WRIF Virtual Rock Room with Venrez

Beasley Digital

yesterday

Transcript

00:00Thank you so much for watching Riff TV.

00:02Now, this interview is obviously with video, but I don't interview everybody on Zoom.

00:07That's why I put it on my Talkin' Rock with Meltdown podcast.

00:10We talk to rock artists from all over the genre.

00:13So check out Talkin' Rock with Meltdown wherever you get your podcasts.

00:16And now, to today's video interview.

00:20So I thought I had some weather issues, but, Ben, you're out there in Vegas,

00:24and your air conditioning has not shut off since, what, April?

00:26Oh, it's been on since April, that's for sure.

00:31But the setting keeps getting lower.

00:35Man, is that where you're from? Are you from Vegas?

00:38No, I'm from L.A. I'm an L.A. native.

00:42And, you know, the cost of living was just getting crazy there.

00:48Not to mention the homelessness and the crime.

00:50I felt kind of, it was pretty dangerous.

00:53Never dreamed I'd see that.

00:55You know, and that's all part, you know, a little bit of part of why I wrote the song.

01:01It's on the radio right now, each and every day.

01:04But for literally half of what I was paying for a two-bedroom apartment in a pretty decent area,

01:10you know, I got a gated, guarded 4,000-square-foot estate here in Las Vegas.

01:16So I made the move.

01:18A lot of people have, you know, Cahiro or Henderson.

01:21Yeah. Oh, yeah, Henderson.

01:23Yeah, of course, I have friends that live out there.

01:24So tell everybody a little bit about your band, like how long you guys have been around,

01:28and maybe a little bit of your history as well.

01:30Well, you know, I had kind of sung in a band when I was, like, 17 and growing up in the San Fernando Valley,

01:45which was, you know, I'm a lot older than I look.

01:50I look like I'm 45, but I'm actually 68.

01:52So, you know, they were just a bunch of rich kids that flaked out after about 90 days,

01:59and I just walked away.

02:02I mean, it just wasn't the same kind of scene as it was in Europe or London.

02:08And even Hollywood was not even close to where it was.

02:12I mean, the 70s, 60s bands were – there just wasn't a wealth of musicians to continue with.

02:19You know, flash forward to the age of 54, and a guy I was living with at the time knew a lot of famous musicians

02:30and introduced me to Jason Womack, who had been the bass player for Julia Lewis and the Licks for a number of years

02:39and helped write some of her hits, and we shook hands and decided to start a band together.

02:45That was back in, like, 2008.

02:49And around early 2010, we played a show at the Key Club,

02:57and there was a promoter there who was handling most of this European tour for Tracy Gunn's version of L.A. Gunn's at the time.

03:08And Jizzy Pearl from Love Hate was singing with them.

03:10And literally a week later, next thing I knew, I was on tour, and we did our first tour in December 2010.

03:16And we went back in June of 2011.

03:22This is Europe, UK.

03:24And then beginning in 2012, we did our first U.S. tour with Fuel.

03:29We played the Super Bowl Village show in Indianapolis.

03:33And shortly after that, I was on tour with Alice Cooper.

03:36And the next summer, I was on tour with Slash, and we put out five indie records.

03:42And finally, we got signed by Pavement Entertainment out of Chicago and put our first radio single out, you know, ever last year,

03:54which was Show Me, which hit 16 in the Billboard Top 40, which I thought was pretty good.

04:01So it's good just to know I'm about to go on tour again.

04:07COVID set us back three years.

04:09I mean, our last tour was, you know, we did a tour the last quarter of 2019.

04:17It was fabulous.

04:18We closed out as direct support to Gunn's at a huge New Year's Eve show there December 31st, 2019, to go into 2019.

04:33You're freezing up there, I'm even.

04:34We recorded about 10 really great new songs, and then, boom, everything was shut down March 17th.

04:42And, you know, coming around April of 2021, I just kind of felt like it was over.

04:49You know, I started printing off all these phonographs off my camera roll of all the tours and everything we'd done.

04:56Because we'd done a lot.

04:58We've toured with all those people, Michael Shanker, Richie Ramon.

05:03We did a lot of tours, and we're pretty well known in Europe.

05:07And we were, in 2019, really getting known in the USA.

05:11And we'd been contacted by some major labels, and boom, COVID hit.

05:17So, around April of 2021, Jason writes the music, I write the lyrics, and, you know, we record a lot of songs.

05:27I mean, we recorded over 64 demos between March of 2020 and January of this year.

05:35So, we have a few records worth of new stuff.

05:40But, we put my vocal on a demo, and I was just going to tell them I'm done.

05:48You know, I was going to be 67 in January of 2022.

05:54And I just felt like, you know, just that was God's plan.

05:59Walk away, be done.

06:01And I didn't want to be, you know, have to wait another two or three years to be where I should be now.

06:10I was really angry about it.

06:13So, when I went up to my studio, I have a studio at my house.

06:16He has one at his house.

06:18And he's got the computer where he's dropping a board mix, and I have my office computer.

06:25And I log on, and I'm dreading telling them, I think, you know, I want to walk away.

06:30Maybe we'll just get a publishing deal or something.

06:32And, boom, my email was a record contract offer from Pavement Entertainment.

06:38And that's when I thought to myself, okay, it's not over.

06:43It's just beginning.

06:44And so, that's kind of the story of it.

06:48It's, you know, we have five great indie records out, and we now have a six-song EP out.

06:54Pavement wanted to start with a six-song EP.

06:57And, like I said, the first single, Show Me, it hit number two on what was then the Secondary Market Chart Foundation.

07:07And the Billboard Top 40 BDS, it hit 16.

07:10But those charts don't exist anymore, so we're going into our third week now with our second single off the EP each and every day.

07:20Actually, Stephen Perkins from James Addiction drummed the track with us.

07:24When we had to record the EP, COVID was still a big issue, and my drummer was in France.

07:33He's a French citizen.

07:34Victor was here on a work permit, and he could only work making money doing music.

07:40So, when the shutdown came, he went back to France.

07:43And when we had to go in to record four of the six songs, he couldn't come.

07:52The French, France wouldn't let any citizens leave the country.

07:55So, I gave my friend Steve Perkins a call, Perk, you know, the drummer from Jane's Addiction.

08:02And he drummed four of the six tracks.

08:06Yeah, that's pretty cool.

08:08So, you must have made a lot of connections in Los Angeles with other musicians, right?

08:16Yeah, I sure did.

08:18Especially from going to the Dome show, you know, downtown, they had an all-star band with Scott Page.

08:26He plays saxophone for Pink Floyd.

08:28And they did this 3D visual on the dome ceiling.

08:34And this all-star band, you know, would do this whole Pink Floyd set.

08:40It was mind-blowing.

08:42And I knew the major promoters.

08:44So, I went a few times, and, you know, I got to go backstage.

08:48And that's how I met Stephen Perkins and Scott Page.

08:53And, you know, a lot of other famous musicians who would step in and be a part of that show.

09:02But, of course, you know, with COVID, that got shut down, too.

09:06So, you know, God's Plan's pretty funny.

09:09And, I mean, Stephen Perkins, I think, is one of the best rock drummers out there.

09:15I think my drummer is, too.

09:17I mean, you know, he joined the band at 25.

09:20I think he's 28, 29 now.

09:23I mean, at 26, I think Victor Singer, my drummer, was as good as Dave Grohl.

09:28But if I can't use him, I'm not going to complain about Stephen Perkins from James Attiction stepping in to fill that role.

09:36Yeah, that's for a second.

09:38I don't know about it.

09:39Yeah.

09:39So, you said—

09:40Yeah, he—go ahead.

09:42No, I was saying, you're going on tour with Buck Cherry.

09:44Do you know Josh Todd and those guys from being in Los Angeles?

09:49Yeah, you know, funny enough, back at the end of 2013, going into 2014, we did a massive Euro tour with them and Hardcore Superstar, actually.

10:05So, we did a massive six-week 28-show tour.

10:11It was a co-headline tour, Buck Cherry, Hardcore Superstar, and we were the direct support act.

10:18So, we've actually toured with all those guys before, but it's been like nine or ten years ago.

10:23And I'm looking forward to touring with them again, especially here, because it was a really good fit.

10:29It really was.

10:30Yeah, I think I've seen them three times in the last year.

10:33I saw them with Skid Row, I saw them with Kid Rock, and I saw them with Jackal just a few weeks ago.

10:38So, yeah, they get around.

10:41Yeah, they're on a massive tour.

10:42They started in May, and they're going all the way through October.

10:46And I think they have a break in November, and then they're doing the whole Western Region part of it in December.

10:56And I think Skid Row is support on that December leg.

11:04So, you know, we're on this August portion with them.

11:07And I'm really looking forward to it.

11:09I really am.

11:10I mean, I can't wait to get out there and tour again.

11:12And it's been three years, literally, since we've toured.

11:16Yeah, no doubt.

11:17So where can people find your music?

11:19You got some websites and that kind of thing?

11:23Yeah, the band is Venre, V-E-N-R-E-Z, theband.com.

11:30Our new EP, Purgatory Awaits, you can listen to it on Spotify.

11:36You can listen to it on YouTube.

11:37You know, we're on Instagram, instagram.com forward slash Venre, V-E-N-R-E-Z.

11:46And, of course, on Facebook, facebook.com forward slash Venre, V-E-N-R-E-Z.

11:53And Twitter, twitter.com forward slash V-E-N-R-E-Z, 2-1.

11:59You got all that.

12:00Okay, wait a second.

12:01You said 2-1 at the end of that one?

12:04Yeah, that's just on Twitter.

12:06Okay.

12:06Everything is forward slash Venre, even though it's spelled Venrez, V-E-N-R-E-Z.

12:12But on Twitter, we had to put 2-1 after it.

12:15So it's Venre, V-E-N-R-E-Z, 2-1, only on Twitter.

12:20All right, I'll check that out.

12:21And, of course, Evil Words, Gin, Fizz, all sorts of songs on that EP.

12:26There are some really good songs on it.

12:32But just wait for the next one.

12:35I can't wait to put out the next, I think we're just going to put out another EP, probably in February or March of next year.

12:46Show Me, of course, was the first radio single that was released.

12:52And there's a music video of it.

12:53You can go on YouTube and find Show Me by Venre.

12:58That video actually is what got Pavement interested in us.

13:03Because we had released the video prior to releasing the record.

13:09So you can see that there.

13:11Each and every day was mixed by Phenom producer and engineer Malcolm Springer, you know, who has done great, a lot of hits for a lot of big bands, such as, you know, Matchbox 20, et cetera.

13:28So Stephen Perkins actually changed the arrangement for the intro, which I love.

13:35And so between having Perk drum it and kind of change the arrangement a bit and Malcolm Springer mix it, the radio promoter, Eric Baker, felt it was the first single to release.