Happy 2017 everybody! Hope everyone had a good holiday season *yadda yadda yadda*. So, The Vinyl Warhol is going to change a bit this year. We'll be focusing more on big features and interviews. I'm going to try my darndest to have a new one up every Wednesday. I'll be continuously booking interviews for every Monday, so hit me up if you want to talk.
For ORL "cool" rock kids RV, 2017 has started off right. The band just played their second show at Will's Pub, are working on their debut album (set to come out in Spring), and are set on their first tour up the east coast. I remember being blown away the first time I heard their demo -- as far as lo-fi go, no one nails it more. Then I met them and they were cool af. There's something so natural about how they present themselves that I want to be a part of it. So I met up with three of the four (Justin Burns, Sean Labree, & Camden Pink). We complimented each other's styles and shot the shit for the better part of an hour. They've got their sights set high, and I don't see anyone standing in their way. Enjoy.
matthew warhol: I didn’t do much research. You don’t have much research out there yet. I listened to the demo and I’m like, “That’s about it.” Do you only have the demo out right now?
Camden Pink (bass): We only have the demo out right now. We’re working on the album right now.
matthew warhol: And did everybody work on that?
Camden: The three of us did.
matthew warhol: So is this all of RV? Do you have a permeant drummer?
Camden: We have a permeant drummer, but he’s kind of in a … situation where he can’t play with us for a while.
Sean Labree (lead guitar): His mom is like a famous gospel singer, really like “God” and everything. She caught him with weed and now he’s not allowed to play with us. She still has full control over him.
Camden: We have Caden from Teen Baby filling in for the next few shows we have.
matthew warhol: So your drummer is grounded, currently?
Camden: That doesn’t help with the whole “high school” thing.
[laughs]
matthew warhol: So [the “you’re still in high school” thing] started with just a thing people put on the Facebook Event. That sounds like a Jason Kimmins thing, honestly.
Sean: That’s who I thought it was.
Justin Burns (vocals/guitar): No, I think it was Harryson.
matthew warhol: So, [for the record] you’re not in high school?
All: No.
matthew warhol: Are you in college?
Camden: I’m the only one in college right now. I’m going for culinary.
matthew warhol: What kind of food do you like to make?
Camden: I work in a pizza place so probably Italian. Sean works there too. We’re pizza pals. I flip ‘em; he drives ‘em.
matthew warhol: What’s the weirdest thing that’s happened in a delivery?
Sean: Some old couple tried to get me to like become their dealers. They gave me their number and I never responded, so they never ordered pizza again. I guess they thought I had ratted them out or something.
matthew warhol: How long have you known each other?
Camden: I’ve known Sean since like…
Sean: …junior year or something? And then Justin I met…
Justin: … 2014. I met Cam before Sean though. We had like a band before RV, but that just kind of stopped.
matthew warhol: That was with the three of you then? What’s with the name change?
Sean: I don’t think any of us were like, as dedicated as we are now, or really understood [what we were doing].
Camden: It definitely didn’t have the same type of sound.
matthew warhol: What did it sound like?
Camden: Kind of like… old Joyce Manor?
Sean: It was more basic surfy music.
Justin: It was wack. I don’t even think we had a band name. We had like three songs and that was it?
matthew warhol: How did you start making music together?
Sean: [Camden] showed me his singing, so I messaged him through Facebook and asked if he wanted to be in a band.
Justin: I remember [Sean] asked me if I wanted to be in a band similar to like really cheesy bands. I was just like what the fuck is this kid talking about?
Sean: I thought it was going to be a thing for me to practice guitar every day. Then we got one track that we all wrote together and we were hyped about it. So it became like the main focus. Because me and [Cam] always have written our own stuff, but just never did anything about it. Once we started working with Justin, it stuck.
matthew warhol: When was that? When did RV actually form?
Camden: That was May or April.
matthew warhol: And were you adamant about wanting to get out there really quickly?
Camden: Oh yeah. We started practicing and got like five songs and then started playing a bunch of shows.
Sean: The second we got enough songs to be enough for a set, we were just like “let’s get out there.”
matthew warhol: What um… you were talking about an album that’s being worked on. How far along is that?
Justin: It’s pretty much done. We just need like two more songs and to finish recording.
matthew warhol: When’s that coming out?
Sean: That depends on our drummer now. Because his mom is Christian, she hasn’t known about our band. He’s just like kept it a secret. And um, once she found out, she took it as a rebellious move, so like she’s kind of weird about having us over. But we’re working on it. We’re just waiting for her to back off of him.
Camden: Hopefully Spring.
matthew warhol: Are the songs on the demo going to be on the album too?
Camden: Yeah, and they’ll be redone with live drums and new tones and everything.
matthew warhol: Yeah, that demo was awesome, really fucking good demo. I remember when I was planning the show with Ugly Orange, we were talking about the Brooklyn bands coming down or whatever and were like, “We gotta get this band to play.” I hadn’t seen you at the time, but I had just heard the demo and was like, “This is cool. This is tight.”
Camden: Yeah, thank you. Really fun show too.
matthew warhol: Yeah, we want to do another one together soon. You should be on it again.
Justin: I’d like to play another Ugly Orange show. That’d be sick.
Camden: Any show at Spacebar is amazing.
Sean: They’re just so nice. And what Ugly Orange does is crazy. I don’t know how you bring the people out that you do. It’s always packed.
matthew warhol: So what’s been the best shows you’ve played?
Justin: I’m going to say… we played a house show in Gainesville with Donkng and Sad Jeremy.
Sean: We’ve played at their house twice, and they’re always great shows. We spend the night there, and a bunch of people always come through. For me, I definitely have to say the Gainesville shows and the Spacebar shows have been my favorites.
matthew warhol: I heard that house is really sweet. Weren’t they worried about the floor caving in or something? What was happening with that?
Justin: We weren’t at that show, but I had the same feeling when we played there. It’s on like a support, so all these people are jumping up and down — and it’s a pretty old house too.
Sean: Yeah, it’s a really old house. They have like crazy neighbors too. This old guy will come over and say what’s up. He’ll drop off a pizza, stuff like that.
Justin: This one guy barged in. He busted open the door and was just like freaking out.
Sean: They all seem like crackheads.
matthew warhol: At least there’s no noise complaints…
Sean: Yeah, nobody cares. This guy rushed up to and asked for 20 bucks. He told me if I gave him a $20 bill, he’d give me a $40 check that I could deposit at the end of the week.
matthew warhol: Have you played many bullshit shows?
Sean: Whenever we first started, it was mainly the idea of like… we should just get out there; play whatever shows we get hit up about. Now it’s just like, we can be a little more picky about the shows we play. We would definitely have a few nights of playing at the same place and there would be like two people there. Our set would be at 1:00 a.m. or something. But now that we’ve been playing less shows, they’ve been going pretty well. We just had a show in Deland the other day. It was outdoors…
Camden: Festodome.
matthew warhol: Oh you played that? How was it?
Sean: It was really nice. They had a keg for all the bands to get free beer all night. They had someone making fresh soup all night.
Camden: The soup was alright. It was a squash soup.
Sean: I didn’t try it. I don’t know who’s eating soup at a show.
Justin: I don’t like soup.
Camden: I would have preferred a Campbell’s chicken noodle.
Justin: Don’t tell ‘em though.
Sean: You have to say pause quote.
matthew warhol: What are you thinking for the album? Is it still going to be lo-fi? More spacey?
Justin: It’s not going to be like the demo, but it’s definitely still going to be lo-fi.
Sean: I just want to have the whole post-punk, lo-fi vibe. I don’t know, that sound is just like timeless to me. Anything that sounds classic never gets old to me. That’s my favorite type of sound and I think if there’s a band that masters that in their own way, people are gonna go like crazy about it.
matthew warhol: How’s what you’ve been listening to affecting the album?
Camden: I’d say, for my bass parts, I’m taking influence from like [old jazz standards]. I’m not writing the typical punk basslines. I think it definitely puts a different sound on it too.
Sean: Yeah, I got kind of into Bossa nova like a few months ago, learned a bunch of jazz chords and found a way to incorporate that and stuff.
[Camden & Justin laughing at Sean]
Justin: I just kind of write until something feels right. I don’t like think about something — I just kind of let it happen. If I think about it, it doesn’t come out good. That’s what I’ve come to learn about my writing process.
matthew warhol: So do you sit down and write, or just wait until something hits you?
Justin: I just kind of like… sit with my guitar for a few hours and start messing around. Then like, something will hit me; I’ll like record it really quick. With lyrics, sometimes it’ll hit me out of nowhere so I’ll write it down. But I don’t know what to use it for. Then I’ll go back and add it to something later. I like write lyrics to match the leads so it’s like kind of catchier.
Sean: I don’t know how you write like that, just sitting for hours. I like, dwell on my porch. And I’ll like smoke a bunch of weed, a few cigarettes, go inside, try and write something. If it goes bad, I’ll play it back a bunch of times, listen to it, smoke a lot more cigarettes, go back inside, write something, get happy about it, get high again, and go to sleep. That’s pretty much it.
[Camden continuously laughing at Sean.]
matthew warhol: I’m guessing the ideas that come out are different. You’re not just sitting down like, “Alright, I have to write this kind of song because this is what RV is.” So where does it become you?
Justin: It’s kind of weird, actually. I don’t think about what I want it to sound like.
Sean: It’s basically like, I play exactly what I want to hear in a song. Whenever I hear a part in a song that really gets me hyped, those are the type of things I’m trying to write. Anytime I’ve tried to forcibly write a certain type of song, it just comes out bad.