Eric Victorino – Your Next Substitute Teacher
January 28th, 2009 - Written by Angel
I’ve been sitting in front of a blank Word Document for most of the morning, wondering how to get this article started; my writer’s block due not to a lack of information, but rather a fear of not doing the material and its subject justice.
Few people intimidate me intellectually but singer / songwriter / artist / author, Eric Victorino, is one of them. Maybe intimidate is the wrong word… impress me into open-mouthed wonder is probably more accurate. One need only read a few random snippets of his 9,233 (and growing) word, MySpace ‘About Me’ section, to understand just how profound and sharing this Campbell, California, native is with his audience.
The roughly fifteen page treatise is a direct line to the artist’s mind and views of self and world, with a healthy dose of wit and humour added for flavour.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again – because I’m not above being vain: I consider myself to be of above average acumen most of the time; but there are those who blow my mind with their genius. Ironically, it’s the people I tend to disagree with on major topics (religion, politics, philosophy) that have the most impact in that way. I like to be challenged and made to question my stance, if only to reaffirm it and not get lazy in my beliefs. Reading one of Eric’s works – be it his MySpace, his books of poetry, or even lyrics written during his time with Strata and his new musical project, The Limousines – is the mental equivalent of reorganizing your closet, if you’re into that sort of thing: assess, sort, purge, add and put away.
I first discovered Eric’s artistry through the music of Strata when I was asked to review the band’s sophomore release, ‘Strata Presents the End of the World’, back in 2007; the lyrics of which really stuck with me. As such, I began my interview by asking him to give me a brief run-through of his musical journey to date – his answer being but a glimpse into his fourth-coming and honest views to come.
“Umm. Well, I started playing music in the garage of the house I grew up in. I played guitar. Didn’t know any chords so I just kinda made a bunch of noise and tried to play melodies one string at a time; as long as it was really loud the other kids didn’t seem to care that it was god awful. It was two girls named Myla and Andrea. We called our band Marvin. We made crazy water bongs out of aquarium tubes and Alhambra jugs. I had a huge crush on Myla and when my best friend started fucking her at my house before band practice the whole thing kinda fell apart. He had a huge dick, I couldn’t compete.
“I started writing lyrics around then, age 15, but wouldn’t ever try to sing until I was about 18 when I joined a band of kids that were 15 and 16 and we called ourselves Enertia. We were a horrible pearl jam rip off. We were Creed before Creed was Creed. We played like 4 shows and started wondering why we hadn’t been signed yet… Mr. Big’s limo hadn’t pulled up yet, to whisk us off to rock stardom.
“Downside started in 1999 with just me and Ryan Hernandez, the full band was together by 2000 and we had already been kicked out of enough practice places to end the average local band career. We played a bunch of shows, got managers, got sued by managers, got production deals, got sued by producers, went on tour, recorded albums, got a record deal, got on mtv, got on the radio, went to a bunch of states and made videos in foreign countries. Then I realized I was putting my whole life second to this band I was bored to death with. (…) While Strata was in England recording what would be the last album, my mom was home in CA fighting cancer. I was scared she’d die and I wrote a song about it. It was the most honest and painful thing I had ever written and when it was done, when the album track list was being decided, I was outvoted by the label and the rest of the band because they thought my song was cheesy. So I decided I was going to quit the band and do a different kind of project where nobody could tell me which songs were good enough to put out…”
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