The Vasco Era

Singer/guitarist/songwriter Sid O’Neil explains the stories behind the Vasco Era's extraordinarily rockin’ new album.

It seemed like the stars aligned for Lucille. Yeah, it's a lot better then the first one really. I'm 24 now, and I was 20 when we recorded the last one and it's a big difference. You just learn how to write songs as you get older until you hit 30 and then you get shit. It was easy once I got the concept of the album in my head.

So where did the characters of Lucille and Sam come from? Through partying. I couldn't get any inspiration to write lyrics, so I got real pissed and went to the casino for four or five days. And it worked: I met this couple, and that's what the album is about.

So they were just a couple you encountered? Yeah. There was a guy who seemed relatively straight and his girlfriend was a stripper, and you'd talk to him about it and he downplayed it but you could tell he was pretty jealous about what she was doing. So the album is made up of his insecurities and her guilt, really. Any song that says 'Lucille' in it comes from the guy's perspective and any song that says 'Sam' in it comes from the girl's perspective.

So you went to the casino to counter writer's block? Well, you meet people at the casino, just hanging out. I was actually contemplating asking the label to give me money to go to the casino to get inspiration, but it doesn't work like that. I don't really go there to tell you the truth, but it's like how [author Charles] Bukowski went to the racecourse for inspiration. You just have to put yourself in uncomfortable places or places where you don't usually relax and things come up after a while.

So for the next record you're going to go out on safari or something? Well, that's the thing: I have four songs already for the next album but none of them have lyrics, so I need something to come along. That's why most albums I write have to have some kind of concept: I don't have enough words in my songs to tell a full story in one song like Paul Kelly does. I really admire that, but the way I phrase stuff it just doesn't work.

Well, album-length stories work for the Hold Steady. [sighs] Fuck man, the amount of comparisons we've been getting in reviews, it's crazy. They've all been positive, but I didn't even know a band could sound like that many other bands. We've been compared with Weezer in a couple of separate ones, which I can sort of see, but we've had everyone from Pavement to the Killers. It's pretty funny.

Eh, as soon as you play anything with barre chords and distortion then people go ‘oh, Weezer.' Yeah, and loud choruses. But Nirvana did that too, and no one has said that yet.

Well that's because you don't scream so much nowadays. Ha! That's the next one. We made a conscious effort not to scream on this one, because even on the last one everyone thought the only thing I could do was scream. I knew I could sing but it'll be back on the next record I reckon.

The all-screaming, all-safari record? I'm going to do everything. It'll be the screaming-falsetto-soft vocals record. Andrew P Street