then we moved, we did a road trip when we left New York and ended up in New Orleans after going to North Carolina, Maine and stuff like that....

J: Yeah we checked out a couple places, and I was just in, I went to college in NYC so from the time I was 18 to 21 that's what I was doing. And then we were living, we both were still living in New York…yeah by the time you were 22 or I was 23 we were already in New Orleans we've been in New Orleans about 7 years now, so... and once we moved to New Orleans we started playing, started doing this music thing pretty much right away, we worked a little while and uh but that was there's a real sort of time combination there like the move to New Orleans and playing music were like a big part of each other for some reason or another…not a plan but that was the way it happened.

KSP: Did you guys you set out to move to New Orleans?

J: No, we did this road trip thing like we were just like we were wanting to get out of New York because we couldn't afford it anymore basically and uh we just decided to meet go see friends and family and stuff in different places see what we were going to do. We were thinking about Nashville pretty heavily and we were like uh did some research or whatever and about trying to find places and this and that and we never even made it to Nashville we never even like went there we just went to spend some time with family in the southeast then uh ran out of money and said we gotta move somewhere and get to work or you know we're not gonna eat and so we uh just said hell, let's just move to New Orleans it was really like it was that kind of whimsical it wasn't like that wasn't even really part of the plan when we left New York in the car with all our stuff and our dog. But it sorta just like uh we decided to do it and that's what we did.

KSP: uh..let's see, what was your last day job before you quit for the band?

J: I was a delivery boy. I was a courier delivering medical documents around the city of New Orleans so uh I did that for like 3 years. When I moved down to New Orleans and before that I was a courier of travel documents in New York and before that I was a I've only ever held a job that's like a delivery boy basically.

V: I was doing temp jobs in New Orleans and uh New Orleans isn't really known for it's big companies or anything. So,You know I was typing here and there and I was also doing, I did one or two conventions, which were weird. Like, I did this one convention that was for, I think it was Christian Teachers Across America and I was representing Bank One in the convention hall. SO Basically you walked in and it was a bunch of nuns in their outfits or their, what's it called? Habits? I was a giant Bank One number with the big white paws and everything and it was so hot that you had to strap on ice things to your body and get into it. And walk around with balloons and you really couldn't hold onto the balloons and all the nuns, I guess, I don't know why they did this, but they were punching me. I'd like walk around this convention center with these balloons and they'd literally, like freakin' wail. Walk up to me and…then that was sorta one of the last jobs I held and I was like, No, I'm not doing this anymore.

KSP: um did you guys participate in music in school when you were growing up?

V: um I tried to get into a few of the musicals in high school I was turned down all the time I was told I had no part in acting or singing. (laughs)

J: I was a drummer in the school band up until 6th grade (flicks lighter) then I got way too cool to be a drummer in the school band (lights cigarette) had my own band then and you know I was getting tired of the marches, it wasn't marching band, but you know it was band music. The way that they tried to sorta like inspire us by playing popular standards like the Rose, and you know or songs like that or LaBamba and things so I quit that and it was the same time I quit playing the drums it basically coincided.

V: And discovered other forms of entertainment, I'm sure (laughs)

J: yep

KSP: Do you read music or play by ear?

J: Ear

V: Neither

J: Yeah, not much music reading going on at our house.

KSP: This is a silly one but Beth wants to know how do you like your eggs cooked?

V: oh, extra-extra-extra hard. Super well done.

J: I just prefer you don't cook the eggs at all.

KSP: This one is, I don't know who this is - Oscar Gamble, so..is it true there's a strange swamp magic in New Orleans that occasional will make your spine tingle cold especially on Sunday nights? IF so is it true that eating spicy Cajun foods helps ward off these swampy spirits?

J: well I think the swampy spirits has to do with how many drinks you've had before you start thinking about that… I've never come across too many swampy spirits…there's some swampy smells down there on certain times late at night when the chemical plants are burning their stuff (laughs) I'd hate to bust the mystique. But uh, I don't know, you know we're not there enough, we're not there enough to know. What about you Vida you got any thoughts on that?

V: I don't know, I got some stories but you know I'd need a flashlight and a campfire, a bottle whiskey or something (laughs)


[typed 01.21.05]

KSP: Um…what are the best things about being a musician?

V: Being able to do exactly what you want to do, I mean, the whole idea behind playing music/writing your own songs - keep in mind it's not like we..we're in a symphony or we're doing it in this classical sense, we're really just going out and putting our own expressions on the table and seeing how people take it - so I think …The best thing about it is..uh..being able to share what you want to share, what you don't want to share with other people and and just you know see how they take it. Essentially you can always write a song at home and play it for yourself, but when other people's emotions get involved in it sort of makes it this bigger thing and that comes back to you. I hate to think of it as stealing energy, but it sort of is like that.

J: I like drinking on the job. Which is one of my favorite parts about being a musician and traveling all over the country. Vida pretty much covered the musical aspect of it, which of course is the best part of it, Drinking on the job is good and getting, being in a different place every night (and) meeting tons of fascinating people, and especially like getting to meet tons of fascinating musicians if like music is what you really love and you get to..it's really hard to get acquainted with music without traveling with music going on around the country you know because you don't hear it on the radio, you don't see it on TV. It's not in the record stores you know the stuff that really interests me so the last 5 years traveling all around the country playing different shows with different musicians being at big gatherings of musicians and hearing what other people are doing who aren't like you know pop stars…uh..is awesome….

V: Yeah, your whole world revolves around your biggest love in life. Which is great you don't have to deal with all the other shit.

KSP: Um…Do your songs come from lyrics or music first?

J: Usually there are a lot of times where it's a combination of the two I'd say, they usually start, you know…

V: Yeah, I think it's really that they go hand in hand. It's really rare that I sit down and write without an instrument in my hand…

J: Or a melody in your head at least…

V: Yeah, It's really rare that Jeff picks up an instrument and doesn't you know have a direction of what he's..how…what's going to happen with it. So..

KSP: So you don't sit down just to write a song, or do you wait until you are inspired by something?

V: I try to be pretty I don't know consistant with the fact that like even if I have nothing if nothing comes to mind I can always go back and work on stuff I've already been working on. It doesn't always have to be new. You know, editing is a big deal. But it's always in conjunction with music and lyrics. Or..Or just music actually. I'd say the music is usually more important in what's going to happen in a song.

KSP: uh…what is it about the Americana style of music that appeals to you?

V: The word Americana doesn't mean anything. You can do anything you want. It's like this open ended definition.

J: Plus it's seemed in the last couple of years it just sort of seemed to pull all the stuff we like together which is strange we sorta did that cause all the stuff we liked sort of fell out of favor with the main stream categories of music you know like Country's now defined by top 40 radio. Some country like Johnny Cash or even Hank Williams is described as Americana some how, you know and Rock-a-billy comes under Americana now and a lot of Bluegrass comes under Americana and really it's just a made up term that's only been around like 10 years, 11 years, but somehow they managed to pull together all the stuff we really like. The rootsiest stuff of a couple different genres and put it in this one genre. Even blues and some jazz like swing time jazz or like string band jazz from the early 20's with acoustic instruments a lot of times they call it American. They don't call it jazz anymore, which is weird but…

V: I think basically it's replaced the term Folk because folk music after a certain point is like a dirty word. You think of like some crappy singer songwriter who can't play guitar, you know, lamenting their own existence or whatever on stage and it's something that is sort of dull. But essentially I think Americana is the redefinition of Folk Music what it was in its truest sense which is like you know what people play in their own homes, what they play on their front porch, what they play with their friends, and it's just the most accessible kind of music.

J: yeah it does all that - excludes the self-indulgent singer songwriter who uses their diary as sort of their lyric base.

V: But not for long…we on stage in half in hour? (laughing) I'm just kidding.

[typed 03.01.05]

J: Do we start at 8:30 or 9?

V: 8:30…9, we can finish this up.

Robin (the lovely assistant): for Travis…for little Travis, your biggest fan.

V: (laughing) yeah, absolutely.

R: I have a question….for Vida. When did you realize you can sing better than well? I mean, people don't truly discover their singing voice right away….

V: Right, that's a matter of opinion, I guess, singing well or this and that. Basically what happened is we decided and Jeff decided we were gonna be this duo and we were gonna play these songs we wrote and we were gonna try to play music full time. And I'd never sung before so he just sort of said, well you wrote that song now you gotta sing it and just sing it loud. Just sing it as loud as you can because starting off it's easy to try and keep a note if you sing loud because you hear yourself better. I think that's it, so…He's responsible for all that and as far as the rest of what I do, it comes down to trying to imitate people I really like… I don't sound like Little Richard, but I wish I did….

J: I'd like taken one or two…been in like school plays in school with a musical director and so I had this really cursory like 4 point idea about singing….Instructional singing, which is just "sing from your heart chest" and like you know "find your key" those two things….and I wasn't even doing it, but Vida would be singing soft and quiet and I just said, "oh try this" and let the tiger out of the cage so to speak, so…

V: Yeah, I can't really say much about it, like, it's not trained but basically I open my mouth and I try to stay in key, cause I haven't been doing it very long.

J: But you do spend, you spend a lot of time singing at home, working on your singing voice, by just doing it….by just singing.

V: Yeah, that's true, like I realized after a certain point if you can't hit a note and tried to hit a note, if you practice it, you can hit it.

KSP: Are you two married, living in sin, or just good buddies?

V: No comment (laughs)

KSP: No comment? OK….How do you keep from killing each other on the road?

V: Who said we do? (laughs)

J: There's not too much problem with that, you know, it's pretty easy going. It's a fun life style you know and the work is not, it's not like adding numbers up all day, where your job is driving you crazy, then you drive each other crazy….it's like your driving around seeing things and there's not enough sources of friction to have to deal with that issue. There's stuff to keep you occupied and happy - you just basically drive around and listen to the radio all the time. It's hard to get mad.

KSP: This is another one from Steve Schmidt in Baldwin Louisiana. Um, he obviously hasn't heard your newest album…he asks, Have you ever considered a full band ensemble, drums, pedal steel, the whole standard country line-up?

J: So, yes. Look at the new record, hear the couple of tracks. Yeah…yeah.

KSP: Live? Have you ever done it live?

J: We've not done it live, we've yet to put together our own band and do it live. We've done some things in New Orleans when we sit in with other bands and let them learn the material, but we're working on it. We really want to do that at some point. We want to…we really like want to sort of give ourselves the ability to do anything. Musically. Logistically is problems, but Musically it's not really a problem, there's plenty of musicians out there, it's just trying to get them all together…Put together a show. But that's something we really want to do. Because we think that a lot of the songs go beyond the uh sonic range of just acoustic instruments…Although it's fun to play them, even the stuff we recorded with an electric bands, it's fun to try and work them out on acoustic instruments too, you know.

V: Yeah, I think at this point, I mean, there's a good chance within the next 12 months you'll see, you'll have the opportunity to see us with the full band. But, the biggest problem we're having at this moment is having a good band name. So, any suggestions? They're welcome.

[typed 03.02.05]

KSP: Besides just Jeff and Vida?

V: Oh it would...no…I think if we go out on the road with a band, you'd know. There's gonna be some sort of different type of advertising for it or at least you'd be able to tell if it's the duo show, the trio show, or (laughs) See tonight we're Jeff and Vida, with Mike (Kerns) we're the Jeff and Vida Band, the electric thing might have to….

J: We're sorta secretly wished we never called ourselves by our names, ya know. Just sort of happened when we started playing and then once people come to know you by that, you can't change it. Cause then it requires a little paragraph explanation underneath in the ads, advertisements in the music section in the paper, but uh…yeah we would have liked to have a different, so if we get a band together it gives us one more opportunity to call it something else (laughs).

KSP: Umm..It's uh, Steve's lofty opinion that Rock n' Roll is dead and that commercial country isn't far behind. Do you see the future of the folk or Americana, whatever scene, as promising or bleak?

V: Totally promising. We're just in Starbucks and I picked up that Nora Jones…like they have these artists picking their favorite artists. It's like a mix CD or whatever. And you're talking about this girl who is 21 years old maybe and just won 5 grammies last year and all of her favorite artists are mine too. And their all within this Americana genre. And it's…I think the industry itself has committed suicide…um they have nothing to work on in the next 20 years. They're not going to be getting any revenue from…uh...Britney Spears or any of these artists that they've sunk a lot of money into for immediate returns. The musical history is gonna fizzle out and you're gonna…I think a lot of these people in this broad Americana genre are gonna be what keeps it alive. Cause it is rock'n roll, it is jazz, it is just real music.

J: Yeah, I think the whole thing is going to become more fragmented. You know, American popular music is going to become more fragmented which is weird in one way that sorta means maybe the death of like the super juper pop stars, you know, cause their not going to be worth investing - cause all the different outlets of media now and satellite radio and everything else. But at the same time it's going to give a lot more people access to these sort of little underground genres of music they're gonna be able to get em on a satellite radio channel or a cable radio channel…so I think that helps us in the long run and helps keep, you know…

V: And hopefully it will come back…you'll see the rise of people who can get on stage and put on a real show and really play their instruments and it would be similar to what you are hearing on an album.

J: Right. Live, live music as opposed to just live music…

KSP: Exactly!! (laughs)

J: We pride ourselves on playing live-live music….

KSP: which is a good thing…

J: Of course we lip-sync the interviews, but….

KSP: the backing track for the interview…

KSP: I think, um, the last question is from Steve and the last question I have is Stage 7 is in fact your favorite venue to play isn't it?

J: Yes

V: Yeah

J: That's a silly question Steve…

V: It is! But it's actually it's funny that you mention that because it was Stage 7 was the first time….Jeff and me had quit our jobs a week before we showed up at Winfield and we showed up at Stage 7 that was the first place we ever played to an audience…

J: …outside of New Orleans…

V: …as professional musicians. And, uh, it's meant a lot to us. That's all I can say. The Feedback and the encouragement from the audience and also from you and from you guys who put it on…believe it or not has helped us along our way the past few years.

J: It's a milestone. (chuckles)

KSP: Great! I don't have anymore…

J: Awesome.

V: Well thank you. I hope that wasn't too lame. (laughs)

J: of course it was.

KSP: No it was great.