The Vacancies are a punk rock maelstrom. Singing about fear, pain and survival, their sound is a mix of Hot Water Music and the Dead Kennedys. The band -- Billy Crooked (vocals), Michael James (guitar), Bo (bass), Dave Long (guitar), Kevin Hopkins (drums) -- formed in 1999 and is made up of five guys between 21 and 34-years-old who grew up listening to the Clash. By day they work odd jobs in the city, but by night they deal out a smarmy and sweaty punk-fuckin-rock show. Their sophomore record Tantrum was released Spring 2007 on Joan Jetts Blackheart Records and the band is hitting the road with the Tossers in September. I caught up with them at a dinner table in the basement of the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland and talked to them about punk rock, hot sauce and Joan Jett still being sexy.
Mike Hammer: How does the hot sauce help you get ready for a show? Is that on your rider? Is there a pre show hot sauce ritual?
Vacancies: I wish there was. This is the pre show ritual (points to beer).
MH: How many beers before youre ready to do a show.
Vacancies: Its usually about three; three is a good number.
MH: Ok. So you get buzzed and get up there and play. You got your pretty straight forward punk rock, rock and roll sound, I used to have a friend who said rock n roll and punk is just the blues sped up, what do you think about that?
Vacancies: Yeah. Thats safe to say. Theres a combination of blues and 50s rock and. blues is the roots, then theres rock and roll and it branches off to punk and everything else. Its all related. Punk is just regular old rock-n-roll tunes, done a little faster and maybe a little sloppier. I guess cause were not as good as musicians. We sing about the same things, the same attitudes, just sped up.
MH: What are the best songs about?
Vacancies: We dont really sing any love songs. The best ones nowadays are just about being down and out and feeling good about not always having good things happen. We have always kinda tried, not tried, but its always worked out where we took something negative and tried to turn something around and make something positive out of it I guess, more so on the last album (Beat Missing or a Silence Added) our last had a lot of positive message to it. It pointed out things that we thought were wrong and singing about trying to rise above it. But this record is along the same lines. We just sing about stuff that we think is lame and stuff that pisses us off and were just regular dudes that work jobs and see a bunch of crap thats going on that we dont like, so what else is there to sing about?
MH: You ever sit down and try to write a love song?
Vacancies: Well, a lot of us are married.
MH: What? You cant write love songs if youre married?
Vacancies: I feel that if you sit down and try to write a love song its gonna come out like crap. Yeah, you gotta feel it. A good song, that you feel, I think we all think so, comes out like a fart. Just comes out and youre like, Look guys, this just popped in my head. We usually feel too, that if you have to work on it, it might not be a good song. Although, sometimes it does work out so were constantly contradicting ourselves. I think a lot of the songs that we get excited about are when somebody brings something to the table and we all jump on it. You kinda know. Everybody just kinda looks at each other and we smile.
MH: How often do you guys practice. Youre all in the same area and you all work other jobs, what is it, two or three times a week you get together in somebodys basement?
Vacancies: Twice a week for eight years. We still screw up though. Unfortunately we dont have a basement to practice in so we rent a space, but we share it with some other bands so its not too expensive. But yeah, you gotta practice. Its kinda like a little tree fort that we get together and hide out in a way for a couple hours. We put the no girls allowed sign up.
MH: I thought punk rock bands wanted the girls to come out? What do punk rock bands want?
Vacancies: Beer. When three of the five members are married then woah, lets go back to your first question. This guy (Dave) wants to put hot sauce on titties.
MH: Alright, The new album Tantrum just came out a month ago, hows that doing so far?
Vacancies: We have no idea. We are the most nave business people youll ever meet.
MH: Cant you get weekly updates from the label or something?
Vacancies: No, no. It got good reviews. So far weve gotten good feedback but I couldnt tell you if its sold 50 or 5,000. Were just happy that somebody wanted to give us money to put a record out. Honestly, I dont care if it sells or not. We would be putting it out ourselves if somebody didnt help us out. So its just a great way to get our records out and not have to dig into our own pockets.
MH: Is it the ultimate validation that you guys can play music well enough, with three beers in you, that Joan Jett wanted to sign you and pay you to record your stuff.
Vacancies: Thats really what its all about. This is a fun thing that we would do no matter what. I always say some people build model airplanes, we play in a rock band. Its just what we do cause its what we wanna do. Its a big kick and its a good chance to get out of the house, drink some beers and tour around the country. If we could make a few dollars in the process for gas money to get to the next spot, thatd be nice. It got a little more fun when Joan Jet said, Hey we wanna put out your record. We got to do a lot more things, but overall thats really what its about. As long as we can get some free beer out of it and play some shows. Really its about playing live and then making records. Above and beyond that its just extra bonus. As long as we can play shows and we can make a record, especially when we have somebody who is gonna put it out for us, we feel pretty lucky I guess, just to have that.
MH: How did it come about that you got signed to Blackheart?
Vacancies: We played a couple shows with Joan and the Blackhearts and the second time we played with her she said, Would you guys be interested in doing your next record with Blackheart? It was a no-brainer. Just like, yeah, of course. I grew up a fan of Joan Jett and it was awesome to meet her and play with her and to have someone like that offer to work with us was an honor.
MH: Were you guys kissing ass a lot at that second show. Playing some Joan Jett covers to get on her good side and stuff?
Vacancies No. Somebody we know, a friend of ours, sent our first record to her. She was playing a show in Sandusky, to try to get us to open the show. And she usually doesnt have opening bands and they called us up and said, Joan likes the record come on out and do the show and at that show they asked us to do another show and she asked us to put a record out. And we were like, Fuck yeah dude. Anytime you can hang out with Joan Jett in New York, thats something I can tell my kids about.
MH: So you recorded the album in New York?
Vacancies: The last one (Beat Missing or a Silence Added) but this one we recorded at home, the new record, Tantrum.
MH: Is Joan Jett still hot?
Vacancies: Totally cute.
MH: You guys have been around eight years or so, but shes been around a lot longer, did she give you guys any advice as a young band? How to go about yourselves?
Vacancies: Not so much on a business side. But, she did from day 1, it was always about dont drink too much and you should probably quit smoking if you want your voice to improve. I dont know if that woulda been her advice 20 years ago, but she takes the business very seriously. Being the best you can be live, and she is, shes awesome live, incredible. She was really courteous to the point of like, when youre there and youre nervous and you dont know how to react, she was like, These are important songs, youre saying stuff that people arent saying to often anymore. She was encouraging and I think thats what she added to our band. Not, just go through the motions, but be passionate about it, cause shes passionate about it and I think thats what she added to us. And she, she coulda stopped years ago if she wanted to, but she put out another record last year, shes still doing it.
MH: OK. So Joan was in the studio and produced your album.
Vacancies: Yeah, the last one, Beat Missing or a Silence Added .
MH: Who recorded the new one Tantrum?
Vacancies: We did. Joan kinda gave us the go ahead to do it ourselves.
MH: How was that different?
Vacancies: When we did the New York one we recorded in like six days. We did 16 songs and it was nerves and energy and it was, Lets try this, now this, lets do this again. We were hectic and I think it came across, as a really aggressive record. This one we did at home so we could spend more time on it. We worked our jobs during the day and went to the studio at night. We took more time with it, so it wasnt just boomboomboomboomboom, we recorded it a little differently. I dont know if it was just better, it was just different.
MH: So, the songs, do you feel like your delivering and saying something new and something relevant on the new album?
Vacancies: I dont know if its anything new, new ideas, its more like, I think its relevant. I think were saying something thats important. We have songs about poverty which is kinda a big deal right now especially in Cleveland we have some anti-racism songs, just anti-hate songs cause it seems like everybody hates each other still and were supposed to be growing and being better as a population, and at times it doesnt seem like we are and I think weve got better as song writers. I think a bunch of bands come out and you always remember that first record as the great one and I like to think that weve gotten progressively better and that Tantrum is our best one, and it makes me kinda excited to see whats gonna happen next. Basically we used to suck pretty bad and now were OK.
MH: Punk rock overall. Is it getting better? Theres a lot of pop punk now but it doesnt seem like there as many straight punk bands, what do you guys, as a punk band, think of the punk scene and where it fits in with the whole musical landscape.
Vacancies: As far as the scene goes, Im a little scared right now. We just got back from playing the Warped Tour and it broke my heart to see the direction that that Warped Tours going. We were standing out there with stickers and looking for t-shirts of people walking through the gates, trying to get anyone who is real punk rock fans over to come see us play and we would look for Clash shirts and stuff and out of thousands of kids, it was hard to find a punk rocker. And it was the Warped Tour. It just blew my mind. The types of music that were fans of, that style, is not a real popular thing right now. It was in the early 90s or whatever, but its not now and it makes it hard for a band like us to play what we like playing. It would be easy for us to jump on any sort of bandwagon and probably get signed with a major and get on the radio very easily and make money and actually get a tour bus, but thats not why anybody should be in a band. I think we are just getting older too. And when your parents used to say, What is that crap youre listening to? Were doing that now. Like, What is this crap these kids like? You cant really knock it because kids are lovin it. There are a lot of talented bands out there, but its just not necessarily what were into. We are older now and the stuff that we grew up with is what we like.
There are bands that are new and are great too, were friends with The Vandals, that bands still doing it. Against Me! is a great band -- there are still bands that are popping up that are great but there just arent as many. Theres not as much an audience for that. But, trends happen and people will get tired of stuff and we wanna be that band that kids graduate to. We wanna be that band that kids take seriously after the trends are over. Right now its really scary times right now locally and everywhere, we tend to have the pop music push because its lighthearted and you can listen to it and not think about anything, but during all this theres an underbelly thats growing and there are gonna be bands thatll come around full circle, bands that give you something to think about. We might not be part of it, but theyll be there.
MH: Are you guys going on tour now to get out the new record and spread the punk rock?
Vacancies: In September. East Coast and Mid West tour with a band called the Tossers -- theyre kinda like Flogging Molly. Theyre Chicago dudes.
MH: And thats for a couple weeks.
Vacancies: Yeah. Then after that we dont know whats going on we just kinda going one day at a time. Hopefully well put out another record
MH: You guys just gonna walk around in Cleveland and see if you see some more sad things to write songs about.
Vacancies: Youve got to live life to write a song. You cant write about TV shows.
For more information go to www.thevacanciesmusic.com
Mike Hammer: How does the hot sauce help you get ready for a show? Is that on your rider? Is there a pre show hot sauce ritual?
Vacancies: I wish there was. This is the pre show ritual (points to beer).
MH: How many beers before youre ready to do a show.
Vacancies: Its usually about three; three is a good number.
MH: Ok. So you get buzzed and get up there and play. You got your pretty straight forward punk rock, rock and roll sound, I used to have a friend who said rock n roll and punk is just the blues sped up, what do you think about that?
Vacancies: Yeah. Thats safe to say. Theres a combination of blues and 50s rock and. blues is the roots, then theres rock and roll and it branches off to punk and everything else. Its all related. Punk is just regular old rock-n-roll tunes, done a little faster and maybe a little sloppier. I guess cause were not as good as musicians. We sing about the same things, the same attitudes, just sped up.
MH: What are the best songs about?
Vacancies: We dont really sing any love songs. The best ones nowadays are just about being down and out and feeling good about not always having good things happen. We have always kinda tried, not tried, but its always worked out where we took something negative and tried to turn something around and make something positive out of it I guess, more so on the last album (Beat Missing or a Silence Added) our last had a lot of positive message to it. It pointed out things that we thought were wrong and singing about trying to rise above it. But this record is along the same lines. We just sing about stuff that we think is lame and stuff that pisses us off and were just regular dudes that work jobs and see a bunch of crap thats going on that we dont like, so what else is there to sing about?
MH: You ever sit down and try to write a love song?
Vacancies: Well, a lot of us are married.
MH: What? You cant write love songs if youre married?
Vacancies: I feel that if you sit down and try to write a love song its gonna come out like crap. Yeah, you gotta feel it. A good song, that you feel, I think we all think so, comes out like a fart. Just comes out and youre like, Look guys, this just popped in my head. We usually feel too, that if you have to work on it, it might not be a good song. Although, sometimes it does work out so were constantly contradicting ourselves. I think a lot of the songs that we get excited about are when somebody brings something to the table and we all jump on it. You kinda know. Everybody just kinda looks at each other and we smile.
MH: How often do you guys practice. Youre all in the same area and you all work other jobs, what is it, two or three times a week you get together in somebodys basement?
Vacancies: Twice a week for eight years. We still screw up though. Unfortunately we dont have a basement to practice in so we rent a space, but we share it with some other bands so its not too expensive. But yeah, you gotta practice. Its kinda like a little tree fort that we get together and hide out in a way for a couple hours. We put the no girls allowed sign up.
MH: I thought punk rock bands wanted the girls to come out? What do punk rock bands want?
Vacancies: Beer. When three of the five members are married then woah, lets go back to your first question. This guy (Dave) wants to put hot sauce on titties.
MH: Alright, The new album Tantrum just came out a month ago, hows that doing so far?
Vacancies: We have no idea. We are the most nave business people youll ever meet.
MH: Cant you get weekly updates from the label or something?
Vacancies: No, no. It got good reviews. So far weve gotten good feedback but I couldnt tell you if its sold 50 or 5,000. Were just happy that somebody wanted to give us money to put a record out. Honestly, I dont care if it sells or not. We would be putting it out ourselves if somebody didnt help us out. So its just a great way to get our records out and not have to dig into our own pockets.
MH: Is it the ultimate validation that you guys can play music well enough, with three beers in you, that Joan Jett wanted to sign you and pay you to record your stuff.
Vacancies: Thats really what its all about. This is a fun thing that we would do no matter what. I always say some people build model airplanes, we play in a rock band. Its just what we do cause its what we wanna do. Its a big kick and its a good chance to get out of the house, drink some beers and tour around the country. If we could make a few dollars in the process for gas money to get to the next spot, thatd be nice. It got a little more fun when Joan Jet said, Hey we wanna put out your record. We got to do a lot more things, but overall thats really what its about. As long as we can get some free beer out of it and play some shows. Really its about playing live and then making records. Above and beyond that its just extra bonus. As long as we can play shows and we can make a record, especially when we have somebody who is gonna put it out for us, we feel pretty lucky I guess, just to have that.
MH: How did it come about that you got signed to Blackheart?
Vacancies: We played a couple shows with Joan and the Blackhearts and the second time we played with her she said, Would you guys be interested in doing your next record with Blackheart? It was a no-brainer. Just like, yeah, of course. I grew up a fan of Joan Jett and it was awesome to meet her and play with her and to have someone like that offer to work with us was an honor.
MH: Were you guys kissing ass a lot at that second show. Playing some Joan Jett covers to get on her good side and stuff?
Vacancies No. Somebody we know, a friend of ours, sent our first record to her. She was playing a show in Sandusky, to try to get us to open the show. And she usually doesnt have opening bands and they called us up and said, Joan likes the record come on out and do the show and at that show they asked us to do another show and she asked us to put a record out. And we were like, Fuck yeah dude. Anytime you can hang out with Joan Jett in New York, thats something I can tell my kids about.
MH: So you recorded the album in New York?
Vacancies: The last one (Beat Missing or a Silence Added) but this one we recorded at home, the new record, Tantrum.
MH: Is Joan Jett still hot?
Vacancies: Totally cute.
MH: You guys have been around eight years or so, but shes been around a lot longer, did she give you guys any advice as a young band? How to go about yourselves?
Vacancies: Not so much on a business side. But, she did from day 1, it was always about dont drink too much and you should probably quit smoking if you want your voice to improve. I dont know if that woulda been her advice 20 years ago, but she takes the business very seriously. Being the best you can be live, and she is, shes awesome live, incredible. She was really courteous to the point of like, when youre there and youre nervous and you dont know how to react, she was like, These are important songs, youre saying stuff that people arent saying to often anymore. She was encouraging and I think thats what she added to our band. Not, just go through the motions, but be passionate about it, cause shes passionate about it and I think thats what she added to us. And she, she coulda stopped years ago if she wanted to, but she put out another record last year, shes still doing it.
MH: OK. So Joan was in the studio and produced your album.
Vacancies: Yeah, the last one, Beat Missing or a Silence Added .
MH: Who recorded the new one Tantrum?
Vacancies: We did. Joan kinda gave us the go ahead to do it ourselves.
MH: How was that different?
Vacancies: When we did the New York one we recorded in like six days. We did 16 songs and it was nerves and energy and it was, Lets try this, now this, lets do this again. We were hectic and I think it came across, as a really aggressive record. This one we did at home so we could spend more time on it. We worked our jobs during the day and went to the studio at night. We took more time with it, so it wasnt just boomboomboomboomboom, we recorded it a little differently. I dont know if it was just better, it was just different.
MH: So, the songs, do you feel like your delivering and saying something new and something relevant on the new album?
Vacancies: I dont know if its anything new, new ideas, its more like, I think its relevant. I think were saying something thats important. We have songs about poverty which is kinda a big deal right now especially in Cleveland we have some anti-racism songs, just anti-hate songs cause it seems like everybody hates each other still and were supposed to be growing and being better as a population, and at times it doesnt seem like we are and I think weve got better as song writers. I think a bunch of bands come out and you always remember that first record as the great one and I like to think that weve gotten progressively better and that Tantrum is our best one, and it makes me kinda excited to see whats gonna happen next. Basically we used to suck pretty bad and now were OK.
MH: Punk rock overall. Is it getting better? Theres a lot of pop punk now but it doesnt seem like there as many straight punk bands, what do you guys, as a punk band, think of the punk scene and where it fits in with the whole musical landscape.
Vacancies: As far as the scene goes, Im a little scared right now. We just got back from playing the Warped Tour and it broke my heart to see the direction that that Warped Tours going. We were standing out there with stickers and looking for t-shirts of people walking through the gates, trying to get anyone who is real punk rock fans over to come see us play and we would look for Clash shirts and stuff and out of thousands of kids, it was hard to find a punk rocker. And it was the Warped Tour. It just blew my mind. The types of music that were fans of, that style, is not a real popular thing right now. It was in the early 90s or whatever, but its not now and it makes it hard for a band like us to play what we like playing. It would be easy for us to jump on any sort of bandwagon and probably get signed with a major and get on the radio very easily and make money and actually get a tour bus, but thats not why anybody should be in a band. I think we are just getting older too. And when your parents used to say, What is that crap youre listening to? Were doing that now. Like, What is this crap these kids like? You cant really knock it because kids are lovin it. There are a lot of talented bands out there, but its just not necessarily what were into. We are older now and the stuff that we grew up with is what we like.
There are bands that are new and are great too, were friends with The Vandals, that bands still doing it. Against Me! is a great band -- there are still bands that are popping up that are great but there just arent as many. Theres not as much an audience for that. But, trends happen and people will get tired of stuff and we wanna be that band that kids graduate to. We wanna be that band that kids take seriously after the trends are over. Right now its really scary times right now locally and everywhere, we tend to have the pop music push because its lighthearted and you can listen to it and not think about anything, but during all this theres an underbelly thats growing and there are gonna be bands thatll come around full circle, bands that give you something to think about. We might not be part of it, but theyll be there.
MH: Are you guys going on tour now to get out the new record and spread the punk rock?
Vacancies: In September. East Coast and Mid West tour with a band called the Tossers -- theyre kinda like Flogging Molly. Theyre Chicago dudes.
MH: And thats for a couple weeks.
Vacancies: Yeah. Then after that we dont know whats going on we just kinda going one day at a time. Hopefully well put out another record
MH: You guys just gonna walk around in Cleveland and see if you see some more sad things to write songs about.
Vacancies: Youve got to live life to write a song. You cant write about TV shows.
For more information go to www.thevacanciesmusic.com
zoetica:
The Vacancies are a punk rock maelstrom. Singing about fear, pain and survival, their sound is a mix of Hot Water Music and the Dead Kennedys. The band -- Billy Crooked (vocals), Michael James (guitar), Bo (bass), Dave Long (guitar), Kevin Hopkins (drums) -- formed in 1999 and is made up of five guys...