“How did you find me here?’’ wails Vic Della Pello over the twang of his 62’ Cadillac Green Gretsch guitar on the sixth track of his latest CD, the much-anticipated “Broken Heart Tattoo.’’
Much like the tunes on this project, Vic’s trip from there to here has included some dark nights covering some serious interstate, along with some feel-good rambling drives up some back country roads. Some songs call for gunning it in the fast lane and cranking up the volume; others, propping your dusty boots up on the front porch rail and taking in the stars.
From the age of 5, Vic has had a serious infatuation with music. Whether he was grabbing a red toy guitar and fashioning himself a Beach Boy, or plopping down on the shag carpet to study the moves of “The Partridge Family, “The Osmonds,’’ and “Sonny & Cher,’’ Vic, his head filled with early ‘70s AM pop, he just knew he wanted to play. His Close-and-Play record player clocked as many miles as a worn out pickup truck, spinning everything from Elvis to The Beatles to Johnny Cash. “I remember the Beatles cartoons, and I wasn’t even born yet!’’ he jokes.
Growing up in the late ‘60s and ‘70s in rural Hunterdon County, Vic spent his time with cars, dirt bikes and horses, guitar lessons, pilfered cigarettes, the British Invasion, and the requisite Zeppelin obsession. The Rolling Stones and George Jones began competing for time on the turntable with Pink Floyd, The Clash, Elvis Costello and the Pretenders, and the amalgam was evidenced by a devotion to music and a long line of cover bands.
With high school at his back, he headed off to Boston University, where he “had a great time but wasn’t really studying, and basically, I was not asked back.’’
He recalls telling his Dad, the patriarch of a large family and owner of a large road construction business, that what he wanted to be was a musician. “My father put it to me two ways – you’re going to school or you’re going to work. “Basically, I worked my ass off that summer”. “There’s the shovel and the pile of rocks - move it from here to there.’’
While it might have instilled a life lesson, it wasn’t the kind of rock he wanted to roll. And while he would support himself in the company business more than once in his life, music was his destiny and that little red guitar and those scratchy ‘45s were still calling out to him.
That fall, he enrolled in Berklee School of Music in Boston, and it was there he finally found himself among kindred spirits who inhabited music the same way he did. The experience gave him the permission he needed to see himself as a musician first, and foremost, and opened him up to a universe of jazz – “which really opened up my ears’’ – as well as giving him the push he needed: “It was like, here, make music. Do music. Listen to music. Live, breathe, eat music.”
All along, Vic Della Pello, a natural lyricist, has been writing his own songs. Some of them could be described as alt country crooners, others bluesy rockers meant for a smoky barroom, still others wry, reflective ballads occupying the same lane as Gram Parsons, Tom Petty or Adam Duritz.
After graduating Berklee, he quickly found his musical soul mates among the denizens of the New Jersey and New York music scene. Whether they be rough and tumble fellow club musicians eager to rock out at any number of the area’s larger clubs, or empathetic artists drawn to his songwriting skills, appealing voice, strong guitar work and natural stage presence, they forged a loose alliance that would result in two decades of music making , with some major musical successes including opening for the likes of Warren Zevon, Steve Forbert and John Hiatt.
Over the years, Vic Della Pello has produced five studio recordings, from the early days of “Head in Your Heart,’’ “Roomful of Songs’’ (produced by Scott Matthews, known for his work with John Hiatt and Bonnie Raitt) “Graffiti Me” (produced by Vic and Larry Dvoskin) followed to 1998’s “Feelin’ More than Fine’’ and the fun companion disc of outtakes and cover songs “the Lost Toys e.p.’’
The much anticipated “Broken Heart Tattoo’’ features Vic with a full arsenal of sound that includes six-and 12-string acoustic and electric guitar, dobro, mandolin, Nashville guitar and that well-tuned voice on lead and harmony vocals. With Vic’s soulful and warm vocals at the core, both long-time musical compadres and some new musician friends come along for the ride -- longtime bandmate Danny Caruso on bass, percussion and loops; Stephen DeAcutis on guitar; Dave Hartkern on drums and harmony vocals; John Ginty on B3 organ, piano and various keyboards; Andrea Ceresa on harmony vocals; Gary Oleyar on violin. Caruso handled most of the recording work for “Broken Heart Tattoo’’ at Martini Lounge (in South Plainfield NJ), with the balance by DeAcutis at Sound Spa (in Edison, NJ), where the project was mixed.
The title track is a literate, unsentimental yet compassionate look at love gone bust:
“Whiskey eyes Bags of lies like suicide/Baby we were crazy then
Loud guitars Smokey bars shooting stars/A little scared but bullet proof …’’
The song is at once clear-eyed and world weary, the songsmith revealing himself to be both one who
has been black and blued by love, and yet isn’t quite done believing in it:
“Sometimes you need a little more pain to work things thru/
Roll up your sleeve darling where the skin is fresh and new/
We f**k and fight with all our might to get it right … ‘
And be prepared for Ceresa’s kick-ass lead-.harmony vocals here, which will stop most listeners in their tracks.
But it’s not all barroom confessions and cigarettes, as Vic mixes things up with several hum-worthy tracks, especially “Drivin’ Around’’ and “Call Me Up,’’ which are feel-good romps meant to be played with the top down and the sound up loud. And again, “With These Hands,’’ which opens the disc, will have listeners grabbing the liner notes and reading the lyrics, which speak to Vic’s poet soul.
Vic is at his finest on the disc, as a songwriter, an accomplished musician moving comfortable between alt country, folksy blues and complex, layered pop. There isn’t a weak link in the motorcycle chain.
A few years back, Vic went through some major life changes. He ditched the day job. He recommitted himself to music making. He moved to Jersey City and wrote new songs and dusted off some he’d tucked away.
“Maybe about four or five years ago, that’s when everything changed. I lightened up my load. I guess it was turning 40, maybe. I left the family business, my mom died of cancer. You set certain things aside. It’s a refiguring. I wouldn’t be the person that I am today if I didn’t go through those things. I needed to do that. I was masking adulthood, and it was clearing out time.’’
“Once I did that, it changed everything. It brought back the sense of, I can still do this. I can still write music, I can still do something that’s valid. It’s art. We do it because we want to do it. Because we love to do it.’’
It was also during this time the song “Melt” was picked up by the ABC Family Channel for use in the show Falcon Beach. Co-written for a band mates wedding and recorded by the group Second Left, it set about a validation and the want to start recording a new disc.
There were a few false starts, to be sure, in the recording process. And three years passed before things really settled into where they needed to be.
Says Vic about the final product, “It’s layered in a lot of ways that I wasn’t sure I wanted to do, but I’m really happy with the end result. It’s more produced than my previous projects. It’s something I’ve worked on for a long time.’’
Seriously, loaded with a set list not to be reckoned with, Vic is ready to take on a much greater part of the musical world.
And that, folks, is how we find him, finally, here.
Biography written by: Tammy Paolino- Gannet- Collingswood NJ
|
