The Artist Explains: VC Pines - 'Smoke Without Fire'
West London musician VC Pines talks to us about his new singlee ‘Smoke Without Fire’ - the first taster from his brand new EP, that is due out later this year.
Hey - how are you? So your new track ‘Smoke Without Fire’ is out now, can you tell us what it is about?
Smoke Without Fire is about hearing various rumours but not being sure what to believe. All you know is that, these rumours wouldn’t have started without reason "No Smoke Without Fire". It was written during the height of the first lockdown so I think that’s where the frustration and tension built in the song comes from. Not being able to deal with things how you normally would - "Now I bleed where the cuts don’t show, another toothache that grinds the bone".
It is the first taster from your EP - how is that coming along? When can we get to hear it?
The EP should be out early summer, but the world is changing daily at the moment so we’ll have to hope we can stick to our plans… It’s pretty much finished, just a few minor tweaks being made and it’s good to go, I’ve been itching to put this out into the world for a while now.
You were introduced to music through your father, what sort of music did he used to play to you? What are your earliest musical memories?
When I was around 8/9 I found all his old CD’s like Ian Dury, Iggy Pop, The Stranglers, Talking Heads, Devo, Marvin Gaye, Bobby Womack etc and just took them up to my room and they lived in my walkman case. I don’t think he realised I listened to them until we were in the car one day and put one of them on and knew the words to Peaches - The Stranglers. He was surprised but fully encouraged it. Then he showed me a load more and my collection of inspiration grew from there. I think those are my earliest musical memories? Either that or learning the fucking recorder...
So where does the name VC Pines come from?
VC Pines stands for Violet Coloured Pines. I Have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and Synesthesia - which I think is a symptom of my epilepsy. When I was a kid my dad worked in America a lot, so me and mum would go out and see him for stretches at a time. We went to Wolfeboro, which is in New Hampshire, North America so there are all these massive trees and mountains for miles. I don’t remember much of it, but when I was 17 I started having these seizures and would remember these huge trees and almost see them around me in my head and had no idea why. I thought I was going mad. But temporal lobe epilepsy has a lot to do with your memory, so that’s where Pines comes from. The Violet Coloured is a play on my synesthesia. Again I didn’t know I had this until I was around 19 in a lecture at a music college, I just thought that’s how everyone saw the world and arranged things in their heads. Purple / Violet tend to be my favourite songs I write and those are the colours I see in my head when writing them.
Apparently you have quite the obsession with Japanese culture? Where did this begin and what do you love the most about it?
I’ve studied karate since I was six, so I learnt a lot about Japanese etiquette, in and out of the dojo from a young age and fell in love with it. Then I started working in a menswear shop as a buyer, we deal with a lot of Japanese brands and products and you can see how it just tops everything else from construction to design etc. And then I was fortunate enough to go to Tokyo on a tour in 2013 and could have stayed there forever. I went back with my girlfriend in 2017 and she loved it just as much as me.
How that interest influenced your music at all?
As I started to look for inspiration for my VC Pines project, I came across Daido Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki and a load of other Japanese photographers and artists, I discovered the Wabi Sabi concept and have used that in my production ever since. For example if a vocal take has a certain amount of energy in it, it’ll stay in even if it's not necessarily pitch perfect. I think delivery is more important than being correct on a music score. It’s believable, it’s not over thought or over produced and ultimately it’s human.