January 2011 - Key of V

Fletcher Kaufman; AUM contributor, WXPI FM member, avid hiker and musician took some time out of his busy schedule recently to interview longtime friends, Val and Erin LaCerra of the band Key of V. Also creative people juggling many passions, they are not only playing dates in support of their new album Things We Drew From the Treacle Well, but Erin is a student and Val is relocating from her hometown of Williamsport, PA to Harrisburg, PA to further her schooling while taking on an internship.

Is there a correlation between color and sound in your mind?
V: My relationship to music has changed. There was a time when I thought it was a lot more visual. You know what? I think it was more visual for more me when I wasn't using a computer, when I couldn't see the tracks. I never really thought about it before. I guess if you're a visual person you just make up what the song looks like, even if it's not an actual object or thing that you see but vaguely what it looks like. If it looks smooth or static-y or if it has a color or not. But once you move to a computer it's kind of different because you see the tracks, like how dynamic the waveform is, whether there are more or less parts. That's really interesting!

E: Yea I think so. I was just talking with Alex Callenberger the other day and discussing the fact that the blues wouldn't be called the blues, you know, if it didn't incite some kind of color to go with the emotion of the music.

What are your thoughts on effects pedals?
V: I like pedals! I just don't have the time, money, or knowledge to go out and get one that is going to sound good and... I don't have an electric guitar right now either so... I want a vocal effects processor. That's what I want next.

E: I definitely enjoy effect pedals. Most people wouldn't think that a classical instrument like the viola would work well with effects pedals but I saw lots of guitar players using them and was like "Why can't I have toys too?" They help me achieve more suitable sounds for a more diverse range of songs, as opposed to just sticking with one sound for everything. At the same time I also try to do a lot without effects pedals just by manipulating the instrument itself in different ways, like tension and striking it where it isn't supposed to be struck and things like that, but without pedals kind of opening my mind to the possibility of that happening, I don't know if I would have gone so crazy, beating the shit out of my instrument.

A lot of what people hear on the record could be performed live and in fact the performances are pretty close to one another. How do you think that changes the performance and composition of your music, extending it beyond an acoustic guitar and viola?
V: Oh, I love that! I like doing things that I can't do live. Honestly, I don't know why the album turned out that way. I guess it was because we got a lot of feedback. We did have an unofficial album before this one, Songs in the Key of V, and that was all stuff that couldn't be reproduced live, except two songs. A lot of it was just noise and static and keyboards and layers... a lot of songs that didn't even have instruments, that were all vocals, different layers. I like doing stuff like that, but I got into a niche and we only had so much time, so I got into this one project, that could be played live.

E: Well Val and I started playing acoustically on a street corner, with no electricity at all, and I think that what we hear in our minds is a lot bigger, fuller sound that we couldn't... We could only go so far acoustically and plugging into pedals kind of allows us to tap into a fuller like "hall" sound, you know with reverb or something.. other effects pedals. Also, a lot of times we like to go in a more ethereal direction, like some of our harmonies sound almost like stars chasing each other around in the atmosphere and without the help of effects we would be able to kind of create that reverb just by manipulating the microphone itself as a tool but the effects definitely make it a little easier.

Do you have a favorite musical note?
V: No. There are certain chords that I like together. I really like C to E and I really like the F chord.

F major?
V: Yea. I think it's maybe 'cause I couldn't play it for the longest time, 'cause I couldn't play bar chords. So now, it's so strong, you know?

E: Yea, the C. It's the lowest note on the viola so it's about as low as I can go and it's the most dramatic of the notes. Even when I finger a C, it just sounds so dramatic to me [that] it really kind of pulls at the depths, above your stomach, below your diaphragm.

How do you think being untrained in musical theory influences your music? Do you think it would be better or worse otherwise?
V: I think it almost preserves it because I'm isolated by not being able to play with other musicians as much. Like I can't sit in on a session and play... I mean I have... I don't know a lot of scales on the guitar, I can sing, but if someone says, "Ok, we're playing in the key of G" I'm like "Great. I know how to play a G chord." I can usually figure it out if I listen but I'm usually too nervous to even do it so... It becomes more... I see myself as a musician, but I don't see myself as the type of musician that plays jazz, you know what I mean? I think because I don't do that stuff, I don't get influenced by it as much. You know, it doesn't make it's way into my music and I don't know if that's good or bad but it keeps it... it keeps me... having to make things up and having to really look for chords and making up chords. Doing things with my guitar that are different because I don't know the right way to do it. I can't think of an example, but I know I do things differently sometimes with the guitar. I don't know why I'm limiting it to the guitar because I sing too but...

E: I did some in school. I was in the orchestral system up until my sophomore year in high school, so I know [how] to read music and I know a little bit about theory but I kind of rebelled against it because [of] the way I was taught, in that kind of institutional black and white way, where the students weren't allowed to hear the piece. Not being able to hear the piece I felt as though I wasn't able to connect to the pieces I was playing.. I was just kind of, I don't know... There was just a missing link there for me and I thought that was all music was. That was it. That was my choice and that's all it was so I was just really bored. So, between my sophomore year of high school and my sophomore year of college I didn't play my instrument at all. Then my sister started recording stuff and calling it Key of V and then she asked me... she got my instrument fixed up 'cause it had fallen into disrepair because I neglected it for so long, and she asked me to start playing with her again. By that time I had not necessarily forgotten a lot of what I learned, but wasn't drawing from it because I had such an aversion to it because of my disgust at the music system as I had come to know it. So it was almost like starting over, not knowing a lot about music, and I think doing it that way it definitely opened up our creativity. There were no "no's." There was no one saying no, you know, you couldn't do it this way or that way, everything was "yes". We could do whatever we wanted to, and I can plug my instrument into pedals and no one is going to say no. I can beat it with my bow upside down and make it sound like a door knocker and nobody is going to tell me I can't, 'cause I'm not in a system anymore. I don't think Key of V would be what it is if we were so "by the black letter" of music theory.

Do you sometimes wish you could have a larger shared language with the musicians around you?
V: I don't really want for that very much. That wasn't why I started making music. I never wanted to be, I mean I never wanted to just be able to play guitar and sit in with people. Mostly, I started playing guitar because I wanted to make music and that was the instrument that was available to me. I really liked singing, I really like making songs. You know, that's what I like to do. To me it's art you know? It's not a hobby, not something I just do and do and do... I don't know how to explain it. I don't want to say there is anything wrong with people who can sit in on a session because to me that is really amazing. I can't do that and of course of I'm like, "Wow. It's really cool that people can do that." Just like anything that is really amazing that humans can do. I just don't think that is really me... I just never really wanted to do that... I remember saying "I'm gonna make this album, and I'm just gonna keep it and, you know, play it for my kids someday" and that was Carbon Nation before Key of V but I liked it enough to keep doing it. But... I just wanted to make albums and record, I love recording.

E: Definitely. I walked into the Uptown Music Collective today and there was a Music Theory 3 final exam sitting on one the desks there and I couldn't answer any of the questions, you know, and I was like, "I really want to know!" I might know but connecting what I know to symbols is a different story. If I go down to the Bullfrog and sit in with the jazz musicians, if they call out a key, if you don't know the key, you're kind of screwed. You can find it by finding a lot of wrong notes first. That works too, it just takes a little longer. A language barrier is something I've experienced being in a population of all Spanish speaking people. Like I only know a little bit of Spanish. We can get along, it's just a different kind of method. It's a lot more listening and a lot less talking, so it works, but I think it's best to be bi- or tri-lingual.

One of the things I really enjoy about the album is the artwork. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
V: Well, it started with my sketch and then Erin did the painting. We have three younger siblings. Anthony, our littlest brother, did the sun that is in the background and horizon. Joey did the two boats, the two little pencil boats you see. Emily did the spin art that is on the CD itself, and I did the text. Erin did the watercolor but she can tell you about that.

E: The artwork is a collaboration between the five LaCerra children. It started with just this rendering of a creature, this faceless creature, and my sister Val started that and passed it off to me and she said, "Here's this. I've been working with it and I just want to see what you can do with it." So I took it home and sat with for a couple weeks and then a face came and then another creature came and then a landscape came and everything just started filling in around it. I added the water color and the creatures kind of came out to resemble us. I don't know, when I do artwork I let the canvas tell me what is supposed to happen. It's almost like in music, you're just a medium for the creativity to pass through. So that's how that album cover came to be about. My little brother Joey gave me a drawing of some boats for a trip I was taking to the ocean and I had it on my fridge for a long time and I thought they would look great kind of floating around on the horizon. Emily, my little sister, did the spin art that is on the face of the disc and my youngest brother Anthony, who is 5, did the sun on the front of the disc. It wouldn't be as beautiful if only one person did it. But because all these different perspectives and creative energies, young and old, came together, I think that's what makes it so rich.

The title of your album is a reference to Alice in Wonderland?
V: Yea, it's cool that you got that.

Is there a correlation between the artwork and the title or the content therein? Why did you choose the title and did you want people to recognize the reference?
V: No, I did [it] because there is a sample of Alice in Wonderland on there. I like the whole... I like psychedelia. I was reading it at the time and really liked the whole story the door mouse was telling. The sisters were... I don't know, I just liked the whole story. He's like "they're drawing" and then he falls asleep, you know? It's just perfect. And the sisters are drawing, you know? What are they drawing? They're drawing from a treacle well and it just doesn't make sense at all and I think some of the things on the album don't make sense at all. They are just random things that we pulled from our experiences and mushed them all together and hope that it passes, you know? It is really non-linear. I mean there are some more frank songs on the album that are obviously about relationships and things like that but I try to keep it more on the spiritual end, I guess, rather than the physical, and.. that was all over the place!

E: I think there is definitely a correlation between the album artwork and the content of the album. I mean there is a well on the front of the album; it's not obvious that it's a well, but it's there. Val picked the title but we went back and forth about it. The content of the album is really wild, it's almost like there is a chair on the ceiling and a chandelier on the floor. It's kind of topsy turvy in a way. The album artwork, if you look at it, it almost looks like Fauvism. The trees are purple and the sky is red and everything isn't really what it's supposed to be; turned around backwards but still grounded. The album artwork, it's almost like a story book so we had to put the parental advisory sticker on it because it almost looks like a children's book or children's album just because it's so... the characters are so elementary looking, like something from Alice In Wonderland, but it's also really dark at the same time and that's why there is a parental advisory. It is very light and playful and colorful and spontaneous but it's also very dark too, so I think that they definitely reflect each other.

Is literature a large influence?
V: Totally. Even what I'm reading about in school will influence the content of my songs. The more I started to get into my major, which is Human Services, the focus of the songs started to become more.. socially focused. And more linear too, which is kind of a relief because having things all "blah" and not making sense and having to try and explain them to people is really taxing. It's nicer to be like "Ok. I wrote this song about gas drilling because this is a social issue that we need to look at." That's just what is going on in my life right now, and literature too.

E: I think so. I think that culture in general is. I mean there is... we took some inspiration from movies also, as well as books for this work. I think just going down to the basics of lyric writing, the more you read the better you are able to express your emotions in a way that is not only understandable but enjoyable to listen to because of your language selection.

So could you recommend a book for the readers of this interview?
V: I'm trying to think of what I've been reading besides textbooks.

You could suggest a banger textbook if you like!
V: Psychology and the Legal System, I [would] recommend to anybody.

That's excellent.
V: It is actually. One of the books that I read that really made me change the way I think was Cunt. There were just things in there that had floated through my brain for so long but had never materialized in writing and been validated by somebody else. Or they were things I never even thought about before, so... I would recommend that book.

E: Yes, I will recommend a book. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl because the author is a psychotherapist and he was sent to a concentration camp during WW2, and while he was there he wrote about the psychology of the camp, the psychology of himself as a prisoner and kind of developed a theory based on what he learned there about resilience. I guess, to relate it to the album, a lot of what we write is about struggle and some of the most beautiful artwork comes from being under some kind of intense pressure or turmoil and Viktor E. Frankl writes about the fact that as humans in this culture, this society, we kind of feel like we're not meant to struggle. But struggle is basically part of the game and if you make your struggle meaningful, if it has a meaning, then it's important and what you are doing is significant. So I think there is a lot of that in the album too. For example, we may have been struggling, or in pain when some of the songs were written but now we've got this beautiful work of art to show for it. So the struggling did have meaning. It may have had multiple meanings.

ॐ An Underground mainstream ॐ

Everyone can find Key of V at www.facebook.com/pages/Key-of-V and snag the new album at www.keyofv.bandcamp.com