Would you care to introduce yourself?
Val Verde are: Maggie Collie, Robbie Laird, Kyle Macinnes, Kenny Paterson and Ryan Sharp. We are a Dunfermline based band who are influenced by a wide variety of musical styles and artists. The band has been together as a four piece for the past four years and recently recruited the talented Maggie Collie to help broaden the sound.
How would you describe the music you make?
I have yet to meet a band that likes to answer this question as it's so difficult to be objective and put your own music in a pigeon hole. I suppose that it would come under the category of "indie rock" but the multiplicity of bands that such a term covers renders it pretty useless. In the past we have been compared to U2, Kings of Leon and Snow Patrol, which is just fine by me. I find describing our music as easy as describing what a cloud tastes like, so essentially, people should log on to myspace.com/thevalverde and make up their own minds.
How did you start out making music?
Ryan, Kenny and I have been in a band together since we were in high school and we were always more excited about making our own music rather than playing covers. We used to get together in my parents' garage every weekend and have a go at throwing together interesting chords and riffs. We didn't pay much attention to vocal patterns in the early days and instead experimented with unusual structures and weird sounds. We were heavily influenced by artists such as Radiohead, Gomez and The Cooper Temple Clause at the time and were trying to do something different. We enjoyed writing alternative music, but quickly realised that we needed to work on the vocal patterns if we were to get anywhere. Kyle joined the band a few years later (after several line up changes) and we became a lot more solid. We matured a lot as a band and I think that is reflected in the songs we are producing now.
What process goes into the way you write songs?
What tends to happen is someone (usually Ryan) will come up with a chord progression or a vocal pattern and will simply play it over and over until the rest of us find hooks or ideas to play with. If we are having a good day, a song will grow out of these ideas pretty easily. A prime example of this is "Home" which was pretty much written in about three hours. Having said that, there are times where we just seem to hit a brick wall which is incredibly frustrating when you think you have a really great idea with bags of potential. "Glass Girl in a Cage" was quite problematic: it wasn't until we were in the studio that all the parts were finally nailed down.
What can people expect from your live shows?
Music that is worth listening to. I genuinely believe that.
What are you all listening to at the moment?
Warpaint, Unkle, Arcade Fire, Scott Walker and Mumford and Sons. Quite a mixed bag really.
What can we expect to see/hear from you in the near future?
We have had some great feedback from our latest release (Home/Glass Girl in a Cage) and have already been back into the studio to record a new track. We are currently writing more material and hope to have a new release out in the spring. Our main aim this year is to play at one of the summer festivals. It's been an ambition of ours for quite sometime and we would love the opportunity to play in front of a festival crowd.
Val Verde - Home
Myspace
Bandcamp
