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Viva Voce
The band talks about God, diseases, finances,
and kazos. Viva Voce is Kevin and Anita Robinson. Kevin and Anita met in their home state, Alabama. Alabama is in The South. The South is not well known for innovative pop rock, so they moved to Portland. Not that they have a problem with their point of origin. In fact, the quaint accent and good manners came right along with them. In person these two artists are some of the nicest cutting edge musicians one is likely to find. They thought Portland because, besides already fallen in love with the city on earlier visits, They guessed their sound would carry better here. They were right. After arriving, Viva Voce released their first album, Lovers Lead the Way. It was one of the most astounding independent records to come out of the U.S. that year, and earned the group high praise, and also raised expectations. Now, as they release the new album, The Heat Can Melt Your Brain, the duo hopes to follow up on their acclaim. For the gear heads out there, you’ll be interested to know the recording process. It’s all done at home, all for as little as possible. When coming up with ideas they use micro-cassette just to keep track. After that, anything goes. In the process of getting the music onto the computer, Kevin will line up any number of components to interfere with the signal before it actually reaches the hard drive. He usually plugs the mic straight into a preamp. Then there will often be different components the signal goes through before arriving at the board, which may be as simple as an old 4-track, or as complicated as a modified distortion pedal. The idea, as he explains it, is that by doing so you can overcome the drawbacks of digital recording by adding an element of warmth that would otherwise be lost by a direct connection. And though the albums sound as if there is an ensemble of musicians at hand, all of the flute, Rhodes, mellotron, Moog and various other instruments are simply MIDI plug-ins. The band’s recording gear is so low-end, that Kevin compares it to “jiggling a toilet handle after you flush.” But, like he says, “You can either invest time or money. We don’t have money, so we try to use our time the best we can.” MLP: You two have a pretty cool set-up. There’s a man and his wife. So it’s a loving relationship, a working partnership…have you ever experienced either subtly or outright any kind of envy from your fans or journalists being that you have such a set-up. Anita: Well people usually do comment on it. They want to know what it’s like. It is pretty awesome I have to admit. I never dreamed that it would be my life. I always imagine myself—if I got married—that it would be with someone that didn’t play music, or I would be by myself if I toured. It seemed like too much to even asked for, to have what we’re doing. MLP: It’s like that unspoken
thing that we would all love to have but no one really wants to admit
it. Whose going to be so greedy in life? Anita: Yeah, I never would have even thought
to ask for it in my wildest dreams. So I don’t take it for granted
and we just want to make the most of it. It’s really satisfying,
it’s a dream come true. MLP: What are the downsides of it?
Anita: Well the downside is that there’s
nobody at home to earn money while we are touring. So it just puts
more pressure on everything. It’s scary and stressful sometimes
and it’s an adventure. We take it one week at a time. That’s
how we are doing things. We’re better at handling that kind
of stress. It’s the same kind of a stress as anyone’s
long-term business, but with the travel and not having someone at
home—it’s kind of scary sometimes. We have a roommate
right now, so it’s nice to know that someone is at home. Who
knows? Maybe one day we’ll have someone who can organize our
bills and that sort of thing. But right now we fly by the seat of
our pants. MLP: How do you guys pay for your
lives? Anita: Well this last little tour we did,
we were happily surprised, especially since it’s just us two.
It went really well. We were very encouraged. Our van is really small,
and the engine is small so it gets good gas mileage. MLP: So have you started getting
some income from the band? Anita: Well, it’s a labor of love.
But what we try to do is keep our overhead really low. We work whenever
we’re at home. I already have a plan for over the holidays.
Because I don’t really want to travel during the dead of winter
because it’s actually going to be time to record again. So I’m
sure I’ll be working, while we are recording, unless we can’t
work because we are so busy taking opportunities that come. If more
opportunities come and we’re not able to work at outside jobs,
then I guess we will deal with that when it comes. MLP: Anita, I know that you have
Diabetes, would you mind talking about that? Anita: You’ve heard on the news about
diabetes is becoming an epidemic and all that stuff. Well, I’m
one of the young people where they don’t really understand why
I wind up with it at my age. Because usually you get it either when
you’re a child—and it’s called juvenile—and
you have to have insulin right away or you’ll die or you don’t
get it until you’re over forty and if you keep your weight down
and stay healthy you can stave it off completely, sometimes. But in
my case, I have a family history, and I was diagnosed when I was twenty-six,
I believe, so it was a complete shock and a complete surprise. It
was definitely not something that I was prepared for or was even expecting—I
wasn’t expecting it at all. Because, I’ve always been
thin and I’ve always been active. It was a definite blow, I
was diagnosed and I had great doctors and had health insurance at
the time. So I was fortunate to get diagnosis right away and get excellent
health care. MLP: How did you know that you were
sick. What were you experiencing? Anita: Well rapid weight loss and you’re
just basically seriously ill. Because your body is basically starving,
even though you eat a lot because you are so hungry all the time.
But the nutrition doesn’t go into your system, so your body
is confused. Some people don’t get thin, some people gain weight.
So it varies from person to person, but whether or not you’re
gaining weight or getting thin, your cells aren’t getting the
nutrition. So everything that happens to you when you’re starving
to death happens to you. I probably wouldn’t have lasted much
longer when I finally found out because I was pretty emaciated. But
within a year’s time, I was getting back to normal—it
takes about a year before you can start figuring out what your regiment
is going to be. In my case, I use insulin because, obviously I don’t
need to lose any more weight. A lot of times if you’re overweight
and you lose weight, then your body still makes enough insulin to
handle it. But I’m already thin, losing weight is not going
help that, I have to introduce more insulin from outside. MLP: So it’s more like the
juvenile diabetes in that case? Anita: It’s more like juvenile diabetes
in the matter of needing more insulin to handle a normal amount of
food in a normal size body. So even if I just eat lettuce, I would
still need to introduce outside insulin, most of the time. MLP: So what do they know about
the long term affects for you? Anita: Well, it’s pretty grim, it’s
not a fun disease. My doctor told me, when I was diagnosed, that there
was no cure, but it’s very treatable. So you have to think about
it every day, plan ahead, have your medicine and do what you’re
supposed to do and if you do everything like you’re supposed
to, then it’s possible that you can live for years and years
and years without horrible things happening to you, but there’s
no guarantee. It’s one of the reasons why we want to do our
traveling now and just do everything we can now. The normal mindset
is to do the stable and safe and normal things now and then when you
retire you can travel and do those sort of things. But for me, I feel
that life is really short and—while we are able to enjoy it—I
want to see as much of the world as possible. MLP: Do you have any kind of concrete
spiritual basis in your life? Anita: Well yeah definitely, I believe in
God, and have since I was nineteen. Before then I was kind of—I
won’t say atheist, but I didn’t disbelieve anything and
I was suspicious of organized religion in general. So I did my own
research, in my teen years, like on some pretty out there belief systems.
But at age nineteen, I guess you could call it being saved—but
that really doesn’t mean what it meant to me back then, at least
not how it means to people now-a-days. I don’t really talk about
it much anymore because it always comes out sounding so trivial and
it’s not. MLP: What do you mean? Anita: Well just because the stuff that
floats to the top in mainstream and commercial anything usually winds
up being fluff. And it’s that way with modern Christianity too.
A lot of the authors or preachers that people are following and leaning
towards—I find myself sort feeling on the outside looking in
as far as that goes. The same thing happens with music—me scratching
my head about the music that’s popular on the radio. I feel
the exact same way about what’s popular with modern Christian
churches right now. So I’m not really plugged in, but I do have
faith. MLP: What did the news of Anita’s
diabetes do to you, Kevin? Kevin: Destroyed me basically. I mean personally,
it was difficult. We had been touring previously, before she was diagnosed,
and she was really sick. We really didn’t know what was going
on. We came home and floundered for a couple of months. Because when
your body’s like really freaked out, you don’t want to
go to the doctor because what if something really is horribly wrong.
MLP: You don’t want to know
about it. Kevin: Exactly. So we went through a couple
of weeks of that, but it was ridiculous. So we did that and found
out. It was pretty rough. We pretty much put everything on hold for
awhile. Not because we chose to, we just needed to. But she’s
handled it like a champ. I would be the biggest sissy ever. In fact,
I’m the one that almost passed out when they started showing
her how to do the needles and stuff. I’m the one they needed
to walk out of the room. I couldn’t handle it. But she’s
handled it great. When we tour now, it’s not even a thing. MLP: How did it affect you?
Kevin: I guess I had that kind of experience
earlier in my life so I felt that urgency a lot sooner…. MLP: What do you mean?
Kevin: Well there’s been a lot of
death in my family and when I was a lot younger, I almost died. It’s
not really a laughing matter, well I guess I can laugh about it now,
because it’s one of those events that’s so catastrophic
you don’t want to trade it for anything. It molds who you are.
MLP: What happened, Kevin? Kevin: I fell off a cliff, when I was hiking
in Alabama. Broke my back, punctured lung, fractured skull. I was
just a wreck. MLP: Jesus. Kevin: They recreated it on one of those
rescue 911 shows. It was pretty much the worst time. I had to drop
out of high school, I was home schooled the last two years of high
school because I couldn’t go. So being that young, all your
friends are getting drunk and going to the beach and stuff. Your sitting
there feeling that you’re in this strange place in your life
and you realize what’s important. We went through it again when
Anita was diagnosed, it really just hones in on what really is important
in life. There’s not a whole lot of time to do what we want
to do so might as well get busy. MLP: You both have had pretty serious
lives. Kevin: yeah… MLP: And you make pretty fluffy
music. Kevin: Well, hopefully there’s some
gravity there. Yeah, I would agree, I guess. MLP: There’s definitely some
gravity there. Point being that most fluffy pop bands I listen to
them for a week and it’s done, but Vive Voce’s got something
more to it. Kevin: It’s a really fine line. Wear
your heart on your sleeve, someone’s going to rip it off and
step on it. So when listening to music it’s like that. There’s
a fine line of pretentious self-indulgent lyric writing that only
you can enjoy because it’s cathartic for you to write and you
can get all these things out of your system and then there’s
music you can write that gets things out of your system, but other
people can enjoy it as well. And I prefer that kind of stuff. Basically
the point of art, is that you’re doing this, but you’re
not the only person—hopefully—that will be hearing it,
or looking at or watching it. MLP: So, are you Christian?
Kevin: Am I? The American Definition of
the word, no. MLP: What is the American Definition
of the word? Kevin: Well it means that you vote conservative,
vote republican. It means your viewpoint on life is extremely constricted.
I’ve read a bunch of interviews with Sufjan, who is an outspoken
Christian. He’s on Asthmatic Kitty, totally split stuff, Danielson
Famile—I forget the name of their record, Sounds Familiar…[mlp
researchers found that, yes, it’s called Sounds Familyre -ed]
Anyway, the point being is that there’s so many labels that
get stuck on you regardless of how you feel personally, but I think
that there’s something that should remain sacred and shouldn’t
be bought and sold and put on bracelets and stuff like that. I do
believe in God, but I am going to a gay wedding next week so. you
tell me. Anita: It’s just one of those things.
Can you relate to these modern organizations, like churches, which
are glorified Starbucks with a political agenda? I don’t live
in that world, so I really don’t understand. MLP: Being that you live in —at
least on the surface— a very liberal city, but having a strong
religious foundation? What’s surprising to you with that combination,
or what would be surprising to someone else looking into that situation? Anita: Well it’s nice to be able to
have conversations with people that aren’t coming from a Southern
conservative mindset already. Just because when you have conversation
with people like in the Southeast who have been in church their whole
life and not really questioned things too much. Because I’ve
always questioned things. I always want to ask questions and I don’t
like it when I’m in atmosphere where that’s frowned upon.
And if someone’s in charge—like a pastor—I feel
that you should be able to ask hard questions and they should have
a real answer for you. That’s the way I feel about things. As
far as tradition. I think tradition is good in a lot of ways, but
I don’t base my spiritual beliefs just on that. I want to seek
out things for myself and I want to be able to ask questions and I
want to hear opinions from people that may not even believe anything
like I believe. So it’s great. I love having conversations with
people that might be more educated than I am, maybe have a completely
different world view. I love that. MLP: Do you find that even those
with a religious background out here have a different attitude as
well? Anita: I have more friends that are non-believers
here, so I don’t really know. We haven’t really gotten
plugged in. That’s sort of a Christian term, being plugged into
your church. My mom’s visiting and she’s like “are
you guys going to church?” And I don’t know, I’m
kind of questioning the option and questioning theology and my belief
in God is stable, but all the bells and whistles are kind of up in
the air right now. It seems that everyone has an agenda. So how can
you pick up this book and be sure? The bigger the church the stronger
that agenda will be, because of the income and that sort of thing.
I really disagree with a lot of things that modern Christian churches
do. From little nit-picking things like always wanting to build to
some huge ugly compound somewhere, to some more weighty subjects like
baptism. But I think the most important thing is that if you’re
a Christian you should be able to invite any of your friends to come
to church with you and the last thing you should have to worry about
is for them to be insulted. Whether they’re gay or whatever…it
shouldn’t even be an issue. You should be able to invite your
friends and you shouldn’t have to feel that you need to apologize
for anything. Until you know people who are on the other side of an
issue. It starts to look different. If you have a gay couple as friends
and they’re suffering because of that. Like not having health
benefits like they would if they were legally married. It looks differently
when you actually see that they’re just people. We’re
just people and those kind of things hurt. Are you really just wanting
to hurt people, or are you not realizing that it’s hurtful?
But a lot of people are just living in a bubble. I don’t know—it
might be easier for them to sleep at night—being involved in
things that are actually causing pain and wrecking havoc in people’s
lives. MLP: Does Vive Voce ever endorse
any political positions? Anita: No, not really. I can see that things
may start coming up. And we will have to handle that as it comes.
Because we are two separate people and we really have to be in agreement
on it. It’s scary, because somewhere down the line there could
be money going to something that you never really thought it was going
to. It’s really hard to put complete trust in organizations
right now. I know bands that do, and I respect them for doing that.
I do have opinions, but at the same time I feel like I’m just
figuring things out still. So we will have to take that one thing
at a time as it came. MLP: I think that this article will
probably be expressing some hidden agendas. Anita: Well, I hope people don’t think
we’re too serious and stuffy because we like to have a good
time, too. MLP: You guys seem to have some
kind of anomalous existence as far as.I can't really get a clear idea
from either of you how you've been able to do what you've done.
Kevin: Financially, or whatever? MLP: Yeah. Kevin: Yeah, 'cause usually in a band situation
there's one person and then a really cool spouse or a girlfriend or
a roommate that's at home who you can call or send money to, to pay
the bills. But there's nothing like that for us. And both of us have
single mother's—my mom's a widow, Anita's mom is single—we
don't come from wealthy backgrounds. We don't really have a whole
lot in the bank at any given time. So every single detail down to
the wire has to be like doubled checked before we do anything. MLP: Thank god you're not alcoholics.
You'd really be screwed. Kevin: Yeah, it just means that you have
to work your butt off that much more. And now to add to it all, we're
doing this tour coming up and we are trying to shift things around
in our living situation. So it would be pretty strange for someone
else looking into the situation. We don't have any debt. I got my
first credit card about two weeks ago. MLP: That'll help. Kevin: Well, I'm scared to death of it.
I've bought like one thing with it. MLP: Did you get a Coke just to
test it out. Kevin: Our microwave blew up so we bought another one. And then I bought the kazoos.
For their cd release party at Music Millennium
last month, Kevin bought about 200 kazoos with the band’s name
printed on them. They were passed out to the packed audience, who
was then taught the kazoo line from the album’s opening track,
Alive with Pleasure, to the packed audience of hipsters. The band
then played the song as the room played back-up. It was like a swarm
of giant bees had infested the room, and what Kevin would later proudly
call “a success.” He had been pretty nervous about the
idea before doing it, saying that it could go over really well, or
totally flop. But he had a creative, fun idea, and he did it, even
with the apprehension that goes along with not knowing if it was a
“good” idea. That’s how this band functions on every
level. -mlp
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