Words: Vanessa Monaghan
Ronnie Vannucci, sits across the table from me, only arrived in Dublin from Las Vegas, which means he’s just off a long flight and it should be the middle of the night for him. He’s a trooper though! While most people will know Ronnie as drummer with The Killers, he’s in Dublin for Arthur’s Day for his sideproject ‘Big Talk’, who released their debut album earlier this year.
Big Talk came about while The Killers were on hiatus, why do it now? Was it something you had to get off your chest?
It’s difficult when you come off of nine years straight, if you’re not touring you’re busy writing songs, you’re working. We decided as a band to chill out kick up the feet and see what our bedrooms look like again. About two weeks into it, I just got the itch I can’t stop creating. When you develop this lifestyle it’s hard to come away from it sometimes. It’s not like I had any, thank God, fcuked up or weird addictions or anything. You just get used to making songs everyday and I had no one to play with in my sandbox.(laughs)
So basically I went into the home studio which I used to demo Killers stuff and a pile of ideas and didn’t use any of them but it got me… got the gears moving up a bit. I’ve always written songs but always with the intention of leaving holes in there, leaving it purposefully underdeveloped and unfinished so I bring it over and finish things as a band.
It seems like it’s really hard to try and readjust to home life. What do you know to try and chill and get back into that?
I owe a lot to my wife because she really brings me back down to the level of just getting normalcy. As soon as I get home, ‘Hey you! Mow the lawn! Get this trash out! The dog needs shots… ‘ Normal shit, which is actually sort of what I look forward to, when you’re life is a hundred miles an hour over here and then it’s nice to have your home by a place of solace and rest.
With The Killers you are part of the group, with Big Talk, it’s your baby, how much pressure did you find yourself under?
Not a lot, the only real pressure was that because I never really done anything like this I just didn’t want it to suck because I care a lot about how The Killers are perceived. Anytime someone goes out on a solo endeavour or helps out on a record you want to be careful you don’t tarnish… it’s not like you set up The Killers as being a brand or something but if you do something stupid it does affect the band so that was the only pressure and it was self imposed basically.
You played drums on one of the tracks on Brandon’s solo record. Would you get together and say ‘ hey here’s my stuff, what do you think of that?
We own a studio in Vegas and I did most of the recording there, so inevitably the other guys would walk in and ‘Hey check this out’. It was really surprising, my role in The Killers is to help writesongs, I pick up a guitar once in a while but it got a lot of positive feedback.
Was there anything they were like ‘You can’t have that, we want want it’.
‘Can we use this for The Killers instead?’ Ah there was one song that was meant to be but it’s different now. The song ‘Replica’, I always thought it would be a good Killers song but I had a different chorus on it at the time.
When you’re writing for your solo material and Killers material, do you approach them differently or do you just let it flow?
Yeah, I let it flow. I really try not to put any type of muzzle, if you try and custom tailor a song too much, because I’m not that good at it, I can’t really do that but if you limit your scope or if you have some kind of direction, it limits the possibilities of where the songs could go.
Maybe three or four of the tunes on the record were just spontaneous, ‘No Whiskey’ and ‘A Girl at Sunrise’, those were pretty much written in fifteen minutes. ‘Next one living’ was another one of those things that I wrote very very fast, its just kinda wanted to be David Bowie for a minute, it sounds nothing like … I ‘ve never tried to put a muzzle on, I just like to see what will comes out.
You’ve always been a drummer, now you’re a front man. What’s it like without the kit, enjoying the freedom?
Yeah, I think at the end of the day it feel’s much the same for me because it’s just playing music, it’s passion with an instrument you know? I don’t care what they give me, a cardboard box I’ll make the fcuking thing sing too!
The live band that you’re playing with is different to the guests you had on the record.
Yeah I played everything on the record, me and Taylor Milne made the record. Actually, there is a couple of guest bass players on a couple of songs, Matt Sharp from Weezer played, Weezer Rentals, he’s not Weezer anymore but he was in it when Weezer was really good. My friend Ted, who’s my best friend, we grew up together, he played bass on a couple of tracks.
When you approached this project, did you think it would evolve into a live band or was it just a project?
That’s the thing, when I was showing these songs to a couple of friends, they thought it would be a good idea to go under my own name, make it a solo but it never sounded like a singer songwriter, to me even though I was playing the stuff, it always sounded like a rock band to me. So I said let’s give it a bad name, how about ‘Big Talk’?
I’ve heard that the name Big Talk is a dig at record companies ?
Not exactly, it’s mostly just because I like the name. There is an element to it. I sort of shot myself in the foot forming my own label because no one the fcuk knows who Big Talk is right now. I started my own label, I underwrote everything and started doing this project by myself. Me and Taylor. Taylor’s kind of the other half of Big Talk, he’s a great guitar player.
You played in bands with Taylor before?
Yeah Expert October back in the nineties. He and I remain friends, that guy’s such a gifted musician but he hasn’t been.. he’s been doing a couple of things but he makes teeth for a living, He’s very good at that and makes a good living at it but he’s a musician first. He was my first go to guy, ‘hey man, I’ve got these songs, you wanna make a record, maybe we’ll tour a little bit?’ He was on board. I owe a lot to him because without him I don’t think a lot of these song would have got off the ground cos I have a very short attention span. I fall in love with a song, three days later it’s a piece of sh1t. Taylor really helped me to see a lot of things through.
Speaking of record companies, you ‘found’ Neon Trees and helped them get signed..
Nah!
You’re credited with finding them!
Those guys, they do it themselves I mean, I don’t take credit for that. They’re a hard working band and they write good songs, they did it for themselves. I just kinda told a few people about it, that’s it. The rest, all the work , the sh1t that really matters, they did for themselves. I can’t take credit for it.
You formed your own label, was that because you wanted to have control over everything yourself?
I’m a bit of a control freak (laughs) I just know that the labels these days are a lost broken machine and I really felt in my heart of hearts… you know I’m not the singer in the band even though the band’s all sh1t hot and everything, I really thought that is would get its due and if its not getting its due, at least I want to own it, I want to have it. It’s a fun record, I had fun making it. I didn’t think too much about it.
I was doing everything myself and I was hitting walls upon walls upon walls and I said ‘Fcuk it, Let me put it out!’ Wait a minute I don’t know anything about running a record label so I have some friends, I have a friend who owns a record label, Epitaph, Brett Gurewitz (guitarist with Bad Religion). He and I have been friends for a while and I showed him some early demos and he was really into it. He said ‘What are you going to do?’ I said ‘Well I think I want to put it out but I don’t know how to run a record label, got any ideas?’. He said ‘Let’s get creative! I’d love to help out,’ So I formed my record label and licenced it to Epitaph to put it out.
The way they do things slightly atypical from your normal record label You walk into their office, which is this old architectural building in Silverlake, Hollywood, and everyone’s listening to music, everyone’s active, there’s no big offices with one hundred dollar candles burning.. These people love music, they play rock…
They still have the passion for it?
Yeah, they’ve a great roster, Sh!t They have Tom Waits! Their whole thing is to put it out there, we’re not going to make you do any ‘Red Carpets’. I’m like ‘Fcuk yes!, finally these people get it. Now, the record sales have been sh1t because of it but I think..
The critical and fan reviews though are very positive, the fans are loving it!
Yeah, that’s the pay off. I’d much rather something come from an honest place than something jammed down your throat. I think a lot of major labels today but you in front of every fcuking microphone.. it’s..
A bit souless?
Yeah, this has more soul. Less of a success but at least I have my soul at the end of the day and cos I
have my own record label I own everything. So let’s say it does really really good and some record label wants to pick it up, they gotta go through me first.
I love the way Big Talk have used the cuttings from newspapers in your press section on the website. It makes it really personal and seem very important to you. Is that an indication of what this project means to you?
You know, that to be honest is more a function of the website people. I said I want the website to be simple, put what needs to be put out there but I think a large part of the information comes from the social media, from the Twitter and the Facebook and that type of sh1t.
Do you use social media much yourself ?
I’m learning about it but that’s another thing.. you can get totally sucked in and up your own ass about it (Vannucci then apologizes for his language). People can get a little consumed by it and I purposefully just leave it alone, (whispers) Let’s check it right now!
Before heading here we were breaking in a new bassist, Buddy Coombes, who’s actually an excellent lead guitar player, it sucks that he’s on bass but he’s bad ass anyway! He was learning the songs so we would just roll into bars in Vegas, all last week, with little tiny amplifiers and go ‘Hey can we play here?’.
So we’d roll in, shake a tambourine, sometimes bring a snare drum, sometimes there would be a house kit there and we’d bring in one guitar, one amp, you can carry your gear in and set up in five minutes. ‘Hi Everyobidy, we’re testing these out…’ We’d do these guerilla style shows and this Facebook came in handy there. ‘Meet us in an hour at this place, we’re going to try some songs out’. I like that vibe.
That’s the other thing, they are rock n’roll songs and for this band I want everywhere we play to seem like my living room, like a party.
I heard The Killers are recording ?
Yeah we have been recording stuff. What happens is we do a month on and a month off so one the months off I go and do stuff. It keeps me busy and I think it has made me a better songwriter and a better player because I’m switching roles. I have that perspective now.
Does that mean Big Talk is going to have a longer life that just this album?
I have an album worth of stuff (laughs) already that I don’t think would work for The Killers. My alliegence is to The Killers, put it this way, I don’t feel like I’m halted creatively with The Killers, I’m very satisified, creatively, with The Killers.
When I’m in there I’m not just playing drums, I’m like ‘Why don’t we try this progression ?’ or I have a lyric idea or something, that’s usually bad but I still feel like I’m getting my yayas out, you know what I mean? But a lot of stuff I come up with, may not be suited for Killers’ stuff.
Big Talk’s Album is out now.