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Inside Look: Hard Lessons
Hard Lessons have been pegged by local media as the next Detroit band to really blow up. Go about a logical check list of must-dos and it’s hard to argue with the logic that they may have their day sooner than later. Garner critical acclaim from place of origin. Check. Pack up the van and successfully take the music outside of place of origin. Check. Win local awards from music media in said place of origin. Check. Play and tour with national acts, gain more exposure. Check. Upstage newly hyped and anointed media darlings in front of the kind of people who will write about your band in a major publication. Check. The latest feather in the trio’s proverbial cap arrived at the expense of the recently touted Vampire Weekend at SXSW this past spring. The blogosphere and a handful of writers agree that the often coquettishly depicted New York ensemble were out performed by The Hard Lesson’s trademark high-energy show. “I think our dedication to the live performance and not having all of the other B.S. around it comes through, and I think people see that,” said front man and guitarist Augie Visocchi of the whole thing. “Here’s this band that everyone’s been killing themselves over because they’re ‘so awesome’ and then, when it came down to it, the response from some people was ‘It’s not even an issue? Why is this band Vampire Weekend getting all this press?’” Augie, Korin “Ko Ko” Louise Cox (vocals, keyboards) and Cristophe “The Anvil” Zajac-Denek (drums) have just returned from extensive touring to gear up for the release (or re-release depending on how you look at it) of “B & G Sides” – four singles released individually, in limited volume, beginning last November. On July 22, these four singles will be compiled into one complete album via Quack!Media. The name “B & G Sides” refers to the fact that each single features two songs: One performed by Augie (a boy) and the other by Ko Ko (a girl). Get it?
Detroit Fashion Pages recently had the chance to talk to Augie about the upcoming release and life for those “Hungry! Hungry! Hipsters!” DFP: You just got back from a lot of traveling. How has the price of gas been affecting you guys on tour? Augie: It killed us on this last bit. We just got back from the West Coast and it isn’t exactly a hop, skip and a jump away. It took some serious driving to get there and we saw some pretty ridiculous gas prices. I think we saw regular unleaded for $4.99. I mean, that’s five dollars a gallon! I think the highest we paid was about $4.80. It’s crazy. Back in April, when we were home for a couple of weeks, I took my camera phone out and took a picture of a gas station that was selling gas for $3.45. I sent it to my friends and said “Can you believe this? Can you believe how insane this is?” Now, not even two months later, it’s a dollar more. Now I stop when I see $3.80 gas. So, between that and a busted radiator and the oil changes we spent a few thousand bucks just traveling in May. It hurts. It definitely does have us thinking whether we’ll be going out to the West Coast again anytime soon. DFP: The Anvil badly injured his leg before Detour’s Rock City Fest (in June) and learned to play everything with the opposite foot. That’s pretty crazy. Augie: Yeah, it’s kind of amazing when you think about it. I guess it would be the equivalent of playing guitar the opposite way. The fact that he pulled that off after spraining his ankle a couple days before is pretty amazing. DFP: Getting to “B & G Sides,” not that I have to tell you this, but how good is Ko Ko Louise from front to back on this thing? Augie: Oh yeah, she’s amazing. Her voice was already amazing from the get go with this band, but she’s really kind of expanded and controlled her voice a little bit on some parts – her organ, keyboard and bass playing, too. Her bass playing on the full version of “The Sound of Coming Down” is amazing because you don’t miss a bass guitar at all. She’s sitting there playing these parts with her left hand and playing the keyboard and organ parts with her right hand. It’s great. DFP: With the sound of some of the tracks, did you guys really try something new this time? Augie: Definitely. That was one of the reasons we wanted to do “B & G Sides” the way we did. We wanted to set it up over four CDs, and it’s going to be a vinyl record with four sides off two LPs. Each volume has a different vibe to it and that’s one of the reasons why we broke up the story over four parts and sort of released it serially. We wanted to be able to explore different sounds with each one and I think anyone who listens to each of the four CDs will agree that each one is different. We really got to delve deeper into these influences we have without “Oh, how is that going to fit with the meaning of the record?” or “Is this song too pop rock to fit with the more bluesy song? Is this song too country tinged to fit with a straight forward rock song?” We didn’t want to smooth the edges. We wanted to go deeper into these genres. It kind of makes “B & G Sides” a project that is uneven but it’s uneven intentionally. DFP: You have some festivals coming up for the rest of the summer. What are your plans after that? Augie: The fall is always a big tour time for us. All the colleges are back in session and the weather’s good for touring; it’s starting to cool down a lot in the really hot places but it’s not freezing yet in the cold places. In the meantime, I think we’re going to start writing some songs already for the follow up. So, hopefully we’ll have another record out within the next 12 months. -Nick Degel
Photography by -Josh Band -Doug Coombe
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