Photo credit: Andrew Nordstrum
Vinz Clortho
As frontman Victor Buell explains it, Vinz Clortho came about not so much out of burning need to start another band, but simply because he was itching to break in a new instrument. “I needed an excuse to play this 12-string electric guitar that I had recently picked up,” Buell explains. “I think any musician who gets a new instrument can relate to this, but when you get a new toy, you want to play with it, and it sparks some new creative ideas.”
Buell’s other band, the organ-doused psych-rock outfit Calliope, was in a bit of a holding pattern while waiting to release their most recent LP, so Buell reached out to some peers in the Milwaukee music scene: bassist Chuck Zink and drummer Adam Gilmore, of rockers Mortgage Freeman, and keyboardist Myles Coyne, a veteran of at least a half-dozen Milwaukee groups.
Driven by the surfy tone of Buell’s guitar, the band’s sound quickly fell into place: a gruff, lurid offshoot of roadhouse blues inspired by the surrealist cinema of David Lynch. Buell says he’d been on a Chris Isaak kick when he started the band, and while Vinz Clortho’s sound has a harder edge than Isaak’s, that same dreamy, uncanny Americana vibe pervades it.
“Imagery influences me a lot sonically,” Buell says. “If I’m hearing something, I’m picturing something. So cinematic inspiration was just as relevant if not more so as music influences. I think that’s kind of the driving creative force behind this band: images of Americana, lost highways, neon motel signs and shady dives. It’s almost like a neo-noir sort of thing.”
Rounding out the lineup is saxophonist Ken Hanner, who joined the group after they’d played just a show or two, and guitarist Evan McAllister. Hanner’s meaty tenor provides a foil for the band’s thick guitars on the group’s debut EP, Fool’s Paradise. “We recorded the EP at Silver City Studios, and I was listening to the mixes when the instrumentation was around 90-95% complete, and it just needed a sax,” Buell says. “I was craving it. There’s something about the tenor sax, which has a certain timbre to it and can do things other saxophones can’t. We could’ve thrown a guitar solo in there, but it just wouldn’t have the same effect. The instrumentation is important in that sense, because it adds to the whole aura of the band and what we’re going for.” It doesn’t hurt the effect any that Hanner’s playing recalls the embolismic saxmanship of Bill Pullman in Lost Highway.
Vinz Clortho isn’t only a band name but also a persona that Buell inhabits in its songs, who he imagines as the archetypal hard-drinking, chain-smoking, womanizing, reckless sort of soul depicted in seemingly every detective film. “They’re songs about a character with a lot of vices, a brooding, depressive character with a yearn for adventure who sort of self-medicates along the way,” Buell says.
“It’s sort of a mask, I guess,” Buell continues. “When you’re performing live, it’s a little more entertaining to be playing a character. I guess that’s how I deal with maybe songwriting insecurities or just how I deal with putting myself on a stage. It’s nice, because I get to write and explore these themes, but also keep a little bit of a safe distance from them. I couldn’t be this persona in my daily life; it wouldn’t be sustainable or healthy. But we’re all looking for a little bit of an escape from our daily lives. I guess this is sort of my own fantastical escape.”
Vinz Clortho play an EP release show Friday, March 22, at Company Brewing with Ravi/Lola and NeoCaveman at 10 p.m.
