The Vidrines

ARTICLE BY VANELIS RIVERA AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW BAILEY

“THE ONLY THING CONSTANT IS DEATH, TAXES AND THE VIDRINE’S,”declares Billy Vidrine, singer, songwriter, and proclaimed “sweater” of seasoned local folk-rock band The Vidrines. Fifteen years in the game hasn’t weathered these players, known for their consummate suit-wearing. Also leading the fray as frontman is Ronnie Vidrine, singer, songwriter, and a cross between Tom Waits and Ron Perlman. Guitarist Jamie Vidrine is the self-affirmed “momma bear,” corralling and keeping everyone on task. The “always on the pocket” guy is John Vidrine on drums. On bass, Nathan Vidrine brings “the fun” while his handlebar mustache carries enough personality for the entire band. After twelve years since their last album release—Put Your Mammal Hat On (2006)—the Vidrines have finally amassed an eleven track self-titled album of what Jamie calls “weird Monroe-flavored rock.”

The Vidrines evolved from the open mic scene of Monroe circa 2003. Billy would attend open mic nights at a few coffee shops around town, like Cottonport Coffee, and perform confrontational stories. He played with story structure and fleshing out his characters, after finding a band called The Mountain Goats. Blown away by their music and the impeccable songs unhampered by the raspy vocals of the lead singer, Billy started a band with his cousin. The duo were making up songs together, when Ronnie joined the creative collective, thus, officially starting the band. As for the name: In an era of long, terrible band names, according to Billy, Ronnie started making a list of “strange and esoteric” names. An old punk rocker at heart, Billy believed in the garage band credo of “keep it simple, stupid.” No one kept it simpler than The Ramones, he considered. Whilst living in the Garden District, he passed a house with a sign that read “The Vidrine’s.” He floated the idea over to his band that they would all turn into Vidrines to grant each member a form of anonymity, and the ball rolled naturally. Their fan-following got so into it that someone once stole the sign and left it at Billy’s door. He had to take it back, “so please don’t steal that sign,” says Billy. Clearly gaining momentum, they began to “cherry-pick” local musicians in the scene, including Jamie. Throughout the years they’ve lost members, but the core folks—Billy, Ronnie, Jamie, and John—have been at it since the beginning.

Jamie became immersed in riffing ideas for the band. “I’d come home and just sit at the guitar working on stuff,” says Jamie. His compiled music came in handy when their piano player moved for work. They were able to seamlessly shift from a piano-based sound to a guitar-based one. Quickly realizing they weren’t locked down to any one genre, they began musically doing whatever they wanted.

“It’s partially musical ADHD,” says Jamie, referring to the communal music table that’s developed from each of the players’ interests. For Ronnie, the album draws from a plethora of influences—post-punk, lounge, industrial, southern gothic, new wave, alt-folk, metal. “We treat each song as its own work, and each song is fairly different from the next,” says Ronnie. In the past he’s described their influences as somewhere between the Talking Heads and The Birthday Party. John also recognizes the band’s Talking Heads influence, adding The Butthole Surfers to the mix. Billy loves hip hop from Run DMC to the Beastie Boys. His “dueling stanzas” between him and Ronnie reflect their allure for the genre. Billy also draws from Bob Dylan and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. “Nothing is off [limits] in terms of genre,” says Jamie. “It’s been really freeing about the whole thing.”

Birmingham, Alabama: Five guys in suits roll up to a music venue. Patrons are dismissive, but Billy and Ronnie go all out. Ronnie’s high-top curls teeter as Billy, arms clasped behind him, storms lyrics into the mic. At first, onlookers are confused. Intrigued, heads begin to bob to the wayward beats. Some on their way out stop and stare, as if entranced. It doesn’t take long for the lot to be converted. This, according to Jamie, is how most of their live gigs go. When it comes to Billy and Ronnie, Jamie says they are “necessarily indescribable.” They’re a two-headed monster of sorts, whipping through their lyrics in a melodic spoken-word kind of way. “Bad, both of them,” jokes Billy about his and Ronnie’s vocals. “I sound like a wounded child and Ronnie sounds deeper and more like the voice of a dispassionate or wrathful God,” he says. Though he exaggerates, Billy’s limited traditional vocal ability has allowed him to find his own style. Not only is there character in the front men’s vocals, their performance is akin to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “Just not sure who is who,” says Ronnie. “It depends on the lighting.”

“I don’t know what the hell my songs are about,” says Billy. “Artist intention is dead. It doesn’t matter what I meant.” With a BA in English Literature, he never sought out to be a musician. Movies led him to music, actually. But music-making proved to be less reliant on resources. Billy is the story guy whose lyrics tell you a tale, while Ronnie’s lyrics are self-examining, deconstructions of emotions and experiences, says Billy. “I love that, because I love ambiguity.” Ronnie approaches music from a writer’s perspective. His songs are “stripped down poems—often better than poems—lucky enough to get a soundtrack.” Once they start working on songs as a band, Ronnie tries to listen to the way sound can change a song’s meaning: “whether they follow the rhythm section or follow the guitar, how the delivery changes what they mean, and how what Bill is doing will also change the tone or the message.” Billy strives to create “ear-protein,” referencing film director Guillermo del Toro’s philosophy on creating movies that are eye-protein instead of eye-candy. “I’m trying to make music that keeps people alive after twenty-five,” he continues, a reference from the film The Breakfast Club. Billy considers it healthy to write. If you’re examining the lives of others, “with any luck, you’ll look at your life, too,” he says.

Most recording musicians attest that it’s hard to capture sound properly. “It’s like catching lightning in a bottle,” says Billy. You have to capture a song in pieces, put it back together, keeping it sounding the same when it was “alive.” Billy compares it to a funeral director, where the “song is the body you are preparing for an open casket wake.” In the case of the new album, Dan Sumner is the apt funeral director that kept their tracks alive. “This new album is the closest we’ve ever gotten to capturing us when we’re at our best, which is live,” says Ronnie. Practiced “chaos” and changes in delivery and timing have, historically, made it difficult for anyone trying to record them. For that reason, Ronnie is particularly grateful for recording with Sumner, not only because he’s the go-to professional in the area but also because he seemingly understood what the band was shooting for. “It’s one of those stupid things you say in an interview, but recording the 2018 album was both the hardest we’ve ever worked, and the easiest time we’ve ever had doing that work,” says Ronnie.

Jamie describes the album, a collection of new and way-back-when songs, as a “weird amalgam of different tastes that comes together against all practical reasons,” but most significant are the songs based on Monroe. Inspired by artists rapping about their hometowns, Billy started pulling from his early memories and Monroe’s obscure history for content. The track “Forsythe After Dark” nods to Billy’s high school days, when he would take dates to Forsythe Park. His intention was to write a love song; though, he considers it took a “murder ballad” turn—figuratively. Lyrics like “And she said she’d always be there, with her almond eyes and chestnut hair… I guess beauty is a cross we all must bear” point to romantic ideals, taking the listener on an emotional roller coaster. In the works, there is a song about infamous William Stephen Wade, a black man who in 1909 bought a double barrel shotgun and fired at passersby in downtown Monroe. Former Mayor Forsythe was one of the men that shot him down. According to Billy’s research, citizens took the body and hung it in front of a drugstore and then set it on fire by the courthouse. As a result, there were a lot of late night raids in the southside. “This place is a neat little microcosm of the things that happen at a national level, but it’s all battered and deep fried,” says Billy. “It’s local history and stuff that we forget or are embarrassed by. Those who don’t know their history are always doomed to repeat it. I’m a living proof of that.”

Guitar-wise, Jamie’s favorite track of the new album is “Flag on the Moon,” a Ronnie and Billy experiment that they wrote together for the first time on the spot. The song is mapped from the 1961 black and white cult film The Beast of Yucca Flats. Most of the lyrics are pulled from the film’s dialogue, such as “There are secret pictures on the moon, never inside the Kremlin.” Jamie considers “Little Paper” to encompass what the band is all about—catchy hooks and guitar parts with weird lyrics. “Hardtop,” one of John’s favorites, is “straight up ska,” and features local saxophonist Mason Howard, band member of Twin City Roots. Ronnie considers “Angry at the Math” a song that “doesn’t actually belong to anybody,” mainly because the music changed the lyrics that he wrote and that Bill executes. “It simply would not have worked, if I had tried to deliver the lead on it. It had to be Bill.”

That The Vidrines have been together and performing live for 15 years is unusual, but it speaks volumes about them as a unit. “We should probably have ended it years ago,” jokes Jamie. “We do it ‘cuz it’s fun and an outlet that we like,” he says. John, who has performed in bands such as Doug Duffey, Kenny Bill Stinson, LC Smoove, Joe Nadeau and The Blue Birds, adds, “I’m most passionate about performing and working in an original music act. The Vidrines, by far, is my favorite original act I’ve been with.” Fighting and arguing as well as loving each other like brothers, this musical Monroe bedrock is a tightly-knit hotbed of comradery, creativity and composition.

Follow The Vidrines on Facebook to catch their next live performance. Their new album is available on all digital platforms including Spotify, iTunes and Amazon.