Charlatan reporter John Forte sat down with Hey Ocean!’s vocalist and bassist, David Vertesi, to talk about their upcoming performance at Folk Fest, their inspiration, and My Little Pony.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
The Charlatan (TC): So you guys are coming to Ottawa next week to play Folk Fest. Is this your first time playing a festival in Ottawa?
David Vertesi: Well we played the Canada Day, not last Canada Day, but the one before, on one of the stages there, so we played right before the fireworks. It was really fun. But I don’t believe we’ve played any other festivals in Ottawa.
TC: How does it compare, playing in smaller venues versus bigger festivals? How are the crowds different and which do you prefer personally?
Vertesi: You know, every kind of show sort of has different pros and cons. Big shows—big festival shows—are amazing ‘cause it’s just a really inspiring environment to be playing with so many amazing bands and to have so many people watching. And we all love to go to festivals.
TC: I noticed, looking up some of your music online, that a lot of your live acts feature you guys playing a cover of “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” by Arcade Fire. What is Arcade Fire to you guys as a band?
Vertesi: Yeah, they’re an inspiring band for lots of reasons. You know first and foremost that they’re just a great band that was independent and have sort of risen to be so massive, and making their music the way they want to, keeping their artistic vision, that’s really inspiring. It’s something that you can only hope to accomplish. And when we were recording our last album, that we’re touring now, we sort of had a big break down, as some bands do, and we weren’t sure if we were going to keep going or what we were going to do next. We had to start over on the record. And we were feeling very discouraged and it just so happened . . . they were playing at Toronto Island with Janelle Monae opening and we got tickets and just said let’s just go and see them play. It was just so inspiring to watch them play, to have those guys on stage. There’s so much energy, and it’s so focused, and they’re just inspiring to watch.
TC: Are there any other bands that influence your music?
Vertesi: So much stuff. I think that’s always been part of our band is that it’s quite eclectic. We write like pop songs, but they sort of draw inspiration from all sorts of music because the three of us that do all the writing, we just come from sort of backgrounds of music. For Hey Ocean! we draw a lot of inspiration from Fleetwood Mac, that sort of era of pop music. But right now I can’t stop listening to Kanye West or the new Vampire Weekend record. I’m so excited to see Kendrick Lamar at this festival, his record is incredible.
TC: The Folk Fest line up is just so eclectic this year, I mean you wouldn’t really expect to see Kendrick Lamar at a Folkfest but here we are.
Vertesi: Yeah I mean I love the Avett Brothers, obviously Neil Young, Emilie Harris, stuff like that . . . All sorts of things inspire us in all sorts of genres and styles. I think the one thing that really carries through is the, you know, great songs. And I think that’s how we fit in with the folk theme, is that song writing is really important to us.
TC: What is your song writing process all about as a group, how do you go about writing strong songs?
Vertesi: Well it’s always mixed, each song is its own journey, some are done where one of us sort of writes individually and there’s ones that we’ve written all together, and there’s ones that we’ve written in the van on tour, and there’s ones that we’ve written in a house in the middle of the woods. There’s ones we’ve just pained over for years and years and years until they finally sort of come to fruition. I really believe that songs are like your children. Each of them is different and has to have it’s own journey and you have to be sort of open to that, that it’s not going to be the same every single time. And we have multiple singers in our band right, so it’s no wonder that each song’s going to experience it’s own journey
TC: Your singer Ashleigh Bell does a number of voice roles on the television show “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” and as a result your band has become rather popular with the “Brony” fandom. How do you feel about your bands relationship to that particular Internet subculture, and what has it been like interacting with them as a band?
Vertesi: You know, it’s been . . . surreal, to say the least . . . our experience with the Bronies. Before they become this international phenomenon that they are now, we started to just see them at shows, a few here, a few there. But gradually you just become more and more involved with them because they’re fans. They don’t like our band just because they’re Bronies, they get introduced to it because they’re Bronies. There’s lots of Bronies that I don’t think, like our band very much but there’s tons that do. We get that reiterated to us all the time by them just saying “I found out about this band because of this show but I’m here because I love the music.” As fans they’re great, like as concert goers, as far as concert goers go they’re really awesome. They love the music, they know all the words, they buy all the merch, they spread the word, they tell everyone they know about it. So even though it’s coming from an odd place, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. You kind of have to realize wherever that support’s going to come from you have to appreciate it and be thankful.
TC: Have you ever had a particularly bizarre encounter with a Brony at a show?
Vertesi: There was one guy who approached us, and he’s actually sort of this rare Brony—like a unicorn I guess. But he came to see the band and through our shows met other Bronies and he became a Brony. But he is a woodcarver and he made these carvings of us as ponies, like My Little Pony versions of us.
