Although she was fighting against a terrible cold, PopWreckoning’s Bethany recently got a chance to chat with the guitarist for Philadelphia’s pop rock outfit Valencia, Brendan Walter. In between coughs and sneezes, Bethany managed to talk to Walter about the band’s history, activities and latest video.
Bethany, PopWreckoning: Hi, how are you doing?
Brendan Walter, Valencia: Very good, how are you?
PW: I’m good, just getting ready for the holidays. Do you have any big plans?
BW: Not really. Just hanging out with friends and family.
PW: You guys are all home in Philadelphia?
BW: Yeah, this is the first time in awhile where we’ll be home, so that will be nice.
PW: Cool, yeah I saw you have a break until a few shows in mid-December. Is this a break for the holidays or a break from touring in general? Are you guys already looking ahead to a third album?
BW: Pretty much all of the above. Our tour ended earlier than most tours and we were looking forward to being home. Also, we’re always writing, so we have new songs up our sleeves.
by Andy Mueller
PW: So what is your songwriting process?
BW: Yeah, it is pretty even for contribution. Somebody brings an idea and then we all work on it together and put all of our ideas into it.
PW: OK. So this last album that you guys just released this past year has been met with a lot of success and positive reviews, how have things changed for you because of that with all the critic support?
BW: Not much has changed for us really because of that. The kids are responding. They love and want to hear the new stuff. Usually people are complaining, “Play more old stuff,” but that’s not the case for us, which is a cool thing.
PW: I know that Kenny [Vasoli] from The Starting Line and Person L sang on a song for the new album, would you say there’s a pretty tight music community in Philadelphia or since you are so close to New York City, is it a bit harder to search out the artists in your city?
BW: He lives pretty much right near where we live. We’ve grown up seeing The Starting Line in local shows and being fans of The Starting Line when we were kids, we’ve gone to now being friends with guys in The Starting Line. It’s something that we’ve always talked about: just working together. Now, it’s finally happened.
PW: So are there other Philly artists that you’d like to work with?
BW: We have lots of friends that we like to jam with. There’s a band called The Great American Soundtrack that we like to play with. And it’s kind of like when we’re not writing our own songs, we like to help other bands come into their own as their own artists. We have, well we know, what it’s like when you’re first starting out to have no idea of how to structure a song. So we know how to push that in the right direction and there’s a couple of bands that we like to help out like that.
PW: You guys just released a music video for your song “Where Did You Go?” How did you come up for the idea for the video?
BW: Well, we were talking to a lot of different directors. The director that we finally chose was the guy who did the Mute Math video. It was the one where everything was reversed and everything. He had the really cool idea of having the different locations and having it look like it was green screen, but not be green screen. We had, on our last record, a song about how much we love Philadelphia, and we really do love Philadelphia, so we thought it would be cool to do sort of a homage to our hometown and everything.
PW: And it’s been met with good reactions because it just came out like a week ago, right?
BW: Yeah, it’s been met with good reactions so far. There’s the kids who don’t really get it and they think it is a green screen video and they’re like, “I can’t believe you’ve spent so much money and just made a green screen video.” The one’s that do get it, they know that we just love our city and with that, there’s been a good response.
PW: So, there’s absolutely no green screen involved in that?
BW: No, we spent all day and all night going to different locations around our city and shooting a specific person in each spot. It was a lot of hard work, so it’s annoying when people try to say it was a green screen.
PW: Did you learn a lot about camera work then to get that effect done?
BW: It’s kind of cool how they did it. They have the monitor and they have different sheets that they put over each person to make sure they stood in the exact same spot, so it was kind of tedious to line up every shot and do it correctly, but when they’re done, it comes out pretty cool. I like making videos myself, but I don’t think I’d ever want to do something like that because it was a little much work, but it is pretty cool and I’m glad we did it.
PW: Yeah, it came out great.
BW: Thank you.
PW: OK, so I know there’s a side project called Promise of Redemption that the lead singer of your band has. Do the rest of you also have side projects that you work on in addition to Valencia?
BW: I have tons and tons of songs that I would love to work on, but I’ve never released anything. But as far as Promise of Redemption goes, that’s actually how me and Shane [Henderson] met. We had played some shows together and he asked me to play just one show with him as Promise of Redemption because he didn’t want to be by himself. So I played acoustic with him and then we ended up writing a lot of songs together. I played on the first Promise of Redemption record and just kind of went from there. I mean, we all have our own musical things aside from Valencia, but we kind of keep them to ourselves most of the time.
PW: I know in addition to being heavily involved with music, you guys are a band with a conscience and you get involved in a lot of foundations and charity projects? How do you decide what to get involved with and what are you currently doing if anything?
BW: If things get thrown at us, we like to take whatever we can, but there’s so many things out there and there’s so many people that do need help. I know that we love to do stuff for cancer because we have had so many family members that have lost their lives to cancer and friends and people who work with cancer. It feels like there’s so much research going toward it and they’re getting closer and closer. They’re finding out ways to prevent it or to try and cure it or whatever. It’s something that people need to get involved with.
PW: So are you guys involved in any projects directly right now?
BW: Not exactly. We’re doing a couple benefit shows and we’ve done many in the past. One of our really good friends works for LLS, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and he always has things he needs and stuff like that, so we try to help out as much as we can.
PW: I noticed on your guys’ website that JD [Perry] commented recently on why you guys aren’t bigger. Is that something he just did on his own or is that something that you guys as a band decided to speak up about?
BW: He just did that on his own. We were up in New York the other just doing something and he brought it up because it was posted somewhere and he was just saying that everyone has all these expectations about what we should be and it’s really if you just want to support us, support us. If you don’t, well then get out of our way. We’re doing what we love and writing songs and making music. That’s what we do and we don’t really care if you think our videos cool enough or whatever people spend too much time thinking about.
PW: Now is it true that you were one of the first people that ran into trouble with the RIAA about music downloads?
BW: Yes.
PW: Now after being with Valencia for a few years now, has that changed your opinion at all about downloading?
BW: Not necessarily. I’ve always bought records and I still buy records. I think it’s something that people will do, but there’s also downloading and it is part of the culture and the scene these days. I don’t really have anything against just as long as if you love something that you go out and support it and you check it out. I’ve always had that opinion and I still do. People can download music, and that’s fine, just as long as if they like it, they go buy the record. If they don’t, they don’t have to buy it. If they really love it, they can support in other ways, too like buying t-shirts and through other venues.
PW: Now I know you guys are named for Valencia, Spain, but is there a particular reason why? Does anybody have any Spanish connections in the band?
BW: Not really and there’s some other reasons why we’re named that, but there’s kind of a history involved in the city and it’s kind of a long and boring story, but that’s the basic idea.
PW: Have you been to Valencia, Spain?
BW: No, none of us have, but we learned about it in school and that’s where we learned about the history and got the whole idea behind it.
PW: Ok. That’s really all I have, unless you have anything you’d like to add that you think our readers should know about you guys?
BW: Check out the video and check out the album. If you do love our band’s music or any band’s music, go out and pick up the record.
Valencia: website | myspace | We All Need A Reason To Believe review | cd release show
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