Viva, Viva Voce!

We catch up with husband and wife team Viva Voce in the middle of the Bandwagon tour. This particular day was hectic to say the least, with endless interviews and just about managing to squeeze in a soundcheck. ”We did our little MTV interview on camera. That was fun! We went to some dude’s dorm room that we don’t know and answered some questions,” begins Anita Robinson.  “They got us to go to this guys place where we were going to do the interview, they were going to film it but it wasn’t trashy enough so MTV had to trash it in order make it look like it was real party and studenty”, says husband Kevin with a laugh.

Unlike many other artists who require an entourage big enough to call a small country, Viva Voce are doing everything themselves thon this tour, which as anyone can imagine can add to the already high pressure of being in a band. “It is intense, good and bad,” says Kevin.  “We’ve seen nine different countries together and we’ve done all kinds. We’ve shared experiences that most people will never have in their entire lives in a short amount of time. But on the same side, we have to bear the burden of a lot stress. I warn you on a tour especially like this over here, it’s beautiful and it’s a great chance for an American to be in the UK, but it’s a lot of responsibility and you have to bear that every night”. 

Not that this is any different to any other married couple working and having to spend a lot of time together as he points out. “It’s just to our benefit that this is what we’ve chosen to do and this is how we pay our bills and that sort of thing. It just so happens that we like playing music and performing and it’s our job. The fact that we get to go to our job together is no different than like if a husband or wife ran a clothing store and they were around each other all day. It’s the same kind of thing, having to work together. It’s not that weird. There’s couples that run convenient stores, restaurants, they run everything.”  “It’s a lot harder being in a band with your sibling like I was in a band with my brother, well we both were, in a bands with older brothers and I fought and yelled with my brother constantly,” adds Anita.

The couple met at a gig and it seems that the move to a musical partnership was an inevitable one. “We met each other at a concert. I think that even if she wasn’t into music, I’d date her still. We thoroughly connected, regardless. I didn’t know that she played guitar when I first met her, I just thought she was pretty good looking. Since we both had that interest, it was natural for us. We hung out until one and played music together“, explains Kevin. “We’ve been playing music ever since we’ve known each other so we really don’t know anything else”, continues Anita.   

Kevin and Anita are both from Alabama originally, a rural area in America where some households don’t have electricity or running water. “The food is great. The people are good too, really eccentric and that’s one of the things I loved about it”, says Kevin on growing up in the South. “One of the down sides to being where we were in central Alabama,  it’s kind of land locked, central America, and it gets real insular to where you don’t really have a proper perspective of the rest of the world to be honest because you’re completely surrounded by this huge country.  So when you hear on the news that something happening in this country you really can’t relate to it. I hope that when we have children that we can help them understand that that travelling helped get a good deal get my world perspective on things.”  

They made the move further north to Portland in 2001 as Anita explains. “We knew that we were gonna move around and see different parts of the US.  While we were on tour we had played there and made some friends there and it’s beautiful, invigorating, and these huge deep green forests, and there’s mountain’s and the ocean is close by. The ocean is like the ocean in southern England, really rough, and grey with big huge stones down the ocean, it’s menacing and it’s like wild and beautiful. So we really fell in love with that and it’s been really good to us. I mean it seems like it inspires our songwriting. It’s a little bit remote. You have to cross the mountains if you want to get to the other parts of the country.”

While Alabama had very little live shows, people would literally risk their lives to catch a gig in Portland. One particular home town gig was in January, during a snow storm. “I called the club and I was like ‘surely they’re going to cancel it?’ I didn’t know if anybody was going to be there, but she was like ‘if you show up there’ll be a show.’ And so sure enough we came down and the other bands came. We skid and slid the whole way and stuff and we got there and it was almost full of people. In fact here was a band of people who drove 8 hours in the snow to come see us play from Idaho.”

And the end of the day, like any other married couple the Robinsons just want to come home to a peaceful quiet life as Kevin reveals, “I really the recording aspect of it. That’s probably my favourite period of time when we quit doing this and go home, shut the door, cook food and just write and record, pat the cat and just be normal.“