Vincent Minor

For the kids at home, describe your new EP, Born in the Wrong Era (released May 26th on Social Science Recordings.) Preferably in the form of an analogy, similie or metaphor. For example: “If the sugarcubes in your kitchen escaped from the cupboards, hitchhiked to New York and put on a heartfelt Broadway musical, it would sound like Born in the Wrong Era.”

Vincent Minor: It’s like being the right person in the wrong time. It’s like exploring pockets of times and periods of interdimensional emotion through Formula 1 racing and somehow stringing them together in congruity. A museum of artifacts in your head.

What song(s) are you most proud of off the EP and why?

Vincent:That’s hard to say! They each have a special place in my cheesy heart. Well it just depends on my mood too, at times I found myself listening and playing “Late Night Show” the most to friends probably because of the energy behind it. I guess it’s probably one of the more catchy ones too but then sometimes I really love the dark comedy of “Friday The Thirteenth” and the somber “A Plane Grave”. But it’s a toughy to actually say I have a favorite because they were created by a genius. Ok maybe more of a dork!

How much of an influence do you think your producer Tom Biller had on the album’s overall sound? Also, why did you decide to use him as your producer, and do you feel like the Vincent Minor sound and the Tom Biller touch meshed well together in the studio?

Vincent: I feel like it’s much more of a collaboration between us. I’ll play the song for him on the piano and then we start bringing in musicians and friends to play their parts and it becomes this amalgamation of different people’s ideas and emotions. My songs were all based from the piano but some of them come out completely different than what I expected them to sound like. It’s that freedom you have in the studio to experiment and try on new sonic outfits and personalities!

You said in a post on your MySpace blog that the album is dedicated to a cousin of yours who passed away due to a heroin overdose, but that Born in the Wrong Era isn’t meant to be a “sympathy album.” Care to elaborate on both your cousin and the un-sympathy of the EP?

Vincent: Well my cousin Danny had been addicted to heroin in his mid teens and in and out of rehabs. We weren’t very close since he lived on the east coast and me the west but a couple years back his parents had sent him to a rehab center out here and afterwards he was staying at my parents house and doing really well, I got to know him a bit better and understood him. Well he eventually went back to the east coast and fell back into habits and connected back with the wrong people and the vicious cycle happened so fast, a near death experience that he didn’t learn from and repeated it again which resulted in his not being here anymore. Heroin is one of the toughest things to quit as everyone knows, it’s just so sad that it took him at 19. Well I started to write this title track which started out completely different in the writing process and I felt like I was having this inner dialogue with him one night through the piano. The song process had it’s angry moments but was ultimately a conversation, I didn’t want it to be sympathetic and sappy eulogy but something more real.

Your pre-Born in the Wrong Era days seem to be shrouded in mystery. Is this your first release under the Vincent Minor moniker?

Vincent:Well well! Maybe I shan’t tell you and keep it all a mystery! Shan’t, what am I British now?

I had made a couple albums under the Michael Mangia moniker of which my friends still call me. I keep trying to convince them that they have to forget who I was and come to terms with my new identity and stop calling me Michael! No I’m happily still Michael but I wanted to create a new era for myself as an artist. I was feeling a bit stagnant with Michael Mangia.

I know this is such an old hat kind of question, but I’m fascinated by the music that musicians listen to. So, what albums/bands/artists etc. are you currently drooling over?

Vincent:I’ve been listening a lot more to electronic music lately which I wouldn’t be surprised if I made an electronic album in the near future. Some of those rotating in my iTunes: of Montreal, Fever Ray and The Knife, Micachu, Caribou and all them hipster bands. But then I also listen a lot to melodic sing songwriter composers like Andrew Bird, Beirut, Patrick Watson, Jenny Lewis, M.Ward and so forth. I just listen to so much music that my list could go on forever. But these artists are all on rotation here in my head.

Will you be heading out on a whirlwind tour soon? Possibly making your way up to Canada, hmm? (Insert overzealous grin here.)

Vincent:I’ve never been to Canada actually, hook me up with a show out there and I’ll come! I don’t have big plans for a long national tour yet perhaps just some performances in select cities for this EP until the full release comes out, then probably a wider tour.

Finally, if you were a singing animal, which would you be?

Vincent:I’d be the throat of a loon.

For more Vincent Minor,
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/vincentminor