JPG: I was thinking that maybe you’d tour solo or do something similar to what Mike Doughty recently did. He had the band Wheatus open up for him. Then, there was a break and they came back onstage as his backing band. Previously, he toured just himself and a cello player. So, if you said you were playing dates by yourself I’d totally understand because it would be cost effective.

MLV: Sure. I ordered and manufactured the vinyl myself, doing the whole DIY thing. Then, [the label] Dine Alone from Canada came along and has been really supporting me, which has been great, to be able to hire radio and PR. Last year, I hired radio PR but it was such a small microcosm compared to what I’m able to do now. It’s nice to have that backing and have real distribution. Been to Europe four times in the calendar year. Spent nine months on the road.

JPG: Besides the difference of having a machine behind you on this record, musically, Solicitor Return

MLV: “Solicitor Returns” is a reaction.

JPG: It’s a dark lo-fi kind of record.

MLV: (laughs) It is. Well, part of it is that side of my songwriting that’s always existed and very rarely showcased in Delta Spirit. It just got to a point where, “Man, I need to make a record like this or people are going to think it’s not true.” I know it’s contrary to commerce, sometimes, to complicate the scenario with a bunch of stuff but I grew up listening to Nirvana and Neil Young and Marilyn Manson, even. I just wanted a shoot-from-your-hip record. I recorded it directly off the back of doing [Delta Spirit’s 2014 album] Into the Wide and pretty much played everything myself.

Then, this new one, I recorded out in my mom’s boyfriend’s trailer that he had on some property in Dripping Springs [Texas], out in the hill country. It couldn’t be more different than Brooklyn, New York (Vasquez’s previous place of residence before moving to Austin) and a rat-infested basement. A single wide and a quarter with the same gear; I brought in Jud Johnson, my drummer. I brought in Chris Boosahda who plays drums with Shakey Graves and Kam Franklin from the Sufferers who sings on “Same,” the single.

I just about finished the record and went out to the Newport Folk Festival and asked the Parkington Sisters amongst a bunch of other people to come sit in on my solo set there. They came out and we ran through a bunch of the music for the Newport Folk Festival show and the whole time my jaw dropped. I decided right then and there that I was gonna finish the record with them. I sent them all the tracks that were about mixed and had them hop in on the record. So, it’s nice to be a little bit more inclusive with people.

It was still very shoot from the hip but it does sound a lot more hi-fi and sunnier.

JPG: That’s a good way of putting it. It’s kind of like a Smiths tune. If you just listen to what Johnny Marr is doing, you’re just enjoying this melody but then you pay attention to the lyrics… So, Solicitor Returns sounds heavy like someone getting things out of his system late at night whereas Does What He Wants in comparison, is commercial-sounding, open, sunnier record.

MLV: Yeah, and these songs, some of them were sitting on the shelf towards the next Delta Spirit record and some of them were freshly-written off of that. “Fires Down in Mexico” was definitely a turning point when I was making it because I recorded that and it was such a stream of consciousness kind of thing. I thought I was going to make a more woodsy kind of record with a flannel shirt and ax, like Neil Young’s Harvest or Jason Isbell. I can do that. Obviously, I’ve written a bunch of songs like that, and I was thinking that was the direction I was going to go to and then just be a little more mellow. It would be nice to do it that way. I’m just not nice, John! (laughs) I like tequila and I like playing really loud. (laughs)

JPG: It’s okay. Look at a mirror and tell yourself that it’s okay. Anyway, Solicitor Returns has more of a Neil Young feel to it.

MLV: Yeah. That one has more of a Neil feel than this one does. This one borders on Britpop at moments and there are things that are just music types of, I don’t know how to define indie but I’m not wearing pink…

JPG: …and your pants aren’t tight-fitting.

MLV: No, they’re not.

JPG: It’s interesting that you mention “Fires Down in Mexico” because I love the line “Too proud for SPF/Chicano blood on my father’s side.” You’ve probably sung many more serious, intense things but for some reason that stands out.

MLV: That’s my favorite lyric of that song. I think it’s a good image. That’s another thing I don’t get to talk about a lot. It’s funny because I’m the whitest Chicano anywhere. I don’t speak Spanish. If I went to high school and take Spanish, I’d get a B. I’m that person, one of millions. My grandparents didn’t speak Spanish. My great grandma didn’t speak Spanish. She didn’t speak English either. She grew up picking.

My grandma was one of the first employees of Fender guitars and lived in Fullerton [California], met my grandpa in Long Beach.

JPG: Do you play a Fender?

MLV: I have a couple guitars at this point. I have more than a Fender.

JPG: I thought maybe there’d be a loyalty to the brand due to family.

MLV: No, I don’t feel that connection anymore. Those companies are without a doubt not connected to the past like they should be. In the ‘80s there was a time when Fender was bought back by its employees. Now, the corporate top aren’t bad dudes, and they’re true craftsmen in the custom shop just like a Gibson at the custom shop, true craftsmen luthiers, but, as a general thing Fender is not Fender. The price point and cost, I forget what the price point was to produce an amplifier. And then they charge so much money.

I have fake Chinese Gibsons and their headstocks are better quality than the $6,000 I would spend on a real Gibson.

JPG: Hearing you talk about how un-Spanish you are reminded me of comedian Al Madrigal and his life.

MLV: The Chicano/Latino is the most integrated into society through the generations than any other, I think. It’s pretty crazy how quickly we lose our culture. I married a full-bloodied Norwegian woman. My son’s name’s Thor and we’re teaching him English and Norwegian at the same time. So, my wife is only speaking Norwegian to him and trying to maintain that culture. I never had that. When I grew up in Texas, I had no connection. Then, when I moved to California my grandma and grandpa and family on that side, we would go to weddings and we’d have Chicanos from Oregon and Arizona and Hawaii. My uncles and my dad grew up in Hawaii too, like Navy brats. They grew up all around the country. So, their sense of culture is more about the military. It’s its own culture.

JPG: I know what you mean. My dad was in the Air Force and you see the reality of stuff behind the scenes.

MLV: Yeah, they’re there to work a job. My dad was a Lieutenant First Class Airborne 101st in Vietnam. Then, he worked for Lockheed Martin when I was a kid. I might as well have been an Army Brat because…I was born in California, moved to Texas then I moved back to California. Could have moved to Michigan. Every three years we moved during my childhood.

JPG: Do you think that because you grew up going from place to place that there’s something within you to do that as an adult that leads you to move from from Austin to Brooklyn to Austin…am I missing a place?

MLV: Long Beach [California], that’s where Delta Spirit started. We were all living in Orange County and then moved to Long Beach. Some of the guys are from San Diego. I had already lived in Hollywood for a little bit before that. Then, the band started doing stuff. So, we lived in Long Beach for a few years. I met my wife. We got married. The whole band ended up moving to New York, and lived there for almost three years.

I’ve been in Austin now for almost three years. Now, I lived in Austin for about a year, then Dripping Springs [Texas], which is west, closer to where this musician Israel Nash lives and Ben Kweller. We all live out in the hill country now. I live in a place called Wimberly, where Ray Wylie Hubbard lives. It’s beautiful.
I think it’s just in my gut, in my blood, to move. I was listening to something on NPR about American mobility and that it’s in our strength as Americans, what in the past has made America so great, people leaving where the work is. For me I’m moving where the inspiration is. I woke up here in Central Texas, in the hill country in Wimberly. I used to come down to this little part of Texas…every birthday I would ask because it has the best swimming holes. I have a house in a trailer park. It’s like trailers, a few houses and some log cabins. Our sub-division owns a little part of the Blanco River and we can go down there and fish or swim. It’s really nice. It’s really pretty; kind of like that Ry Cooder song “Poor Man’s Shangri La” You don’t need a lot to be happy.

JPG: The voice message before the song “The Fighter.” Is that your dad?

MLV: No, that song is actually about my first manager, Stephen Stewart Short. He was a partner with Malcolm Toft and helped buy Trident Studios. I think he was in his 20s when he did that. He worked on “Last Dance” (by Donna Summer) then he also produced DC Talk’s “Jesus Freak.” That song by Ben Folds Five, “Steven’s Last Night in Town” is about him. One of the most charming people I ever met and he was my first manager; him and Michael Rosenblatt who discovered Madonna, and they signed me to Interscope when I was 19 years old. I was in the major music industry machine and I got an insane education from him. I’m so glad it didn’t work out because the music I was writing was terrible (laughs) and there’s no record of it, which is great. It was an amazing education and I spent $90,000 of Universal’s money. That’s what started Delta Spirit.

I listened to what everyone said and that’s where I landed myself. Now, I don’t listen to anybody and somehow I’ve maintained to have a career ever since. Doesn’t mean that I’m right every time, of course, but I think I am. Maybe I’m making crazy decisions in my life doing what I’m doing but I just believe in the songs that I’m writing and the way I’m presenting them is the right way. If I can figure out how to do it without pretension and have enough people like it enough where I can make a living out of it, I’m very satisfied.

JPG: That kind of segues into this and the album’s theme of father to son to son. Transcending emotion in the path of creating art, is it easy or difficult or cathartic or…?

MLV: It’s cathartic, and that’s the only thing music has ever been for me. It’s always been there for me for that catharsis. Punk and playing really loud in people’s garages and being a brat kid was kind of how it all started but it’s been my way.

Pages:« Previous Page