VR history

When I moved to Richmond, Virginia in January of 1995 to go to school at VCU, one of the first people I met was T. Nathan Roane. He was moving some stuff from his Buick back into the dorms. It was very quiet, with school not quite back in, and we walked across a park carrying some of his things. He had a couple boxes and a T.V. all piled up in his arms and he just asked me to carry a jar of pistachio nuts. Nathan became a good friend, someone with a similar sense of logic, a friend with true independence.

I soon met Gabriel Shane Beverly, also living on my floor of the dorms. First thing he looked through my music collection, and we sat down to listen to music together. Gabriel became one of my closest friends very quickly. Right away we decided that we would be in a band together, he could play guitar and I could sing and write lyrics; we'd need some other people. We wouldn't find the right musicians for another nine months.

I started doing poetry readings on a regular basis. Richmond was a new opportunity for me to express myself. Everywhere else I'd lived there was little or no opportunity for creative outlet except with my close friends, but Richmond was a little more open-minded. At first the readings were pretty rough, but soon I learned how to express my thoughts better through the words and through my voice. I had a few favorite poems I'd written; sometimes I was asked to read "angel frost-light", and I always had "the figure eight" in my wallet. I had a poem called "Defeated" that, although very powerful, demanded something else. I needed to touch another sense. At one particular reading, I performed a piece called "Ashes to Build" with my friend Richard Cox reading with me, I arranged it as a performance piece; it started as a prayer and ended with my own words (of prayer and struggle- a stream of conscious directed to god), with Richard's wordless singing and shouting. I found what was missing: the accompaniment, the music.

Gabriel and I finally started to work together in the fall of 1995. I had met a couple people at the poetry readings we could play with, Richard played bass and a guy named Robert Ransom played keyboards. We rented a practice space in a warehouse on West Broad Street and we practiced every Thursday. Each practice was unique. We never played the same thing twice; we developed as a cooperative. The music was sometimes extremely soft and atmospheric, sometimes noisy and experimental. There were times when it became abrasive, other times simply gentle. I often used my poems as lyrics. We were creating something I felt very strongly about, and I wanted to take it to some sort of venue for performance. We tried to write songs, loosely structured with plenty of room for improvisation, but even with it's freedom, it did not work. Richard left out of frustration. Soon after Gabriel left out of futility, though it could have worked. Robert (Buck) and I were left finally by December.

In January of 1996 I met Joshua Strawn, a guitar player interested in working on some music. Within a month we started practicing with Buck in my dorm room on campus writing loose structure songs with main themes. The songs developed and I felt like I'd found the right people, the music was beautiful and expressive despite the miscommunications between us. It was simple: voice, keyboards, and guitar. There seemed to be nothing in our way. The first two songs, "Dreams" and "Rains", worked together very gently, recognizing something I'd remembered from my childhood. I used the material at that time to work through memories; they were dark and hazy, just what I could remember. Almost all the songs had some kind of struggle or realization from the formidable past.

Near the end of February I decided to name the band for it's emotion, Vehemence, and its promises, Realized. Near the end of March we recorded a 4-track 4 song demo of the songs: "Defeated", "Rains", "transylvania", and "First Death", all dealing with some impressionable memories from my past. Another piece written later, called "Prayer", was different in many ways: we used the sequencer for the first time; the song was more aggressive and angry with Buck on the guitar and Josh on the keyboards (the reverse from usual); and it was the only song to approach my struggle with Christianity. I used the words from "Ashes to Build", the performance piece.

In May, Buck and I tried to pick up the pieces. I used a bass Buck had to fill for the missing instrument, and soon bought a used one for myself. He started to experiment more with the sequencer on his keyboard. Buck was becoming very religious and asked that we write songs about Jesus. Despite the conflict of interest, not being Christian myself that is, I tried to write on the subject. I considered Jesus a sort of hero figure or someone to learn from, though I didn't except him as my savior, or even as a god. So the focus picked up where "Prayer" had started to take us, in the direction of religious struggle. One song focused on what I thought Christ may have experienced in the desert. This arrangement had promise, but Buck called my ideas blasphemous. We had some kind of argument about my childhood and I just walked away, prepared to continue Vehemence Realized by myself.

That summer, I bought a synthesizer/sequencer and learned to write my own songs. The first of these I wrote by myself was "One Grace", a beautiful and simple piece for bass and sequencer only. Gabriel heard this piece and found the music promising, he rejoined the band in August 1996. At first it was a struggle for us, I was still learning to play the bass and we were both learning to use my sequencer. The first song we wrote together took us weeks; "Capricorn" was about letting go of someone I loved. I wrote another song about dealing with those feelings of loss called "Daddy Longlegs of the Evening - Hope". We recorded a 4-track 4 song demo in September and October, "Daddy Longlegs of the Evening - Hope", "Capricorn", "One Grace", and "Dreams Revisited" (an instrumental piece I'd written inspired by "Dreams", the first VR song). We recorded an extra two songs at the time also, a cover of George Michael's "Praying for Time" and Nathan Roane joined us for a loosely structured piece named "Dead Leaves".

We started playing shows together regularly beginning in December. After months of experimentation with song writing and instrumentation, we eventually had settled down, for the most part, into our roles. The arrangement became an almost equal song writing process sharing the sequencing, sharing the vocals, myself on bass, and Gabe on guitar. The songs had much less room for improvisation because of the sequencer requiring programming prior to performances. We wrote a lot of new material and reworked some of the older pieces ("Prayer" and "Defeated"). Eventually we recorded a full-length cassette demo exclusively of newer material, angel frost-light. The songs included on the cassette covered a variety of subjects and emotions, but mostly dealt with being alone and not being alone. Gabriel and I played 8 shows together in his 7 months with VR. In March of 1997, he left the band to pursue other musical interests. Our demo was not available until after he had left.

Working on new material, I considered continuing Vehemence Realized by myself, but I had come to love the input and insight of another mind and the additional instrument and voice in the live setting. I asked Richard back, and we collaborated well for an evening, but nothing ever came of it. I turned to another local guitarist in attempts to collaborate, but her vision was her own. I thought of others, not even a first practice came.

Nathan and Michael's first show together.

I then turned to Nathan and asked if he'd like to learn some songs and perform with me. We started with "Prayer". He considered the way I had sung it and added his own approach, including trumpet. Other first songs included "Calm", "Capricorn", "Hope" (formerly "Daddy Longlegs of the Evening - Hope"), and "Severin". At the time I imagined it would only last for a show or two. Quickly he was writing his own parts and helping to define a new sound for Vehemence Realized.

We worked hard together. A few months into our musical collaboration we began to work on what we thought would be a cassette demo. Nathan's roommate Matt Wenninger was our recording engineer. This arrangement, along with Matt's patience and dedication, allowed us to work at leisure and be meticulous. As we continued to write new material and play more shows, it became a full-length CD project. We recorded from September 1997 to September 1998, during which time our shows continued to become more powerful and emotional for both of us. In early 1999, the CD was finally released on Palace of Worms Records, an agonizing wait for all involved.

After recording Severe, Nathan and I began to experiment more with our sound and instrumentation. I was playing both electric and 12-string acoustic guitar now, and Nathan had a mandolin and saxophone. We were producing very little new music, but what we had was very exciting to me, a new direction. In the spring of 1999, we recorded "Temperance" for the next Palace of Worms Records compilation, our last new song to utilize the synthesizer. During the Temperance Sessions we also recorded our version of Neil Young's "Hangin' on a Limb" with Nathan on 12-string guitar and vocals and myself on electric guitar. I listen to my copy wishing we'd gone back and fixed our mistakes or even just had a second take. Playing it live, among a couple other songs without the synthesizer was a very strong move for us, a direction I continued to follow.

I learned much in this time, from Nathan and from myself. The recording process took a toll on our friendship, as did our living together for the first 7 months of 1999. Although Nathan's input had been crucial and inspiring, we found it difficult to play together. Due to our personal and musical differences, we discontinued our collaboration. At the time I didn't realize that it would also cost our friendship. As time passed we have been able to leave all of that behind us for the most part.

I moved to Philadelphia shortly after the break-up and lived there for almost a year. It gave me a chance to play guitar at my leisure, relax some, and find new life experiences in a new city. I played very few shows and began experimenting with my own recording equipment. In the winter I wrote "Snow", one of my current favorites, and worked on some other pieces as well, some of which formed into complete songs much later. I got a chance to collaborate with Meaghan Peters, a cello player, on a cover of Low's "Below & Above". Near the end of my time in Philadelphia I began playing with Gabriel again when possible. We played a Charlottesville show in April and did a mini tour to Chicago in June 2000.

At the end of July 2000 I moved back to Richmond to live with and collaborate with Gabriel again. From this time until early 2002 I recorded off and on mostly at home with acoustic and electric guitar, adding some piano for color. I worked with Gabriel primarily at first and then primarily with Oura Sananikone, whose role in VR became very large. Oura's song "45°" was re-recorded VR style for the working album, and many of his other songs became part of VR live sets. We had some guest come in to play on what became the Quiet Contest full-length. Performing guests were Alicia and Chris Wade, Randy Ashberry, and Clayton Ingerson.