Anna shares her interview with Nick and Eric
On a crisp October afternoon, hours before their show at Cabaret Music Hall, I caught up with Nick Zarin-Ackerman and Erik Ratensperger of the New York-based wonder kids The Virgins, as they took a short break from soundcheck to talk to CONFRONT about their staggering success. In town for Pop! Montreal, and opening for dance-rockers The Black Kids, The Virgins are today’s new-wave “it” band.
Besides touring relentlessly in support of their self-titled debut, which was released in June 2008, this hardworking foursome has already performed on late night TV, and had their song “Rich Girls” featured on an episode of the teen hit drama Gossip Girl. And although these guys make regular appearances in the drooling dreams of teenage girls, their egos don’t seem to have been affected. They were polite, articulate, and down-to-earth, Nick being the more talkative of the two, while Erik remained demure and reserved.
Since there was another interviewer waiting her turn after me, our conversation was kept relatively short. That’s what happens when you write songs that make a million outstretched hands brim with desire to rip your clothes off – you end up satisfying the curiosities of interviewers who fling audio recorders and familiar questions into your face. Oh, and there’s the fame, fortune, and glory part that comes with it, too, which is a nice bonus.
Anna: You guys recorded an album a couple months ago and already you have over 1.5 million profile views on your myspace. How did that happen?
Nick: We had an EP out a long while before that, so that myspace is almost 2 years old, you know, so it’s been slowly building.
Anna: After Gossip Girl was there a huge boost?
Nick: Yes. A huge boost. I mean, we don’t go anywhere in the world without somebody asking us about Gossip Girl.
Anna: Oh, really? Was that the thing that started it all for you?
Erik: That’s the thing that accelerated it.
Nick: I don’t think it started anything, but it definitely exposed our music to a lot of people that wouldn’t necessarily have heard it, so it broadened it, but I like to think that we started it ourselves. (laughs)
Anna: You know, I went to this Pop Montreal Symposium panel and it was on how bands get from point A to point B in the DIY culture. So what advice would you give to musicians on how to start and then end up to where you guys are right now?
Nick: What I tell kids in bands is that you have to basically have a DIY attitude and not try to get signed. You have to just act as if there’s no such thing as a record label and try to build as much as you can. You know, there’s so many bands and so much saturation in the media that you just have to make a noise. You have to do anything you can to get noticed, and you know if that means like burning a building down or spray painting the band’s name on cop cars… You know something…shoot a celebrity (laughs)
Anna: Is that what you guys did?
Nick: No! We didn’t do that. The singer, Donald, made a demo and just made a million copies. One of the advantages of growing up and living in New York City is that we knew a lot of people that knew a lot of people that knew a lot of people, so people really responded to the demo and got it to their friends who knew friends who knew friends that got it into the right hands, you know.
Anna: So when you guys did get signed to Atlantic was it something that you knew would happen, so it wasn’t a shock?
Nick: No, no. It was crazy, because they don’t usually do that. Donald basically conned his way into Atlantic and lied and said that he had this band that he didn’t really have, but he got the rest of us on board sort of after he was already talking to Atlantic. We all had to play catch up in secret very quickly, and, you know, become this band that he had told Atlantic existed. It was intense. We’re still doing that to some extent.
Anna: So do you feel nervous about living up to the hype?
Nick: Well, our third gig was in Paris in front of three thousand people, so the idea of jumping in the deep end, like trial by fire, is something that we’re really used to at this point. We’ve grown accustomed to being scared shitless.
Anna: Ok. I guess it pushes you creatively. Do you feel like it does?
Nick: Definitely, because we had to have a record by a certain time and we thought it was really important to distinguish ourselves as a band. We knew that if we didn’t have something really special then no one would give a shit. So we spent a lot of time to really write the best songs that we could write.
Anna: So what would you say is the most challenging thing about DIY culture?
Nick: Making money. I think whether you’re on the label or not on the label, it’s really hard for bands to make money these days. I think in the seventies and eighties the dream was, you know, to become a superstar and have your plane and a mansion in Malibu and a mansion in Miami…
Anna: And you guys don’t want that at all…
Nick: Well, I think anyone would like that, but you know, for us the dream was really: “Can we support ourselves making music?” That’s all you can really ask of the music business at this point.
Anna: Do you have day jobs or this is it?
Nick: Luckily, at the moment, we can just focus on this.
Anna: That’s incredible. What do your friends and family say about it?
Nick: They’re impressed. They’re very proud of us.
Anna: Your parents are supportive of this?
Nick: Very. More supportive than I thought they would be. They really surprised me. They were like: “Do it. You gotta do it. You can’t not do this. It’s too much of a once in a lifetime chance to not do it.”
Anna: That’s pretty unusual. Usually parents want stability…
Nick: Yeah, well, my parents are in the arts though, so they sort of get it, you know.
Anna: Ok, that’s cool. And you guys played on Conan [O'Brien]. How was that?
Nick: Um, it was terrifying for me. I always wanted to be in a band and play music and I always wanted to be successful. Even at a very young age, I remember thinking: “But I don’t wanna play on television, it’s too scary!” It seems so scary, you know.
Anna: What’s the difference between playing live on TV and just live onstage?
Nick: Well, it’s all these, what I consider to be all these famous, important people, like David Letterman, and Paul Schaeffer, and Max Weinberg, and Conan O’Brien standing there, staring at you, and being like: “Don’t mess this up.” It’s just so intense. And to have these cameras that say “NBC” on them. I was so scared, I don’t even remember doing it.
Anna: Did you guys practice a lot in front of the cameras?
Erik: They do rehearsals. They run us a handful of times before the actual taking starts.
Nick: But it’s weird because you have all day with all this anticipation, you’re all crazed and terrified, but then you go on, you play, and before you know it, it’s over. You’re outta there. It’s like waiting in a line for a really scary roller coaster, and you’re waiting and waiting, and the whole time you’re watching the roller coaster and you’re thinking: “Jesus, I don’t wanna do this, I don’t wanna do this, I don’t wanna do this,” and then you get on and then before you know it’s over, and you’re like: “Wait, did I just do that?”
Anna: So during the set are you enjoying it or are you just like: “Ok, let’s not mess this up”?
Nick: I don’t remember.
Erik: I enjoyed it. I had a blast on Conan.
Nick: I remember doing it on Letterman. I remember watching Paul Schaeffer and thinking: “Oh please, I hope he likes this!”
Anna: So is it important for you guys to receive a positive audience response? How central is that to what you do?
Nick: Well, we spent a long time touring with no record out, and we got very positive responses right from the beginning, so yeah, it’s nice when the audience is really into what we’re doing. We had a lot of support and encouragement from them, even though we hadn’t even put out a record yet.
Anna: Your song was featured on Gossip Girl, but would you ever agree to your song being used in a commercial or do you consider that to be “selling out”?
Nick: No, I wouldn’t consider it to be selling out. If they want to use our song in a car commercial, it’d be interesting for me to see how they would do that, how they would use our music to sell a car, so I would look at it from that perspective. It would be interesting for me to see from a creative point of view of how they would re-interpret our song to sell a certain product.
Anna: You probably get this question a lot, but how did you guys come up with your band name?
Nick: There wasn’t really a process to how we came up with it, it just sounded fresh and catchy, you know, like something new and original, that hasn’t been done before.
A: Alright, I know you guys are in a hurry, so thanks for taking the time to do this, and have an awesome show tonight!
Nick: Thanks a lot!
Erik: Thank you!
The Virgins have come out of left field with their bold attitude and DIY ethic, and are touring like madmen to perform to capacity crowds worldwide. Their early efforts paid off, landing them on a major label (Atlantic) and breaking them free of obligations like part-time jobs to focus solely on their musical career. They’re currently on the European leg of their tour until December 9th, with a couple shows scheduled upon their return to the US. With their catchy, glittering pop songs, stylish blend of geek-chic and Upper East Side hipster nonchalance, it’d be surprising if The Virgins didn’t experience such increasingly overwhelming mass appeal. After all, nice boys in a popular band, who wear mesh trucker hats and skinny jeans is the definition of modern day cool. And with their black leather jackets and scruffy do’s, these boys look like they’re straight out of Grease, and there’s nothing more deck than that.
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