NEWSLETTER

When I was studying at Chelsea College of Art in 2001 I always wanted to put a band together but never found the right people to do it.

Eventually a friend of mine called Neil started making instruments out of cardboard and wood. We had a double bass made out of a piece of ply with a microphone behind it with actual string for strings. He then made a cardboard drum kit which had a tin of baked beans incorporated into it.

That gig in the cardboard band was in April 2002. Later, in December 2002, my band The Vincents had our first ever gig with real instruments. That was a three-piece. At the time, me and my mate Charlie were sharing a flat above a smoked salmon seller in Voss Street in Bethnal Green. We built a wall to make two bedrooms and turned it into this little hovel. I got a job serving pints in a pub called The Ten Bells.

They had a really shit jazz duo there on Tuesday nights. I asked if they wanted to shake things up a bit and they agreed. We wrote our own songs which could be described as Dion And The Belmonts meets Richard Hell & The Voidoids. We generally disturbed people every Tuesday night.

We played a few times there and also at the St. Moritz Club in Wardour Street where John Mayall’s son Gaz had his Rock & Blues night. We used to play Eddie Cochrane, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry songs. I was also listening to Jonathan Richman and Johnny Thunders and wanted to make music that sounded like that as well, so that’s what I did. Now because we made rock in a traditional style and I had a quiff at the time, people started calling us rockabilly but that just makes me angry.

I see rockabilly as an American style thing. I consider this band to be totally British. I like the struggle of doing what I’m doing. Scraping by, living on dreams, living in this country. I don’t sing in some crappy mid-Atlantic accent. I sing from my guts.

Now, we had some member problems with my original co-singer but now we’ve got a steady line-up and I’m just all consumed by the band really. Over the past two years it’s taken over my life. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love coming up with ideas with the band, making a model of the band out of bits of cardboard and tape that I’m painting. I’ll maybe use that for the website, www.vincentvincentandthevillains.com

I haven’t got much money. But fuck it.

VINCENT VINCENT
Vincent Vincent & The Villains have a single coming out on Young & Lost Records in January.

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