Strawberry Spotlight is a weekly feature on Strawberry Tongue Radio hosted by Lady Audio. She chats with the bands you hear, here, on Strawberry Tongue. In this edition, Lady Audio chats with Aaron and Emma from Vibrissae.
This is a transcription of that interview which airs December 7, 2016 at 1:00 EST, only on Strawberry Tongue Radio. You can also catch the re-broadcast of this show on Saturday and Sunday at 1:00pm EST. Be sure to tune in!
Lady Audio: Hey everyone and welcome to Strawberry Spotlight! Today’s guests are Aaron and Emma of Vibrissae. I’m sure I messed that up didn’t I? (laughs)
Aaron: No, no. That’s perfect. (laughs)
Lady Audio: okay good thank you for both for joining me how are you
Aaron: we’re fine thanks how are you
Lady Audio: I’m alright I’m doing alright today
Aaron: That’s good.
Lady Audio: My first question is what attracted you to the realm of music?
Aaron: Music as a whole or or this this style of music specifically?
Lady Audio: Music as a whole.
Aaron: For me personally, it’s always been a bit of an obsession. Ever since I was young when I was growing up – you know probably from the age of even 4 or 5 or 6 or whatever – I had pretend bands with pretend band names and that sort of thing so it’s just been something of an obsession ever since I was a kid.
Emma: Well for me it’s what transports me to a different place in time time – it’s just magical.
Lady Audio: Great, thank you so much. What do you like most about music and is there anything about music that you dislike?
Aaron: I’d say music has a whole more of an ability to to strike certain cards with people at least personally speaking you can be affected by films or by other forms of art and visual arts but music just seems to there’s something about it that just can grab you and affect you in ways that other art forms aren’t quite able to do for me.
Emma: It just has a different emotion – whether it be good or bad. It has that power…
Lady Audio: Yeah I agree. How did the band get started?
Aaron: So it’s actually been it’s been something we have been working on for quite some time. We wrote a bunch of material and then we have had problems finding other band members to complete the lineup. We searched forever for a singer and we finally found Imber. We work very well together. We released the first album – it started a long time ago really we just had a lot of difficulties finding the right pieces to the puzzle, I guess.Lady Audio: How do you describe your music? I mean I’ve read online already but I want to hear what you guys think of your music and watch how you describe it.
Aaron: We generally say there’s a fair amount of shoegaze influence but we’re not really a shoegaze band. I wouldn’t say specifically because we have – I think – our new singer – the other day made the comment that she is excited about working with us because she feels like as if there are no boundaries to what what different styles of music we can I can attempt to create. So we lean toward the shoegaze realm, and we have and we have a fair amount of electronic influence but I really think we can branch out and do other things as well, without really worrying about is what we are creating fit into a certain mold or anything like that genre specific or anything like that.
Lady Audio: Okay that makes sense. I really like the song Incident Report, and I was wondering if you could talk a bit about it.
Emma: Well Incident Report is actually inspired by an incident at work so I work at a cat shelter as an assistant and there was an incident where I got bitten by a cat and there were eight puncture wounds and basically inspired by the report I had to fill out
and Emma performs all the vocals on that song too will the main vocals
Lady Audio: oh cool laughs another song I really like is need what is the story behind that songAaron: lyrically I’m not really sure Imber wrote the lyrics for that one so I think it’s fairly open to interpretation but different lyrically and imagery she would know more than we would about that musically I think it was it’s sort of Has a post-punk Field to it which I guess we get but we didn’t we try we didn’t really intend for that
[Play Need]
Lady Audio: I like how that it’s start child and you expect the vocals to come in when the music kind of dips a little bit but they have both those don’t come in until just a wee bit after and that’s a really nice touch
Aaron: Oh thanks, yeah it gives Emma some time to play by herself and everything, which is kind of cool. Yeah.
Lady Audio: What new projects are you working on?
Aaron: We just – actually there was a Siouxsie and the Banshees compilation that came out – just today – this morning, and we contributed a song to that. That was kind of fun. We like to do things like that keeps us fresh and allows us to take different takes on bands that we really really like. We’ve got three of those now over the last year. That’s been really fun and now we’re working on new material. We are planning to put out another single before the end of the year. It’s basically done. It’s a song that we’ve had for a long time and then we are going to hopefully have another EP of original material early next year with Sarah on vocals. We’ve also been working on a remix EP. Some of our friends have contributed remixes to the material of the first album so we’ve got a lot of things in progress not quite at the not quite ready to be out there yet.
Lady Audio: Well it’s good that you’re keeping busy! Where can people go to listen to and by your music?
Aaron: They can go to vibrissae.bandcamp.com that’s the best place. We kind of keep all of our links and other pages connected to a central hub at vibrissae.net.
Lady Audio: And now for a scenario. It’s late in the afternoon – the shadows are long – the air is silent and you are standing by a pond. You are magically given the chance to become part of the scenery for just a little while what would you choose to be?Emma: Is there a tree nearby? I think I’ll be a leaf.
Lady Audio: A leaf on a tree?
Emma: Yeah.
Aaron: Not a cat? I’m surprised you didn’t say cat.
Emma: Well if there were to be a cat, then I would be a cat, I think. (laughs)
Lady Audio: What would you be Aaron?
Aaron: An owl. That’s probably what I bet a lot of people say. But, yeah, I think I would be an owl… or the Moon…
Emma: Isn’t it afternoon?
Aaron: The moon can come in the afternoon! (laughs) I would be a soft breeze blowing through the entire….no…
Emma: And I’ll be blown by you if I’m a leaf.
Lady Audio: Yes, you would be and you would be shone upon, too, if you were the Moon.
Emma: Right.
Lady Audio: And last but not least – what is your favorite flower?
Emma: My favorite flower – I have so many favorite flowers but I think I’ll go with hydrangea – no wait – yes, hydrangea.
Aaron: That would have been my choice also, yeah.
Lady Audio: Yeah those are really cool!
Aaron: They were the flowers at our wedding and we both like them.
Emma: Yeah we’re married, by the way. (laughs)
Lady Audio: Okay I didn’t know that! Anyway thank you both for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.
Aaron: Oh thank you for asking! We really appreciate it. We’re honored to be a part of something new and special. It’s really cool.
Lady Audio: Thank you!
Strawberry Tongue wants to thank Vibrissae for chatting with Lady Audio on this episode of Strawberry Spotlight.