Virgins Family Band, formerly VIRGINS, is a local group out with a new album and a lot of energy. Local 506 will be hosting the band for a double album release show with Baobab on Friday night. Virgins Family Band just released its second album, Honeylion, earlier this month and is eager to spread the word.
Diversions staff writer Charlie Shelton talked to lyricist and guitarist Sam Khoujinian about the band’s intentions behind the new album and where it plans to go from here.
Diversions: Is there some relief now that Honeylion is out, or does the stress continue?
Sam Khoujinian: There is still a bit of stress in planning the album release, especially because it is a double album release with Baobab, so we have been practicing a lot of collaboration and whatnot. I don’t think many people know this, but the first 50 people in the show get a free CD — and be prepared for puppets.
Dive: What was the motivation behind the name change from simply VIRGINS?
SK: Thinking about how good of friends we are with everybody in the group it just made sense to call it a “family band.” We wanted to keep the “virgins” in there because that has a lot to do with how we approach writing music; it’s actually not anything sexual as a lot of people might think. It has to do with the approach to making music.
Dive: What would you say is Virgins Family Band’s mission statement or signature quality?
SK: I know that there is one thing that I think about all the time and I have talked to the band about this. There are so many musicians and bands in the world and here in the area, and you know everybody is talented, right?
But nobody is entitled to have their music to be listened to, nobody owes you a listen just for being in a band. You have to be doing more with it.
You have to be sort of pushing as hard as you can against this wall of “I’m just another dude in another band” while tomorrow 12 new bands could pop up. So you always have to be pushing against this population of musicians.
But the balance is that as a musician and as a fan of music there is a degree of appreciation that has to go with going out there and playing. So it is really about striking a perfect balance between pushing more than just music and also appreciating the fact that people still are making music.
Dive: There is definitely a different sound coming out of Honeylion, such as the guitar interludes and a more comfortable pace. Were these intentional changes from your first album or is it just how the band has progressed?
SK: It was definitely intentional. Well, I guess every move you make to a degree is a little bit of an accident and a little intentional. RGB was more of a collection of ideas. Each track had something about it, but the record was never really like a piece of work in itself. It was just 10 different ideas put together.
Honeylion was way more thought out. It was very different from anything anybody in the band had worked on before.
I came up with most of the foundation for the album, but everybody else had such an important part in the process and it was so different for most of us. With Honeylion we really sat down and thought about what we were trying to convey, because RGB did not have very much decision-making behind it.
Dive: Do you think Honeylion has the same energy as RGB, but in a different way?
SK: Well, live, the songs on Honeylion are significantly more energetic than the songs on RGB. One of our biggest things is that if you want to know how we sound as a band you have to come see us.
RGB was just me and Gabe, so Honeylion feels way closer to all of us as a record. It has way more of each of us in it.
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