Basic Vacation, a small-town band, has found their way into the indie-pop world with their debut single, “I Believe.” The single is the first shot across the bow for the band and is featured on their upcoming self-titled EP. The album will be released by Atom Factory Music, an independent label founded by Lady Gaga and John Legend manger Troy Carter, and Capitol Records.
“I’d say if you like fun, rock music that also has all the pop sensibilities in the world: super catchy, fun, but also maintains the real rock and we can put on a real live show, this is the band for you,” said vocalist and guitarist Chris Greatti.
All three members grew up with playing and listening to music and all have a past in the music industry. They each played in nearly a dozen previous bands between them.
Greatti grew up playing guitar and writing songs in Morrisville, PA. He met bassist Jon Paul, who took up bass in eighth grade and joined his school’s jazz band, when the two got hired to preform with a New York solo artist.
“I met Chris through some mutual friends and music people, and we just started jamming on some ideas,” said Paul. “After I moved to New York, I pretty much hounded Chris into starting a band.”
Their jam sessions started early 2012 and by Spring, Chris was taking a bus from Philly to Manhattan twice a week and sleeping on Jon’s floor.
“Actually, I slept on his roommate’s dog’s bed on the floor because there was nowhere else for me to crash,” said Greatti.
A few months into the business, they asked New Jersey native, Mike Montalbano to join. Montalbano started playing drums at five after falling in love with Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like A Lady.”
“Chris and Mike had been good friends since they were children and they had always been playing together through different things and then, once we needed a drummer and once we had a few tunes, me and Chris together, we obviously picked the best drummer from New Jersey,” said Paul.
“Mike’s previous band kind of fell apart right around when Jon and I we’re looking for a drummer, thus allowing the final piece of the puzzle to fall smoothly into place,” said Greatti.
The boys bonded over classic rock music, like Led Zeppelin and Queen, and bands that they feel a musical kinship, like The Killers and Foster the People.
“We started writing in fall/winter of 2012 and that’s when we got a lot of demos together and stuff like that,” said Greatti. “The recording process was a little bit drawn out, because we were still trying to figure out how we wanted to do the production for the first release. A decent amount of production is figured out before we get with the producers, and when I say a decent amount I mean like 92%. We really wanted to make sure that we had everything figured out and when we went into Avatar Studios to work with David Kahne, in January, we did some stuff with him for a couple weeks, produced the single, and then went to legendary Capitol Studios in the legendary Capitol Records.”
In the early months of Basic Vacation’s existence, the band was really poor, scraping by and stealing from convenience stores just so they could eat, according to Paul. Although the money was hard to come by, they recorded rough demos of songs they had written, like “I Believe,” which found it’s way to Grammy Award-winning producer David Kahne, who produced The Stokes. Kahne was impressed and agreed to produce the track on spec, helping to keep Basic Vacation’s electrifying pop-rock sound, which gets especially raucous during live performances. The boys have shared stages with fellow indie-rockers New Politics and Twenty One Pilots.
“When I exit the stage after a show, I’ll sometimes forget everything that just happened because I go into another world onstage,” said Greatti.
In addition to their debut sings, songs like the chiming, arena-ready “Worlds Collide” and “It’s All Happening” radiate with an optimism that the band members said comes from feeling like underdogs.
“Nobody thought this was going to work but us,” said Paul. “Thus, ‘It’s All Happening’ was us saying, ‘Yeah, this is working out,’ before it actually happened,” said Greatti.
“It’s all happening for us; it’s about playing in a band and following your dream and putting every effort in to making something work and flares are kind of bumping on the road, and having someone back home who saying you can do and your doing it for them and for yourself,” said Paul.
I, personally, really enjoy the music. I love the indie world, so this addition has my love. I was afraid they were going to be really cliche, but the more I listened to their album, I began to really enjoy their sound, their attitude, and their atmosphere. Now, I sing “I Believe” and “Worlds Collide” quite often. My friends and family have started asking me who I singing, which I get often since the indie world is pretty small. “I Believe” is such a good song to start with. It’s definitely a strong point. It’s catchy, and it gets stuck in your head. It’s a great love song, too. Despite it’s breezy sound and serotonin level-increasing chorus, the song come from a relatively dark place. It’s about not giving up on a relationship, even when the odds are stacked against you. “Worlds Collide” is another good one off of their EP; it’s really indie. “It’s All Happening,” like Greatti said, is the band saying it’s working out for them. “Jamie” and “You’re In My Head,” both on their EP, are about girls, but Jamie is about a girl who had done wrong to a guy, and it sounds to me like it’s a true story. It’s a good break-up song, but it’s not my favorite off the EP. “You’re In My Head” is one of my favorites, and it’s just as good acoustic. The rhythm is catchy for a break-up song, or might be a song about first meeting this girl. It’s basically saying that the guy can’t forget about the girl, so he wishes he never met her. They are doing so well so far, and I’m super excited about their album later this year.
Just like me, the boys are looking forward to what is coming in the future.
“We are going to hopefully release the record, the full one, and do as much touring as humanly possible,” said Paul.
“It’s going to be that type of thing while we’re finishing up the writing and doing all the recording. And now that we’ve got into the groove of finishing the EP, there is not going to be an eight month process again. You know we want to spread certain messages and certain things that we can through these songs,” said Greatti.
