For Victoria-based guitarist/vocalist Vince Vaccaro, there are no limits to creating art based on what he calls the different seasons of life: sitting on the beach watching the sun set, reliving past pain, and considering the inevitability of death, to name a few. This comes through in his music: for example, 2016’s So Long Wicked Tide sounds radically different from his other albums, he says, because it represents a particularly trying time for him, as he was navigating a particularly difficult season of life.
“In 2015, my dad passed away,” he says. “I watched him decline from July until August when I got the phone call. It was like, ‘Come, now; it’s time.’”
It was a turning point for Vaccaro; he saw things differently, both personally and creatively, after that day.
“It really changed my perspective on everything,” he says. “I realized that you’re here for the time that you’re here for, and it’s up to you to do whatever it is that you want to do in that time, end of story. It’s that simple.”
Vaccaro says that choosing how people spend their limited time is “the ultimate gift” and that, for him, the answer is music. He says that with So Long Wicked Tide, he spent more time than he had in the past working on the composition of the songs. His music was the shelter he found to ride out—but also embrace—the storm.
“It was kind of like my safety,” he says, “because it’s really disorientating to lose a parent. I didn’t have a great relationship with him. He was incredibly absent for a long, long time and it was a really volatile relationship that was painful and abusive. When he was really sick, he turned his whole life around, and it was like, ‘Holy shit.’ He kind of looked at me for the first time and saw what I was. And that’s what the song ‘I Was Alive’ is about.”
In other albums, such as 79, Vaccaro comes from a more straightforward standpoint, he says, but his lyrical themes remain consistent. And singing the words to all his songs live is more important now than ever, he says.
“Playing is now the only thing left for us to make a living,” says Vaccaro, adding that he gets less than a cent every time a song is streamed on Spotify.
Vaccaro says that for years, he made a comfortable living off his art, selling between $400 and $1,200 of merchandise at every concert, but times have changed for musicians. He says that many people don’t care about having something tangible with their art nowadays; it’s been replaced by an expectation of free access, which means that, for the first time in 10 years, he’s having to look elsewhere for work.
“It’s incredible that I was able to live off my art, but I don’t think it’s fair to require that of your art,” says Vaccaro. “It’s like screaming at an invisible spirit that gets you music, ‘Make money for me!’ It’s like, ‘No, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to help you make sense of things and I’m here to help you express what you’re experiencing as a human.’”
Looking back on his own love of music, Vaccaro remembers skipping school one day as a kid to wait in line at local record store Lyle’s Place. Vaccaro describes the day as “a serious mission.” The desired object in question? Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy on vinyl.
“There’s been so many records that have helped me through stuff,” he says. “I’m a little bit old school and I buy the record or I will buy the MP3. I buy that shit.”
Vaccaro continues to work through the ebbs and flows of the creative process. Music is his centre. His next album will be heavier, keeping in line with what he grew up listening to. But through it all, he keeps his focus clear and simple.
“I’m just a guy playing guitar and writing songs,” he says.
Vince Vaccaro
8 pm Saturday, January 20
$15, Capital Ballroom
sugarnightclub.ca
Correction: In an earlier version of this story, we said that So Long Wicked Tide is Vaccaro’s latest album when in fact 79 is his latest. We apologize for the mistake.