NYC’s Deli Magazine (actual and real) interview with Von

VR: Good evening, I’m pleased to take your questions tonight. This is a scripted …(laughter)

Reporter: Thank you, I love you.

VR: Let’s see here … Elizabeth … Gregory … April … Dan from The Deli… Did you have a question or did I call upon you cold?

Reporter: How is your faith guiding you?

VR: My faith sustains me because I pray daily. I pray for feathery light pastries, and, uh, invisible guides with real people names and such.

Reporter: If you could sit in a bar and have a beer (or whichever beverage you prefer) with anyone who would it be?

VR: Everyone says Goebbels so I won’t go there. It’d be a tall Shirley Temple (or 2) with Hannah Montana. I have my reason, if you care.

Reporter: What band/artist are you the most sick of nowadays?

VR: We refuse to dabble in the negatives of your sensationalist journalism. Instead, I’ll go positive. I am a big Hannah Montana fan, and I will tell you why. They say she writes her own songs. How could someone so young know so well of the lost dreams and eroded values that dwell deep within the minds of 40 year old Disney execs AND also possess the talent to transform that greedy gunk into audible tripe to serve to the world? That goes beyond prodigy. 2 STs and she’d be loopy enough to let me in on her secrets, I think.

Reporter: How big would you like the band to get? Are you happy settling for respect and indie cred or do you want to own a boat and laugh at the unwashed masses?

VR: Our fan t-shirts say, “The Global March for Cultural Domination” TM so let’s not mince words. As humble musicians in the 21st century we know our limits: a clothing line; vodka company; record label; a basketball team; the licensing of our names and likenesses to products we will neither use nor wear; the “creation” of banal scores for furry costumes on Disney’s Broadway and a separate deal for a plotless Broadway extravaganza based on our songbook that would require no skilled actors, just pretty, young and clean cheerleader types.

Reporter: Origins (where did your band form?)

VR: Brooklyn.

Reporter: What it is (describe your band in about twenty words)

VR: Rather than speculating or reflecting my bias, I will refer to falsified fan testimony which we planted in the press: VR&HOU: “that which makes us weep with vexation and desire as we stand in the midst of The Presence.” So, I dunno, we are It; the pervasive force; the “divine milieu.”

Reporter: For Those That Like (Who would you say your music rocks out like?)

VR: Mid-song key changes a la Barry Manilow, Star Search/American Idol, Scooter Pie (Reporter note: he meant Rascal Flats)

Reporter: Relevant Info (pimp your latest shows, records, or whatever is going on in your universe)

VR: We are currently recording our first full-length album. This one will be more eclectic with some upright bass, harp, and horns. With that release we will tour the east coast (maybe spring 2009). In the meantime, we’ll play select live shows in Boston, New York, and the Hudson Valley. That info (as well as free downloads) is on our website www.vonrobinson.com.

Reporter: Do you really control the whole band’s universe or do you allow your band mates to contribute?

VR: There are natural principles of force and mass that we are all subject to: greed, competition, economic cannibalism, envy, slander…the new physics. We only aim to act in accord with these principles. Naturally, we spend more time fighting than rehearsing, and it feels so right.

Reporter: If you could open for any band, who would it be and why?

VR: Panic At The Disco, The Academy Is… or Fallout Boy because I think they are all one band and it’s not very good. Even our mediocrity rises above their’s, and to an arena of fans, night in, night out that reads as superiority with little effort. Or Good Charlotte because it is always entertaining being around a collective identity crisis.