The Venetia Fair is an exciting theatrical rock band based out of Boston. This band is one of the most talented group of misfits that you can find; that seem to mesh together perfectly. The band consists of vocals from Benny Santoro, Mr. Chark on bass, Mike Abiuso on guitar, drummer Chris Constantino, and keys from Joe Brown. The band has a new album coming out on March 1st, Every Sick, Disgusting Thought We’ve Got In Our Brain. Check out what they had to tell us about The Venetia Fair and the upcoming album.
BS: How long has The Venetia Fair been together?
TVF: Mr. Chark and I started the band in our freshman year of college in 2007. Joe and Chris joined up in 2009 when we started touring and we picked Mike up in 2011 after our old bassist left to go to outer space.
BS: I have heard many different terms for the type of music you guys make. What would you call it?
TVF: We don’t know what we’re making or what we’re doing but it’s definitely rock music because it is very loud. Also, since we like things really big, the music is over the top and theatrical. Joe plays piano and he doesn’t play it like a pussy so that has a lot to do with what we sound like too. We don’t call it anything, but not because it’s above classification, we’re just not smart enough to know what it’s called.
BS: What made you want to include the theatrical element to your music?
TVF: We like how it sounds. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s fun without sacrificing depth.
BS: What bands have inspired you as musicians?
TVF: We’re more inspired by songs than by bands. There are a lot of bands and artists who have one song where they decided to step out of their comfort zone and write something a little weird and those are the songs that inspire us. There are also a few bands that don’t seem to have a comfort zone and those bands inspire us as well. But I’m a singer, so I’m barely a musician anyway. I’m sure the other guys have bands or artists that inspired them to pick up their instruments but I don’t know who they are.
BS: Can you walk us through a day in the life of being in The Venetia Fair?
TVF: The entire reason we’re in a band is to prevent having an answer to that question. Depending on what we’re doing (touring, writing, recording, etc) we’ll have varying degrees of routine but life always changes before we settle in too much.
BS: All of your songs show a lot of energy, how do you keep up the energy every night on tour?
TVF: We try to eat before we play if we can and sleep enough if we can. But really we just wake up hurting the next morning and do it again and again until it stops hurting.
BS: I have seen some stories about some injuries that have happened to members of the band during live shows. What is one of your live shows like for someone who has never seen it before?
TVF: A lot of stuff gets broken and we hurt ourselves a lot. We don’t hurt other people too often but like, shit happens sometimes. We spit a lot of water all over the place so if that’s weird for you, wear a raincoat or something.
BS: Are there any bands that would be a dream band for you to tour with? And why?
TVF: The B-52s because “Rock Lobster” is the only perfect song ever written.
BS: You have a great song called, “I’m Still Amazed,” what was the inspiration behind the song?
TVF: Just some chick, y’know? Just some chick…. The song is more interesting than the story, in my opinion.
BS: What type of experiences do you pull from when writing songs, or are they more fictional?
TVF: There are two types of songs I write. One is the fictional story song (like the second half of The Circus), which generally is some sort of metaphor for something in my life, and the other type of song I write is about something very specific and personal and how it made me feel. There is no in between. The story songs are usually pretty explicitly labeled as such. Anything else is just about me. I only really write about me.
BS: One of your most popular videos is for “The Ringleader”, what was making that video like?
TVF: It was a brutal day. It was like 103 degrees and some of us were dressed in a lot of clothes and we were just breathing in all sorts of kicked up dirt from those train tracks and puking it up between takes. The director, Greg Ephraim, was a lunatic in the best way and force-marched us onto football fields and into grocery stores to just cause a ridiculous scene. We didn’t know we were going to be doing any of that until we were just doing it. Nothing was planned really; we just followed his direction and crossed our fingers that he knew what he was doing. It came out awesome. He crushed it. We had very little to do with it.
BS: There is news of a new album coming out later this year, what can you tell us about it?
TVF: It’s 13 of the best songs we’ve ever written. Steve Sopchak at The Square Studio in Syracuse is our man ’til death since The Pits came out so good so we worked with him again. It’s bigger than anything we’ve ever done. We tracked all sorts of horns and strings and percussion and it really is just a massive beast of an album but with a real focus on making each song stand strong on its own. It’s good.
BS: You exceeded your goals in the Kickstarter campaign for this album, what can you tell us about the campaign?
TVF: We had no idea what sort of support we’d be able to raise and we were really blown away with how our fans came through for us. We worked really hard to make sure to reward people for buying stuff that wasn’t going to be coming for a long time so we offered big deals and unique products and services. We wanted people to think of it more as a preorder than a charity and I think that had a lot to do with the project’s success.
BS: How does it feel to know that you have so much support from your fans?
TVF: Our fans are insane and weird and awesome and are really the only people who get us. A lot of bands say cutesy, bull-shitty things and watch their fans swoon but we tell our fans to go fuck themselves because that’s how we interact with our friends. They totally get it, too, because they come right back and tell us to go fuck ourselves. It’s a beautiful thing. They know we care about them and are forever appreciative that they give a shit about the music we make and we know that they appreciate what we do. We both just express it by calling each other pussies.
BS: Anything else you would like to say to your fans?
TVF: Go fuck yourselves, pussies <3
Check out the new single Here
Check out the review for the new album Here
Show the band some love: Facebook/Twitter
Subscribe and connect with us here for more great interviews: Facebook/Twitter
