Vincent Brunetto of Catamaran
A few weeks ago I went to Buffalo to see Dan Black and Dragonette, who I knew would be good, but I also lucked out and got to see an emerging act named Catamaran, led by Vincent Brunetto. I was digging his raw sounds and electronics so much I thought; “I should interview him!”, and that’s precisely what I did. Click more for the interview and an MP3!
You said at the show with Dan Black and Dragonette that you were going to be from Buffalo, where are you from originally?
I am originally from Connecticut, still am half the time.
What made you decide to make Buffalo your home?
Well we live just outside Buffalo, but you could say its our musical home. The decision itself stems from just choosing a school up here and finding out that its a nice place to create music was a nice added bonus.
What got you started in the realm of music?
One of my buddies was in a punk band, but had written a few songs acoustically (pop songs). At the time I had just started to play around with synthesizers, so we decided to record his songs with added synth lines. After the first session we became really good friends and decided to write and record more. I am almost positive it was really terrible but after a while we had somehow developed a following in our town. It was really a cool thing to experience for my first endeavor, we even got to open for Matt and Kim (pre liquor commercial).
What drew you to the sounds of electronic music?
My dad always listened to really cool music when I was a kid, a lot of it had real prevalent synth lines and my dad would always play air synth to those lines, so when it came time for me to take up an instrument it was like subliminally natural to take up synthesizers, once I got comfortable with keyboards, I began to learn how to program drums and stuff.
Who are some of the artists you admire (electronic or not)?
Well of course I have to turn to artists of the past like joy division and Kraftwerk. But the way music is being packaged and presented to an the audience has really allowed new artists to emerge and be discovered weather it be via blogs, or word of mouth. So there are a ton of new artists that i am really digging. A few would be like Toro Y Moi or this guy Games. There are so many though. Whats really nice to me is that there has been a definite resurgence in home recording and the fact that these guys or gals are putting stuff out that is so sonically pleasing, and it all was done without having to go through a studio is really inspiring to me.
How did Catamaran get started?
I had been playing guitar and singing in a band in Connecticut, but for half the year i’d be away at school, so being in a dorm room i couldn’t really write a lot of guitar stuff anymore because my neighbor was an asshole, so it became really easy and almost necessary for me to put on headphones and start writing electronic stuff. These ideas had been in my head for a long time so it wasn’t like starting form scratch because I was always trying to stay sharp on keyboards, but recording them was a whole new process. The initial Catamaran demos are much different than what is heard now but they were much needed stepping stones.
What’s the process for a Catamaran song?
It usually starts with the main synth lines, chords or arpeggiators. From there I usually work on the drums and bass. The drums always seem to take a long time for me, I’m not sure why. After the body of the song is done i can work on secondary synths or samples then I usually add vocals or guitar last. The process is ever changing though, it’s different from song to song.
How did you get hooked up with your current drummer?
One really important thing for me was that if I were to start playing live shows that there be live drums. I don’t want to be a strictly electronic act and I didn’t want it to sound or feel exactly the same live as is did recorded. When it came time to find a drummer it wasn’t hard. Eric has been my best friend for years and was in my previous band so we have experiences working together musically. So he decided to move up here from Connecticut with me. It’s nice having him around when I’m writing and recording because there are things about the rhythms that I sometimes miss and hes always on point to help fix them.
At your set at Big Orbit Soundlab, you rocked a guitar for a faster paced song, will that song be available to listen to soon?
It’s funny, that was the first Catamaran song ever written. It’s called “Your Sister” It is the only one that has survived the many changes I have made and I guess for good reason. There are actually two recordings of that song, one was the first demo I posted around Christmas time, and then I did another one over the summer but never posted it. I can never find a way to record that song to where I feel happy with the end result, but we both love playing it live and its a great song to end out on. Who knows maybe I’ll figure it out one day.
Are you excited about playing at the Mohawk place on August 28th?
We are very lucky to be able to play that show. The headliner is a Buffalo based band called Arctic Death and the show is their CD release. Any time you get to play a CD release it’s cool because everyone is in a good mood. It is a really awesome accomplishment. Plus at this point both Eric and I are are just excited to meet people.
What’s next for Catamaran?
Right now I am mixing another demo, and working out the live stuff with Eric. We have some opportunities to possibly play Boston and a few other east coast cities. I also plan on working with my good friend Gagan, who works a lot with video to make live backing visuals. Whatever we are doing now seems to be working and we are having a lot of fun so it makes sense to just keep that up.
