Taking in the Simple Things, Changing Sounds and Dream Music Festivals: Edwin Judd from The RVMES
The RVMES are coming in HOT with their third album that you don’t want to miss out on listening to. L-R: Ronaldo Lima, Richard Moore, Edwin Judd, Logan Fox. All photos provided by THE RVMES.
Ahead of the album release, I caught up with Edwin Judd, frontman of The RVMES for a chat about Simple Things, growth as a band, personal inspirations and more. An interview for the history books, for sure. Read on to see what Edwin had to say!
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Hello!
Edwin: Sup Ashlea, how’s it going?
Good thank you, how are you?
Edwin: Not too bad, thank you.
Thank you so much for being interviewed for Welcome to the Gig and sorry it has taken so long.
Edwin: That’s cool. Cheers for having us!
Just to be sure, your band name is pronounced The Rooms, is that correct?
Edwin: Correct. Nice one.
You’ve just released your third album that came out on the 24th November, I noticed when listening to it, every track has a different vibe to it. Every sound is so unique to the next one. How did that uniqueness come about? What made you want to create songs that sound like different artists with every track?
Edwin: We’ve done it since day one, pretty much. If you listen to our previous releases, it is the same situation. When we were thinking and talking about making the band, we were wondering what it would sound like… For one, we didn’t know. Two, being a purely reggae band, eventually it would probably get old. I don’t know. I can’t say that for every band. Like, Katchafire are bloody awesome, but maybe at some point, they’re like “man, I don’t want to play reggae anymore”, but Katchafire’s so locked into it that they can’t really branch off. Every rehearsal and jam session would be different ideas and genres. It’s really fun to play with that kind of stuff.
It’s really interesting because like, I was thinking about it while I was listening and unless you were specifically told and you knew that you were listening to the new album, you’d think that it was different artists every time. I think that is such a cool way to approach an album. I reckon that’s super cool.
Edwin: Yeah, it’s a good surprise and what is nice is like, it does sound like different bands, but vocally, it’s the same lyricist, myself. The same singer-songwriter. So, it ties it all together. Different vibes all over the place.
Do you have a favourite song off Simple Things?
Edwin: I really like Who Shot the Moon, the second track. I’ve got high hopes for that one. I could see it on the start of a TV show or something. It’s very moody and stuff. Playing live, I think, What’s Troublin You is quite fun. That was one of our singles off the album. They all have their different thing. I like playing some of them live more than I like listening to them.
It’s a different thing to play it and listen to it, isn’t it?
Edwin: Yeah, and Who Shot the Moon is a motherfucker to play live.
Speaking of the album, to go along with it, you’ve got quite a hefty summer coming up as well, with a couple big shows and touring around the North Island.
Edwin: I’m super excited. I have my to-do list here. Absolutely rammed. It’s our fourth tour, we were trying to count this the other day. All self-organised, all self-funded, I pretty much do all the booking myself. All the graphics are done by our drummer. We have five festivals and I’ve booked five venues and it’s all around the North Island. I tried to get the South Island, but it didn’t work out. The budget is pretty tight.
You’ve got my friends, Odds & Ends and also Retro Valley on the line-up for some of the shows.
Edwin: Yup, big shout out to the team. Love them. We’ve got Makeshift Parachutes as well, DJ Bax. Camila Lenhart. I think that’s everyone. So keen, very keen.
How do you pick your support acts? Is it an easy task to do?
Edwin: There’s quite a few factors. It’s like, depending on who you want and availability, first of all. I had some other bands in mind, but either one or two of them were booked or they had releases of their own coming out, so you kind of have to hit them up way in advance. Band-wise, we like energetic bands… Another factor with choosing support acts, as well, choosing friends is amazing, very cool, we’re all about it, [however] getting support acts that are local rather than bringing someone from Auckland is that support acts will bring their crowd as well. Also, booking a more notable band will be better for you.
How does Simple Things differ from your previous albums, Lifetime and The RVMES?
Edwin: All three of these releases, they’re all self-recorded, so we did it all in our own studio. Well, my garage, the first one. I think Simple Things is a bigger step compared to Lifetime just in terms of how much we grew with production and stuff. We also grew as songwriters, so it’s more intricate songs and riffs. Also, lyrically, it’s deeper. We went with more topics that are real. Lifetime had a few happy-go-lucky songs, let’s just say.
You sort of touched on this, however, how much have you grown since the last two albums?
Edwin: Grown as a band, I guess, more with like age. We kind of matured a little bit, hence why those lyrics kind of changed and we wanted to produce different topics. There is quite a lot of mental health in this album and so, like, “the greedy corporate people”. The world’s crazy. The world is full of greed and whatever. Also, we’ve gone through a member change in the band, which, I guess you could talk about growth with that a little bit, maybe. It was quite scary to be honest because we didn’t know who we were going to get. We had about 10 or 11 people lined up to audition or who were interested… We did 4 auditions, the first guy, Richard Moore, the new guitarist, he absolutely destroyed it. He knew everything, he had the passion, he had the schedule as well and he was really cool. He was ready to go.
I’ve spoken to a few bands who have lost members and had to replace them. How does that affect you guys, apart from obviously the music side of things? Does that also affect you quite a lot personally?
Edwin: We were all very tight, Miro was amazing in the band and I knew that he wanted to go to Europe, even before we started The RVMES, so I had it in the back of my mind that he was eventually going to go over. We had four really good years with him. Richard has quite a similar style to Miro. It was quite a seamless changeover.
I’ve noticed you have done single releases and albums, but never EPs. Is there a reason you’ve chosen to go the longer route with albums?
Edwin: I think we’re just old school at heart to be honest. Albums are cool though, we take a lot of pride in the order of our albums, like the kind of energy it portrays… EPs are sweet, but they’re just a little bit too short. The length of Simple Things was really cool, because it’s to the point where if there were one or two more songs, it could’ve been too long. It’s quite a quick album - I think it’s like, 28 or 30 minutes in total. I think it’s a good bite to chew, you know?
You touched briefly on the recording process, I wanted to expand on that a little bit more.
Edwin: It’s going to change now because the home studio was Miro’s gear. I think this is a time for us at the moment where when we release, we want to go into an actual studio. When we first went from the garage to the home studio and [then back to the] home studio again, we had all these cool releases, we’ve done a couple of singles in studios, we won a competition with Parachute and we recorded at Earwig Studios in Birkenhead, which is all on tape… We wanted to record on tape. We did three songs in one day, I think. It’s crazy. We want to step up from now and just do studio stuff and lift the quality. When we were recording in the home studios, we had all the time in the world, so we would just sit around and track and experiment which was really nice because you don’t really have that leisure when you go into a studio. I think it’s going to be a positive going into a studio because yes, you can do it at your leisure, but that means you can nit-pick more and things don’t sit until they go stale.
What are your biggest achievements as a band?
Edwin: I think just how strong of a team we are. How well we get along. Having four people who are fully dedicated to the band, I think that’s quite a big achievement in itself. Achievements otherwise… Our last album release… I think we pulled 215 people at the gig. We kind of went big on the production side of things. We’re getting more into the festivals, which is another big thing we want.
Speaking of festivals, just to throw this question in there, if you could pick a dream festival line-up, and it doesn’t have to be just Kiwis, it can be anyone, who would you pick? There’s also unlimited musicians.
Edwin: Can they be dead?
Yup. Of course.
Edwin: That’s so hard, my God. The band is really inspired by Red Hot Chili Peppers. So, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sting, Allen Stone, Jacob Collier is really cool, IDLES… John Butler Trio, Odds & Ends, us, the list goes on… Bob Marley! All the Kiwi bands. All of them, basically. The Butlers. Park Rd is going real hard, which is real cool. Yeah, I could do this all day! It would be the most insane festival ever. Tickets would be like, five grand. You’d see like, a thousand acts.
Other than music, what are your interests?
Edwin: I fish. I don’t eat meat, to be honest, but I eat fish. Not too much, but when I catch it, it’s much better. My partner doesn’t eat meat and she’ll only eat fish when I catch it. I’ll get one fish for dinner and it’s really nice to get out and do that in the fresh air. I like to mosaic as well. Richard teaches parkour for a job. He can do crazy flips and stuff, which is awesome, he’s also learning Japanese currently. Ronaldo, he is a plumber and he’s a hands-on kind of guy. He loves gardening. So do I. We always yarn about gardening. Logan loves to surf. By the end of summer, he is like, bronze.
I always like to ask this one when I can. If you could claim someone else’s album as your own, which album would it be and why?
Edwin: Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys. His solo stuff. There is an album called Waiting on a Song and I blast this all the time. It’s just so, so good.
Is there a reason why, apart from the fact you really love that album?
Edwin: Instrumentally and vocally… It’s got great lyrics. When I record music by myself, it’s quite in that vein. I do a lot of sad kind of grooves and that’s like, a version of what I sound like. I need to tap in more to the upbeat kind of stuff. So, it’s an amazing album, I always take notes and stuff and ideas out of it. Short answer, he reminds me of myself in a way.
Who is your personal inspiration in your life as a whole?
Edwin: Don’t know. Probably my Dad. Mum and Dad because they’re amazing people and I love them both. My partner is amazing, as well. So, yeah, I just want to kind of, have a good life. I don’t want to be a carnage rock n roll star. I want to be a humble dude with my cats.
Thank you so much!
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I want to say a massive thank you to Edwin for his time, patience and for being a generally great person. Not only is he musically talented on a whole other level, but he is also genuinely kind and loves cats just as much as me. You won’t regret getting into The RVMES, so listen to them right now.
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