Little Rebellion Music

Music City is home to an extremely diverse community of musicians. While it is known as country music HQ, there are many artist here creating music far beyond the confines of traditional Music Row sounds. One such band is Vitek, a group of wonderfully creative young musicians who impressed me with their professional approach. Describing their earlier sound as ‘modern gypsy love rock,’ the quintet is unafraid of experimenting and allowing their music to evolve. Earlier this year, they released a bold, multi-faceted album, Kaleidoscope, a collection of intelligent songs with some surprising subjects. The band is already making plans for their next project, which will once again see them developing a new sound. To find out more, I sat down with Vitek’s frontman, Gabrahm Vitek, and let him fill me in on the band’s history, their creative process, and their link to James Bond.

UCN: Introduce yourself and the band a bit more.
Gabrahm Vitek: I have been playing in Nashville for about five years now. I started with a four-piece band called Gabe Vitek and the Ivory, that was put together just through door room networking in college at Belmont. We put together a self-titled EP with seven songs that was put out in 2007. The same group put out a full-length project in 2008 called Voices. Both of those were geared toward college kids, safe pop-rock stuff. We toured on those records for a couple of years in the Midwest and southeast. It got pretty cool, we got to open for bands like Cartel and played a show with Matt Nathanson, so we got on some pretty big stages. That ended around 2009 when we were all finishing up school. I took a hiatus from the live stuff and found some different players. I put together a new core rhythm section that consisted of myself, Scott Shirock, who is the drummer, and Brady Surface who is the bass player. He grew up in Nashville, went to school in New Orleans, had to move back up here after Hurricane Katrina and continued to pursue music. The three of us got together and started to play more Motown-esque pop-soul music; really groovy stuff. We ended up writing a bunch of songs we put on a record called Solar Flares, in 2010. We recorded that on Music Row. I was working at Black River Entertainment for a while, so we were sneaking in there at night to sue the studio and recorded this album. *smiles* During that time, I really wanted horns and soul singers to be a part of it so I sought out some new players. The sax player has stayed, his name is Anthony Jorissen, he’s been in the band since. The other horn player was Scott Hearn, who has since joined the military. There were two singers who aren’t with the band anymore [Megan Hart and Skye Parish]. We toured on that record for two years, in the same circuits, and it was very Motown soul-based. The set list was all feel-good stuff. It always seemed to turn into a kind of gospel church service every show. *smiles* It was a really good base and stepping stone into what Vitek is becoming now.

UCN: How organic was the transition from that project to Kaleidoscope, which is more experimental?
GV: It’s all been really natural. Nothing has been like ‘OK, we need to move this way.’ It always moves a certain way and then later we notice it’s moved that way. It just naturally happens and we kind of ride alone with it. At least for me, I never want to be too controlling of the songs themselves. I feel like it’s like having a kid where if you give it a lot of freedom. You give it guidelines and you oversee what’s going on, but if you are too controlling the kid is not going to distinguish itself. I like creating things, writing them and then see where they go.

UCN: Where did the project title, Kaleidoscope, come from? Is there any symbolism behind it?
GV: Definitely symbolism. The core of the band was the same, and we added a trumpet player, Robert Gay. We also had two singers, Lydia Elise and Whitney Coleman, who are no longer touring with us but were a big part of that album. We still had the Motown thing in mind but we want to, like you were saying, be a bit more experimental. I think that’s where the kaleidoscope thing came in. With the hodge-podge of tunes that are on there, it just kind of made sense. It’s all very eclectic but the whole album spins around a central force. It seemed fitting to use kaleidoscope as it’s the same kind of effect. Every time you spin the records, every time you spin the kaleidoscope, there’s a new facet you see or hear.

UCN: I like that idea, and I know what you mean. It’s wave upon wave of music with often really poetic lyrics. ‘The Wolf’ is a really complicated track, there is a lot going on. Every time I listen to that, I’d go ‘Hey, I never noticed that horn before,’ or ‘Hey, the drummer comes in at a really cool time.’
GV: I really appreciate bands that are in no way, shape or form, your favorite band the first time you listen to them, or the second or third. Or even the fourth and fifth. *smiles* I feel like you the band that have you acquire them, you end up having a relationship with that band longer.

UCN: Because you had to work at getting to know them.
GV: Yeah, exactly. Records that are immediately impressive don’t seem that have as much of a shelf life with listeners.

UCN: Do you think there’s a danger then of becoming a band which will only be interesting to people who really understand music, rather than building a more general audience of people who just enjoy music?
GV: Yes, and I think we’re still working toward finding at least a handful of songs in our catalog that are more accessible to first-time listeners. That’s just something that will come with maturity and experience for a bunch of young to mid-twenties musicians. I think we’re getting close. Within the next year, we’ll have those songs that the first time you hear them, you like them, and then we’ll have all the stuff to back it up where you can dig a lot deeper.

UCN: Who in the band writes the material, and how do you start putting songs together?
GV: I think now we all have almost equal input. I would say that most often I’m the spark for an idea, and end up pulling the elements together, and I still have the last say on certain decisions. That will probably always be the case, with the band name being my last name. *smiles*

UCN: Plus, you have to sing it, so it needs to feel good for you to sing it.
GV: Yeah, I’m always open to lyrical ideas, but most of the time it ends up being something that feels like me. Pretty much 80% of the songs are written nowhere near an instrument. I’m always humming ideas into my phone, or sometimes I keep an idea into my head all day until I can get to my piano. Most of the time it’s music first; different vibes and feels and grooves and rhythms. A lot of my writing is very rhythmic-based. Once I feel good about what it’s sounding like, I’ll start almost speaking in tongues and put melody ideas over it with just complete gibberish words. Once I listen back to those, I will pick out different vowel sounds or syllables and put together a few words based around that. Then I write lyrics in a just kind of stream of consciousness around that. I never really have an idea or a story to tell right away, it always comes as I am writing. I do that somewhat intentionally because I don’t want to shove a story down someone’s throat. I always want it to be up to the interpretation of the listener, so I always like hearing what other people’s interpretations are, and I think they then come into play in what my take is on the song.

UCN: So, do you change your mind about songs based on the reactions?
GV: Yeah, I think so. Even just playing a song live after hearing the record version for a long time, the whole message of the song can change.

UCN: When you write, do you think about what it’s going to sound like live?
GV: It seems that when we’re shedding out new songs, we’re openly talking about ‘Yeah, this is what we would do for the record for this section, and this is where we could go expand that live.’ The parameters we set for live versions are usually not very concrete. A song we’re playing live today is going to be quite a different version in four months. I think that’s good for us as a band; it keeps us interested when we’re playing the same group of songs a bunch of nights in a row. It keeps it interesting to have a number of different jams within the confines of the same number of bars, but it gets a totally different groove.

UCN: The record also contains some shorter bursts, like ‘Cloud 9’ I think is under a minute and a half. Why does it stop there? Is it ‘I’ve said everything I’ve wanted to say here?’
GV: Yeah, I think so, I try to say as much as I can with as few words as possible. I’m a big fan of being concise, and not getting too detailed with putting specific ideas in people’s heads. I guess of songs like that more as little interludes and segues between songs. I’m a fan of records that have interludes that tie the whole vibe of the record together.

UCN: I really like the texture of that song, where you have all these pianos talking to each other. When you wrote it, did you hear it with all these different pianos?
GV: Definitely, yes, and that was just me singing and playing piano in one take, and then overdubs. It’s actually only a two-take song. We made it sound a little bit more expansive with some different tape delays we had in the studio on some of those runs, almost like a Pink Floyd effect. That song comes after ‘She Got the Night,’ where this girl is owning the night, and finally when dawn is breaking she’s drifting into sleep. That song was emulating that. You can never really remember falling asleep, when it happens, or what it feels like. It’s sort of trying to explain that.

UCN: There’s one song on there, ‘Legs,’ where I was thinking ‘This is like a cousin of an Arcade Fire record.’ I think you’ve got your more accessible song right there.
GV: That’s really cool! *smiles* That song is probably the oldest song on the record, and we fought that song for probably about two years. We canned it four or five times. There was a time where half the band was feeling it in a completely different spot than the other half, so we were all counting the song in different ways which made it really difficult. Finally, somehow, we all got on the same page with it. That was a huge struggle to put together for us and I think that it has such an edge, and there is so much turmoil within the song, that it almost represents that. The lyrics then kind of naturally fell into place. It’s about how free will and predestination are fighting at all times. I have all this free will to make all these choices, but really I have no control because there is a consciousness that oversees it all. So I have control, but I don’t, and then sort of being alright with that and not hiding from that.

UCN: You must have smiled when you heard the title for the latest James Bond movie…
GV: Yeah, yeah, we beat them to it. *smiles*

UCN: I definitely smiled when I looked through the tracks and saw that title, ‘Skyfall.’
GV: I thought maybe we could pitch it to them but then I heard Adele’s song and thought ‘Wow, this is so badass, I’m not even going to say anything!’ But it was funny. *smiles*

UCN: Obviously, her ‘Skyfall’ was written on assignment. What is yours about?
GV: Mine is about revelation. In any group, there’s always going to be some sort of leader that the group ends up following. You’re always having to put your trust in an individual. Whether it’s a group for a classroom assignment, a band, or even a nation, there’s always someone you collective trust to follow. So that’s that verse ‘follow the one who knows the way, or you can wait til the sky falls down.’ You can go against the grain, but more often than not that will crash down on you.

UCN: I really love the lyrics of ‘Villain in the Thrown,’ I keep going back to it because of them.
GV: That’s kind of about when evil and ill-nature are in control of our reality in space and time, you know, a Lord of the Flies kind of thing. We’re just like wicked little children a lot of the time, and we all have a conscious to turn that around, but often we’re just looking out for ourselves and let our inner-demons gain control almost. I wrote the lyrics from the perspective of sitting around this United Nations-esque table, with all these powerful political figureheads. There’s one person who never really says anything who’s kind of just observing and just taking it all in. It kind of describing what’s happening with the sweet matriarch sitting next to the head villain and it’s got a line ‘kiss the matriarch, try to change her heart.’ You try to get in with her to try to change the main bad dude. Then in the second verse, that person has placed a bomb under the table and he knows he’ll be the only one able to get out before the whole thing blows up. That’s the scene I was seeing when I wrote it.

UCN: I’m hearing a lot of stuff that’s visual. Does that come up when you get those initial early ideas?
GV: Yeah, I think so actually. You’re kind of bringing this to my attention, but I feel like a lot of times I’m seeing certain subject that make it into the lyrics before I’m really thinking about it.

UCN: I’ve hammered on this point with many people who equate Nashville with country music, that it’s Music City, not just country music city. You guys ended up here to study?
GV: Yes, Belmont had a Commercial Music program which seemed really interesting because it wasn’t a classical conservatory or a jazz program. The professors gave their students the freedom to play whatever they wanted. I could play Jim Croche songs and wasn’t having to learn Bach. But as soon as I had to do a recital, that was when I was out of the music program. I love classical music, but once it became about playing music I didn’t want to play, I had to get out of there because it didn’t feel right. Nashville is a music Mecca, and literally every week I meet someone who is moving here from Los Angeles. They say nothing’s happening in L.A. and it’s all happening here, which is still surprising to me and I’ll go ‘No, wait, you guys are the progressive ones out there.’ *smiles*

UCN: Do you encounter that on the road, that when people see you’re a band from Nashville they expect you to turn up with banjos?
GV: Yeah, I think a lot of times we surprise people when we start cranking out soul. *smiles* But I think it helps also with clubs booking you, when they go ‘Oh, these guys are from Nashville, they know a thing or two about music and they’re at least taking this seriously.’ But yeah, it doesn’t take more than a song to convince them that we’re not going to be walking up there with cowboy hats playing Garth Brooks covers. *smiles*

UCN: The current project is still pretty new, so what is next year looking like? Are you planning to tour on this record all year?
GV: we already did quite a few dates last year on that record, and we’ll continue that. We’re also going to be releasing an EP, probably in March, that’s going to be called Sunbird. The title track will probably be the single, it’s a kind of Paul Simon ‘Graceland’ type song. That EP will also have a new version of ‘Skyfall,’ that sounds more Peter Gabriel ‘In Your Eyes’-like. For some reason we started getting into this African vibe in the fall, and we really wanted to explore that, so we ended up putting together this EP. I really believe it will serve as a bridge between Kaleidoscope, which is a very experimental hodge-podge, toward a thick electro-rock that we’re heading toward. Sunbird has a more focused sound. Even though it’s got that African thing, it’s a little bit more electronic dance, which is where we’re wanting to go. And then we’ll do another full-length record after that.

UCN: This was really interesting. Thank you.
GV: Awesome! Thanks for talking to me.

For more on Vitek, please visit vitekmusic.com.

Check out the band’s performance of ‘Devil, Don’t You’ taken from the Music City Underground documentary.

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Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.

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