Despite the many years Seeing Voices has been working and playing together in and around New York City, there are several things we've never been able to agree on: how to describe our music, what our bio should say, and, if we were to play covers, what they would be.
Is a good bio a list of influences? Maybe. But is a list of Joe's favorite drummers and Richard's favorite psychedelic recordings compelling? Is anyone interested in who we think we sound like? We're not. We could make something up, but, really, we'd rather tell you how we got here. And, as far as our sound goes, well, we have audio samples.
Seeing Voices began with the songwriting nucleus of singer Suzanne and guitarist Richard who met as teenagers on a spiritual commune in Tennessee. They quickly discovered mutual interests: making their own gluten, psychedelic rock, blues, country, and folk music, and each other.
After a barefoot, cornfield wedding, the duo moved to New York City to start an ambulance service in the South Bronx. Once here, their musical tastes continued to expand, and they incorporated the underground punk, new wave, and indie sounds of the city in the music they wrote for When Worlds Collide.
WWC had several years of productive writing and gigging, but disbanded in the early 1990s. For Suzanne and Richard, it was a welcomed chance to collaborate with new musicians, and they first hooked up with bassist Josh.
Josh moved to New York in 1995, and spent his first year here auditioning and tinkering with one band, then another. Finding musicians who shared his interests in indie rock, jazz fusion, funk, and R&B, and getting to gigs on time, was a problem. Then Josh read a "bass player wanted" Village Voice classified ad boasting female vocals and "wet, psychedelic guitars." Although skeptical about the psychedelic guitars, Josh responded to the ad, and met Suzanne and Richard. The three clicked, but one great challenge remained: finding a drummer.
Seeing Voices suffered through four drummers before Joe joined the group. The first drummer was let go after just a few gigs; the second abandoned music for a Wall Street career; and the third abandoned the life of a struggling musician for the life of a struggling actor. The fourth drummer had an irrationally deep fear of the Y2K bug, and chose to spend New Year's Eve 1999 in his mother's rural Missouri bomb shelter. He was never heard from again. In between each of these drummers was a parade of freelancers.
Josh first met Joe while working with a jazz fusion group. Seeing Voices was in drummer limbo, so Josh invited Joe to sit in. He immediately became the Seeing Voices drummer, and the group quickly hit the studio to record their first self-titled and self-produced CD. Six original tracks, along with two remixes from the band's demo, were put down and published in 2000. This was followed by their latest recording, No Monsters on the Playground, which features eight new, and largely collaboratively written, tracks. Their third recording is expected in late 2005.
Seeing Voices has appeared at many New York hot spots and landmarks, including Kenny's Castaways, CBGBs, and Hogs and Heifers.
In 2005, Seeing Voices finally launched their website - their first foray into new media - and the group plans on continuing to write, record, and perform.
Read more...