Interview with the band’s Very Cool People guitarist Elvijs Grafcovs.
The participants of the band : Elvijs Grafcovs – guitar, Toms Poiss – bass, Toms Rudzinkis or Artis Locmelis – sax, Maris Vitkus – synth and keys, Janis Jaunalksnis and Arturs Reirs –
drums and percussions.
How did you all get together?
Elvijs says : “I guess we got together because we all are just cool ;>”
what style do you categorize yourself to?
He says:”Talking about our music’s style .. well.. It could be called jazz-funk, I think(to make it easy), but in general we are pretty open minded and the music we play covers pretty much from jazz to hip-hop to rock to funk to surf.”
We asked him to tell us what are the things that keep the band together in everyday life, likes or dislikes may be.
Elvijs said :”Music, beer and cheeseburgers.”
About the story of the band’s name:
“In July 2007 me, Toms Poišs and Arturs met for some rehearsal and went to studio to record demo and book some gigs, so after doing that studio guy burned it to CD and asked: ” so what is the name of band?” and some how I just answered as a joke “VERY COOL PEOPLE”, so since then we call ourselves like that.”
For how long are you already playing together:
“In general VCP is around since end of august 2007. Its different, for example with Toms Poišs we have played for some time already and not only in VCP, with Arturs from the beginning of VCP, Toms Rudzinskis joined us almost in the beginning, so as trio we had only one or two gigs. With Janis we are also together for some 1,5 years already, in the beginning he was as a substitution drummer, then we started to play with two drummers and now he is as main drummer J. with Maris or Artis we are playing from last September. Biggest goals achieved.. I guess at the moment it is our debut album.”
Overall about their music :
“Very Cool Music ;>”
Elvij’s favorite song:
“It’s a bit hard question, because I don’t really have favorite neither from our tunes nor from other artists. Right now from our tunes I like the new one’s not recorded yet, from other artists I like albums(there are some favorite albums, not songs).”
Elvij’s dream in this band and in music industry overall :
“Got to get one of the Grammy awards 🙂 Big house, five cars, private jet, something like that. ;>”
Who of the famous bands or particularly guitarists would you like to meet? :
“It would be nice to meet members of bands like Soulive(organ trio from New York), Galactic or Ibrahim electric guys. From individual musicians it would be cool to chat with guitarists Oz Noy, Wayne Krantz, John Scofield or Charlie Hunter, as well as drummer Stanton Moore, organist Robert Walter or some of cool 60´s soul jazz organ players like Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Sam Lazar, Charles Earland or Funk Inc musicians, but with a lot of them is not possible to meet.”
Their upcoming events :
“In beginning of august we recorded a couple of new tunes, they are going to be with some feat. artists, but right now I wont tell you who are they, let us surprise you. The tune will be out in September or October. Also we started work on our web site, but it’s going a bit slow, I guess in fall we´ll focus on that more. In summer I have been working on new tunes, lately I have been in to surf music and Indian pop. So in new tunes I think you´ll be able to hear that. So in September with guys we will start to work on them together and we are planning to hit the clubs and fests in October. You can follow us in our blogs ;>”