Band Meeting Minutes Recorded by Marcus
Harley stands up and says something. Didn’t really catch it. I’m kind of tired. Okay uhhh welcome to the second band meeting blah blah blah. Billy Reed couldn’t make it today. Is Harley the only one who’s met this guy? Whatever.
We’re twenty minutes into the meeting now. I might have dozed off. It’s cool though they’re still arguing about the band name. Harley wants the Smithsonians, Victoria hates it. Harley wants Young’s Rosary, Victoria hates it. It seems like Harley might have wanted us to do something before the next meeting. Think up something. Numbers? Nodules? Names. Right. Cool. I’ve got one.
“How about the Velvet Trellises?” I ask. Harley and Victoria stare at me for awhile. Harley likes it. Now it just needs to pass the Victoria test.
Spaced out for a second, it’s cool, I don’t think anyone noticed. They don’t appear to be fighting anymore so I guess Victoria went for it. Okay Harley is tuning her guitar; I guess that’s the end of the meeting, time to play. Sweet.
Excerpt from Interview with Victoria Lasik
Victoria Lasik, known as the mean Queen of the folk/alt music scene, sits before us wearing her trademark tiara. She appears confident and at ease. She is the front woman for the breakout band the Velvet Trellises, who just released their second single This Song is About Nothing. We ask her to talk about the early days for the band.
“It was a lot of fun when we were just starting out. I mean it’s still fun now, but you know. We’d all known each other since about the second grade, we all loved music, especially Marcus. I think Harley just liked getting to be as crazy as she wanted and being able to get away with it. Me? I liked it all. I liked the attention, I liked the fashion, I liked the music, and I liked the attitude that went along with it.
It was like I was someone else onstage. I’m kind of introverted when it’s a one-on-one interaction, but put me in front of a crowd and suddenly I was the frickin’ princess. I had attitude, I strutted, the feeling of being up on stage the first time… I was addicted.”
“Harley had to trick us into showing up. She told us she had free pizza and ice cream and we should come help her eat it. I should have known she was lying. Harley never shares her pizza. Anyway, we arrive and she informs us that we’re a band. She also informs us that we have a wedding gig in three weeks. This was kind of worrisome; since Harley could only play about five chords and I thought I had stage fright. Marcus was the only one remotely prepared to perform. Harley shrugged it off and said we needed motivation so we’d actually play. Typical Harley behavior. We couldn’t decide on a band name until a week later. Marcus threw out Velvet Trellises and we liked it so ta-da! The Velvet Trellises were born.
We played the wedding and it was actually okay. Harley took like a five-minute guitar solo in the middle of It’s Not Unusual, hate that song so much, but the bride and groom were too drunk to notice. All in all, a very successful first gig.”
We want to know the origins of her famous crown.
“Harley stole it from the prom queen at our high school. She had this stuffed dog; you know the Bud Light dog Spuds McKenzie? Well she had that dog wear it until graduation, which was the day after our first gig. She gave it to me as a graduation present. As I recall she gave Marcus socks. Marcus loves socks but she hates to have them match, so Harley separated all of them and paired them with a different color. That summer was a lot of fun, we took a trip to Reno and I got us into an open-mike night at this bar in the parking lot of… I think it’s called the Sierra now? It was the Hilton at the time. My cousin worked there, so even though we were late to sign up we still got in. We brought the house down. I wanted to sing Heat of the Moment, Harley loves Don’t Stop Believin’, and Marcus wanted to do Tubthumping by Chumbawumba. We did all three in this crazy mash-up and everyone loved it.”
We asked about their mysterious Bassist Billy Reed. Why isn’t he mentioned in any of these stories?
“Well Billy… he’s a private guy. I didn’t even meet him until right before our first gig. Then he left right afterwards. He never came to any of the meetings, but he always knew all of our songs. I honestly think the only people he ever talked to were Harley and the guy who delivered Chinese food to his house. He didn’t come to Reno because it wasn’t a “professional” gig. I don’t know, he’s a tough guy to read. I’ve only heard him talk once. He told Harley she was on fire, which she was. She thought tiki torches were a good idea, she was wrong. His voice is scary deep, like Darth Vader deep. So yeah, that’s Billy.”
Where does she see The Velvet Trellises going in the future?
“Everywhere. I think we have the perfect balance of talent, charisma, and insanity to make it in this crazy industry. You can expect big things from us.”
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