I think years ago it was much tougher to become a professional musician, let alone to be heard. You really had to get signed and had to have a promotional team and absolutely need radio play- @albvsmusic
Live Interview
Episode #399 http://tobtr.com/9653637
GETTING TO KNOW ALBVS (Joey Albus & Ralph Parissi)
by Jacqueline Jax host of A.V.A Live Radio
I think years ago it was much tougher to become a professional musician,
let alone to be heard. You really had to get signed and had to have a promotional team and absolutely need radio play. Now that we’re in the era of the DIY musician where you can self publish and have no shortage of outlets to connect with your fans, we think (despite what the record industry might have to say about it) that this is a phenomenal time for musicians that possibly wouldn’t have gotten heard otherwise. On the flip side, having that support team there and people to show you the way and introduce you to the right people is kind of lacking now. We wonder if it was easier in that regard back when you really needed an A&R rep to discover you and take you under the wing of a major label. I think there’s massive pros to what’s happening now with streaming and web hosting getting you instant feedback, but it does sometimes feel like the wild west that we’re trying to navigate.
I would love to have 5 minutes alone with….
Ralph – Freddie Mercury. Queen is hands down my favorite band of all time and Freddie was a frontman unlike any other. If you listen to their catalog, they wrote in every genre. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” is rockabilly/country, “Tie Your Mother Down” is a guitar driven classic rock gem, “Another One Bites The Dust”
is pure 70’s funk, and then of course you can’t even define “Bohemian Rhapsody” into a genre! And no one living or dead matches Freddie for vocals and I’m not sure anyone ever will. He was one of a kind and taken far too early. I would give anything to ask him about his process and to try to figure out how his brain worked to balance both raw talent and an almost over the top showmanship.
Joey – If I could Spend 5 minutes with someone…
it would be an equal toss up between Michael Jackson and Bruno Mars. They are both prolific, fantastic pop artists and choosing between them is just way too hard of a decision. Not only are they both on another plane vocally, but they are such all around creators and talents and that is what I want to pick their brain about. Between their writing credits, producing credits, directing their own music videos, they are truly ridiculously creative, all around “artists” and that is what I personally strive to be.
This was the third song that we wrote together as a duo.
I feel like we hit our stride with “Take Our Time.” We wanted to talk about when you find yourself meeting the right person at the wrong time, which I think is something a lot of people go through. That feeling of, “This person is perfect for me, but I’m still getting over a heartbreak/at a crossroad in life and I don’t know if a relationship is the best thing for either of us right now.” In this case it was two people finding each other after each going through their own bad experiences and kind of leaning on each other for support, but not wanting to give in and get any closer than their hearts will let them.
Take Our Time
We recorded all of the songs on this EP with our producer
and friend Chris Vogagis, who is a musical genius. He can play pretty much any instrument you put in front of him, so when we put down our vocals, he looked at us and said, “I have an idea.” He proceeded to pick up his guitar and lay down the blues riffs you hear at the end of the song in about five minutes. His second idea is barely noticeable but I think makes all the difference. At the very end, the song just stopped originally, but Chris had us do a ten part harmony of one note which he proceeded to make sound like a chorus chanting the “Ahhhhhhhhhh….” that sort of electronically fades out the song before the piano outro. That was all Chris Vogagis.
I think that we expect people to find our music catchy and danceable,
but unlike a lot of pop music these days, to also have a story. We don’t want to write dance music that just has the “going out to the club / gonna try to hook up with someone tonight” lyrics. That’s fine for what it is, but we’d like to talk about human experiences, something people can connect to. It’s great to write something that gets stuck in your head like an earworm, but we think if you write a really good story, that’s what gets people coming back to listen again and again.
We live in a suburb just outside of Pittsburgh, PA.
Our actual town doesn’t have much, but we’re constantly going into the city and Pittsburgh does not lack for things to do. We are both big Broadway/dramatic arts people (Joey majored in drama in college
and Ralph is the drama coach for a local high school), so we love all of the theatres that Pittsburgh offers. The cultural district is vibrant, as well as the night life. Plenty of local restaurants, bars, distilleries, dance clubs and the like to keep people busy. Our favorite Pittsburgh hangout is Eides which is a three floor comic
book and record store where we can pick up the stuff we nerd out over.
Social Media Links:
Website: http://www.albvs.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/albvsmusic
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/albvsmusic