And Then There Were Three

© Anthony Dixon

Unicycle Loves You is set to release their second album this fall, a self produced record titled Mirror, Mirror. The album is a fantastical mish-mash of songs strung together in a linear fashion to create one cohesive movement. By mixing actual noise with indie pop and rock, Unicycle Loves You has found a futuristic sound that reminds you of several bands at once and simultaneously reminds you of no bands at all. Nicole Vitale, who plays bass and sings vocals for the group, makes a dominant appearance in this album, adding the role of lead singer to her responsibilities. I recently chatted with Vitale about the band's new album, their upcoming tour, and her love for old school horror flicks.

Since the release of Unicycle Loves You’s first album the band has morphed from five members to three.

We actually had a sixth person on the road with us for a while too! But, you know, it is hard; life ends up getting in the way. It is hard to maintain things. Our former keyboard player is a family man; his responsibility to his family got a bit more real. Our guitarist John also wanted to do other things… so one by one we either just made our exits or stayed on and now it is down to the three of us who just refuse to give up! Not that they gave up in any way, but you know what I mean. Every one has to do their own thing.

Have you felt a real difference in your creative process now that you are a smaller group?

Yeah definitely. Even just listening back on our first album as we were touring… we ended up with more ideas to write more songs. We ended up feeling that even though we would have loved to keep everyone on, in some ways it was hard to avoid the issue of “too many cooks in the kitchen,” that whole idea where everyone wants to play or have something to contribute to a song, where sometimes you don’t need it. Now, with just the three of us, we are able to play even better, just because we only have the three of us to rely on and you don’t have to step out of the way as much to let everyone have their say musically. The three of us are kind of working a lot better together, because we are at a point now where it is just that much more real knowing that one of us can’t really just drop out, we are tighter because of it and more focused. It is a lot more enjoyable in a lot of ways.

How do you feel that the making of your latest album, Mirror, Mirror, compares with the making of your debut release two years ago?

Vitale: It was a lot of fun making Mirror, Mirror, we actually got signed with Highwheel pretty quickly. So to have the opportunity to go over to a real studio and record with a lot of great people was pretty great, it was kind of like living in a fantasy world for a little bit. And we took advantage of the great time that we had there to put in a lot of really good work. And then we realized the reality of the cost of self producing an album and all that stuff. We had all of Jim’s previous knowledge of recording because he’s been recording for like fifteen years on his own. We had the idea after seeing what went on in the studio, and knowing that at this point in music you really don’t have to go into a studio, but we really wanted to take control over everything and see what we could do just ourselves. And because we were producing it we didn’t have the time constraints of paying per our or anything like that, and so we could just see what we could come up with. Both experiences were amazing, but, I don’t know, I feel really good about recording on our own and I don’t doubt that were going to end up doing it as long as we can.

Mirror, Mirror has a few instrumental pieces, which is an unusual addition. How did these come about?

After listening back to the first album and reading some of the reviews about how we were “genre skippers” and love “going through different decades” we just reacted. Not that we took that to heart and actually wanted to play to the favor of any sort of critics or anything but we really just actually saw those things in the first album. A lot of those songs had been floating around between Jim’s repertoire and the band for a while before so we had the stock of the album already laid out for us. In approaching the second one we wanted to have more cohesiveness to it. And because we do try out a lot of different sounds we kind of wanted to use those instrumentals as guides through different genres that we were playing with. And that sort of theme goes through each instrumental. We hope that it carries you through the whole album. It makes sense to us, but we were hoping to give a little bit more of a cohesive product at the end of this album, since we were able to take a little more time with everything. Those instrumental pieces were a lot of fun to do. And we think they really add to the whole journey.

You guys have said that you are influenced by cult horror movies and science fiction. Do you see that manifested in your music?

Definitely. In doing those instrumentals we foreshadow songs that we pick up later on. Even playing around with actual noises- we have been watching so many of these crazy old horror films and these crazy old Italian Giallo movies- it just seems to make sense to us to put the influences that we have into the music. We like to make everything sound a little otherworldly. I have always been interested in film music as well, and I feel like that all came together really nicely. Someone online once said that after going to a show and seeing us they felt as if we were from outer space. And I took it as a compliment; I thought, oh they kind of get it!  

You sing lead vocals quite a bit on Mirror, Mirror. 

It was exciting and terrifying. I’ve always wanted to do the whole rock star thing and be in a band but actually I’m a little shy. So I wound up singing in every song on the album, and they let me take the lead in a few and it was really fun to actually record it. And this is aside from the fact that I beat myself up as we were actually doing it, because I just wanted it all to be great. I don’t think of myself as the greatest singer in the world! But I was really happy to do it and really excited that I was able to pull it off. So it was a pretty great moment for me.

Are you looking forward to flexing your lead vocal skills on stage?

We have taken a couple of the songs already and played them live; it is a little nerve wracking! In fact the first time I went to sing one of my songs I actually noticed in the middle of the song that my mic ha d become unplugged! So it was tragic in my own head but no one really seemed to notice so that was fine. Being on the road and performing live is really what I live for. Performing is so much fun, just playing the actual music and being able to play them all live is something I have been looking forward to and now that we are really able to do that it is something that is just wonderful. But, you know, when my mic is plugged in and people can hear me.

Will you be touring soon?

We are home for the summer, but when the album actually comes out in September we will be hitting the road doing a little mid-west/north-east loop for about a month and a half and I am just dying for that. If money and rent and cats weren’t a concern I would just love to stay on the road full time. Being able to do it every night, it is just so much fun. Just seeing different places and meeting different people and playing to different crowds, and all the other behind the scenes things that occur just traveling… I imagine that I would get really burnt out after a while, but that hasn’t happened to me yet. I can’t wait to be on the road again. We did a couple of weekends this past spring, but to set out on a tour for an extended period of time? It is very exciting. There is no experience quiet like it.

So, I have to ask how the band name Unicycle Loves You first came about.

(Laughs) You know, every time we do an interview it always comes up. And we wish we had a really fun story; at this point we should just make something up. But, Jim had been recording for a while under the name of Unicycle. So when he got a couple of people on board we kind of all agreed that we should make the shift into something different since it was now a different phase. So Unicycle Loves You is what ended up sort of making sense to all of us and it felt right. It is a fun name, a sweet name, and there is a lot of sweetness in music itself. We thought about a couple of things and this ended up sticking. Plus it is an extreme advantage to being very google-able. There is only going to be one Unicycle Loves You.