Vicious Aloysius
Cavell

Combining the big guitar sound from the alternative 90s with vocals, harmonica and arrangement from the 70s and a giant bucket of soulful art rock, Minneapolis group Vicious Aloysius (“allo-wish-us”) have managed to create a sound all of their own, and that’s more than evident on their debut album, Cavell.

The group features Keith Nystrom’s innovative guitar work partnered with a vocal style unmatched in the cities — best described as an amalgamation of Steve Walsh, Anthony Kledis, Brandon Boyd and Richard Patrick — as Noah Hoehn expertly uses his windpipe as a fifth instrument in the group (but not in that annoying prog rock God way, thank goodness).

Another outstanding addition to the Aloysius sound is the use of harmonica forced through effects/pedals, which builds on the instrument’s classic rock roots (e.g. Led Zeppelin’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”) with a millennial twist that works. Check out “Viceroy” on VA’s MySpace to see what we mean.

The second half of Cavell loses the harmonica and brings in melodic instrumental guitars (”Scorn and Lust”), 90’s Seattle rock-influences (”Come to Me”) and some crazy time signatures/rhythms that allow the album to maintain listenability even a few times in a row.

Extremely well-mixed, produced and engineered, Cavell is not only a success musically, its lyrics are a cut above — full of self-reflection, spirituality and the desire to challenge reality. Holy crap.

We sat down with guitarist and group co-founder Keith Nystrom to talk about the evolution of Vicious Aloysius, the striking album art and of course, Silverchair covers. Read on…

What’s the story behind the group?
There is actually a bit of musical history with this group. Noah and I were in a band together in high school. After college we both moved to Minneapolis and decided to get something started. We started writing and looking for other players, but it’s hard to get serious musicians on board when you don’t have much to show them. Eventually we decided to record an album on our own. Between the two of us we could cover everything on the album. Towards the end of the recording process Zach Miller (guitar) started sending us emails explaining why he should be in the band. (There is also a musical history with Zach as he went to high school with us and was in the band with us.) He convinced us and said that he knew a good bass player as well. Enter Micah Barrett.

How can you tell if your Aloysius will be vicious? Or rather, where
did the name come from?
Aloysius is Noah’s dad’s middle name. As far as I understand it is an old German name that means “grace”. It had a certain ring to it and we were using it as a working name, if you will, but weren’t sold on it until a friend spent a rainy afternoon finding words that rhyme with Aloysius. As soon as he said “Vicious Aloysius” I knew that was it.

What hole does Vicious Aloysius fill in the Twin Cities music scene?
Some of the big strengths of the Twin Cities scene are its art-rockers and poet-songwriters. What we are trying to do (for better or for worse) is combine interesting arrangements and thoughtful lyrics with 70’s and 90’s influenced hard rock music. Hopefully we have something that is interesting and fresh, while being strangely familiar.

Tell me about your full-length debut album, Cavell?
I suppose technically the album is older than the band. Vicious is a project that grew into a band. We had a full length album before we even played a show. Cavell actually turned out a little more diverse than we had first anticipated. Lyrically and musically it covers pretty good territory, but at the same time there are strong cohesive elements. This album stretched us technically and creatively, and we are both much better musicians than we were before the album. Stylistically, it was new territory for both of us and one of the hardest aspects of this album was learning to get out of the way.

What’s the writing process like in the band?
I’m not even sure we have that much of a defined “process”. The songs of Cavell were basically a 50-50 contribution, both musically and lyrically. There aren’t Keith’s songs or Noah’s songs. They are Vicious Aloysius songs. If you were to break it down piece by piece, there are some songs that would be more Noah or more Keith, but every single song was a songwriting partnership. (Ok, so there were a couple of songs that were songwriting arguments more than partnerships. haha)

Ultimately it is about the song. It is right, or it’s not and you can’t force a song to be anything. Many of the songs on Cavell went through numerous re-writes since we were actually recording the songs as we were writing individual parts. When I started recording bass lines sometimes that would lead to a change in a guitar part, which in turn would lead to a vocal line re-write, which could lead to changing the bassline…. Finally the song would settle into itself. As far as the instrumental arrangements Noah naturally wrote the drum and harmonica parts and I wrote the guitar and bass parts.

Where did you record it/what was the recording process like?
We decided to buy studio equipment and transform the basement of our house into a recording studio of sorts. Noah received a McKnight Foundation Fellowship for music performance and chose to use that fellowship to finance the home studio. I am an audio engineer so I recorded and mixed the songs, as well as serving as producer. In hindsight, that really was the only way we could have made an album like Cavell. We weren’t on the clock so we could work at our own pace. If we had a bad day, all we had was a bad day. Not a bad day that cost us $500. We chose a rather unconventional recording process. We actually sequenced electronic drums and I laid scratch guitars down on top of that. Noah then recorded drums over top of the sequenced drums and scratch guitars. When drums were done I laid bass tracks and most of the guitar tracks. Vocals were next, then final guitar work and harmonica tracks. We kind of did demo tracks and the album tracks at the same time. Every song had sequenced drums, scratch guitar, vocal, and harmonica tracks that we didn’t use in the mix.

The album art is amazing. Each song has its own individual scene. How did you come to commission a local Saint Paul artist and what was that process like?
We are thrilled with the album artwork. Micah Bloom really took it to a level we never dreamed of. We had the album titled, but didn’t have a single decent concept for the art. I had done some work on an album for local singer/songwriter Julia Bloom (Micah Bloom’s sister-in-law) and the artwork was great. Not only eye-catching, but it captured the central theme of the album and somehow made that theme more relevant, or available. Julia gave me Micah’s number, and we got together to talk about Cavell. The title comes from the story of Edith Cavell, a nurse during WWI that the German army put to death for helping soldiers escape to England. We saw a larger allegorical context of her life story that coincided with the themes of Cavell. Micah took this and ran with it and also had the idea to paint individual scenes for each song.

Who are your influences?
Both Noah and I are musical products of 70’s hard rock and the “alternative” scene of the early and mid 90’s. A few specific examples would be, (in no particular order): Led Zeppelin, The Who, Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, and Tool. Not sure if that really tells you anything being that it is such a one dimensional picture of what has influenced us.

Tell me about Noah’s harmonica. You don’t hear that in a lot of non-blues bands these days. When did he start playing?
Noah started playing when he was 16 years old and developed his chops by playing in blues bands through high school and college. He started to study the work of some great guitar players and became frustrated that he couldn’t play these guitar solos on a traditional diatonic harmonica. To take the harmonica in the musical direction he wanted, he developed a tuning that differs from the traditional instrument. Noah wouldn’t have been able to play the parts on the album if it wasn’t for these custom tuned harmonicas.

Tell me about the pedals/effects you run it through.
Noah uses a Blackbox Effects Cobalt which is a preamp/mild overdrive and a Teese RMC3 wah pedal. The Cobalt is used to give the signal a little extra push and grit and the wah pedal is used for a few solo parts. He runs his signal into a small Gibson amp.

How does it add/contribute to the sound of the group overall?
In the 60’s and 70’s it wasn’t uncommon for rock singers to play harmonica. Roger Dahltry and Robert Plant are great examples of this. Now it is mostly blues players and Dylanites that use the instrument. Having a great harmonica player in a rock band, if nothing else makes it memorable, but it also harkens back to the real glory days of rock n roll. Noah uses it as a seasoning as opposed to a main ingredient. With exceptions of Stevie Wonder and John Popper there haven’t been true players pushing the roll of harmonica in mainstream music in recent music history.

What’s your favorite song to perform live?
I like “Pleasure In Pain” and Noah likes “Embrace.” I like “Pleasure In Pain” because it has a fun groove-based riff and a great harmonica solo. Noah likes “Embrace” because he uses a different approach to vocals than on the other tunes. But we love to play all of them. Ask us in a couple of years, and we may be sick of some of them. haha.

How would your fans describe you?
I think the one we hear the most is that the songs sound familiar, yet new. That’s always nice to hear.

Some of your lyrics refer to Jesus/religion. Is this a Christian band, a band of Christians who don’t necessarily create Christian music, or are you guys just like Creed and entirely confused?
Noah and I are Christians and some of the rest of the band is as well, but we are by no means a “Christian band.” That has never been a goal of ours. For songwriters, Christian or not, the motivation is the same; to write songs that are honest and real. What does differ is what you believe to be honest and real. Christ is very real for us, so that will naturally be a part of our songs, but we are not proselytizers, just pilgrims.

Tell me about that Silverchair cover the other night at the Red Sea. Do you guys really like Silverchair? Do you have other covers you do that are popular?
Right now “Israel’s Son” is the only cover song we do. Silverchair was a great band. People tend to think of them as a flash in the pan from 1996, but they made really great albums after everyone forgot about them. They would have hit the States when we were 15 or 16 years old, and Frogstomp was a loud rock and roll record that 16 year old kids can identify with. It’s fun to play Israel’s Son because people our age know the song very well, but have forgotten that they know it. We may have a few other cover tunes that we pull out, but we will stick to great songs that people have forgotten about.

Where can folks purchase your new CD?
CDs are available at our shows and they are also available at the three Twin Cities Cheapo locations. They can also be ordered from our Web Site.

Other news/upcoming gigs?
We have a few shows coming up:
-May 2 we might be at the Uptown Bar. This one is tentative. The headliners canceled and so the show is being rebooked, but there hasn’t been confirmation yet.
-May 6 we will be at The Quarry at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud.
-June 3 we will be making our way to Brainerd, MN to play at the Eclectic Cafe. Should be a great show. We are always adding shows though so folks can keep track of that at our Web Site.