ON OUR RADAR: VONA VELLA
With their debut EP Go Outside Forever arriving January 28th, we have duo Vona Vella On Our Radar today!
INTRODUCE YOURSELVES!
Vona Vella consists of two people, our names are Izzy and Dan. Izzy is 21 and Dan is 20. We’ve been writing songs together about a year and a half, but have both been involved with music for a few years.
Izzy has been involved with music since a young age, she joined an orchestra playing the flute when she was young and now uses those skills for her song writing. She picked up guitar and singing later on, and is growing her skills day by day.
Dan started playing guitar when he was around 15. His parents used to be in a band together, and his dad taught him his first few chords. After understanding the first few chords he expanded his knowledge of chords on his own and was self-taught from then, this includes the piano as well.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSICAL STYLE?
I’d say it’s a mixture of things, because we both listen to so many different genres of music, it means when it comes to writing we have a lot of different influences.
For us it’s all about harmony and melody accompanied with some spicy chords now and again. So as long as those things are in the mix that’s what you can expect from us.
WHAT’S THE INSPIRATION BEHIND YOUR LATEST SINGLE, ‘RAINY DAYS’?
When we wrote this song I (Dan) was listening to ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen on repeat.
Something about the simplicity of the chords but with beautiful, easily understandable lyrics really inspired me to write a song.
We had also been writing a lot of songs in ¾ which is basically a waltz. As I was saying in another question, because of the different types of genres we listen to, it really inspires us to write in different ways to improve our song writing.
I also find that in a lot of songs that we write, I tend to create scenarios I can imagine people relating to. The scenario I created was being in the position where you couldn’t help someone that you truly cared about. In your mind there’s nothing else that you can do that could help this person and the only way that they can overcome what they’re struggling through is on their own. It’s about how you deal with that.
WHAT’S IT LIKE BEING ON TOUR WITH THE LIBERTINES?
In one word, surprising.
Initially when we first found out we were supporting them, we didn’t really know how to react as they’re a lot different to the type of music we create. We weren’t sure whether the crowd would respond in a positive or negative way, but through a surprise all we’ve had is positive feedback and amazing compliments.
It really opened our eyes, and showed us how much we want to do this. To play in front of 1000 people – that feeling of performing the songs that you wrote in your bedroom never thinking they would be played to that many people was truly overwhelming.
Just want to say a massive thank you to The Libertines and all of the team behind them!
HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT THE FORTHCOMING RELEASE OF YOUR DEBUT EP, GO OUTSIDE FOREVER ?
Incredibly excited.
This whole project is a very quick process, we were first contacted by Strap Originals in early January 2020, and then in March we found ourselves in their headquarters in Margate recording an entire EP with an amazing producer and team of session musicians helping us create something we are truly proud of.
IF YOU COULD SUMMARISE GO OUTSIDE FOREVER IN THREE WORDS, WHICH THREE WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
Organic. Real. Grounded.
WHICH TRACK FROM THE EP ARE YOU THE MOST EXCITED FOR PEOPLE TO HEAR AND WHY?
Definitely ‘Go Outside Forever’. When we first sent the demo, I would’ve never imagined it to be the favourite from the EP, but I’m so proud of this song.
It stands out from the rest in a way and doesn't fit in, but I think that’s why it’s so great. I love the contrast between the different elements of this song. On one side you’ve got a distorted guitar that’s leading the song, and on the other you’ve got Izzy's vocals which are in some way delicate.
This combination really creates something special and I’m so happy with the end product.
WHAT IS THE ORIGIN STORY OF VONA VELLA?
Well, me and Izzy met at music college, and we soon realised how much we loved similar styles of music and how our voices go together. So, we decided to create a duo act called ‘Izzy and Dan’ I know very original, but all we were doing was just playing in pubs, singing covers and earning a bit of money here and there.
Anyway, we really developed and planned on signing to a few agencies to earn some money doing weddings and corporate events… and then Covid happened. We were apart for about three months and in those three months we both started writing lots of different types of songs and shared them to each other online.
When we were finally able to meet up again, we sat outside in my garden and I (Dan) started playing the chord progression to our first song called ‘Sun’. We wrote it really quickly and didn’t actually think much of it, so we just recorded a clip of us singing it and posted it online.
I don’t know why we did this but we ended up putting £6 of promotion on the video, sort of randomly we’ve never done this before but we did it anyway. Later on in the day, we received an email from a guy called Ross Godfrey, little did we know that this was the guitarist from the famous band Morcheeba.
He emailed saying that he loved the song and saw it on Instagram and wanted to do a remix of it. He asked “have you recorded it in a studio?” He had no idea that we literally just wrote the song but for some reason we said yes, and the next day we booked a studio slot in Nottingham and recorded the song.
We released our version of the song but realised we had to create a new band name, because ‘Izzy and Dan‘ just wasn’t going to cut it. So, we looked in Izzy’s mum’s flower Encyclopaedia book for inspiration and ended up picking the names of two different flowers beginning with V and somehow ended up with ‘Vona Vella’.
We released ‘Sun’ and a month later released another song called ‘Maybe It’s Us’. It got some attention from the host of BBC Introducing Nottingham - aka Dean Jackson. He emailed asking us if we wanted to do a live session singing the two songs that were released and it would be put onto his YouTube channel.
So we went, shot the video and it was posted a week after. It gained over 10,000 views and one of those views was a PR guy from Strap Originals. And now, somehow, we are on tour with The Libertines :)
WHAT DO YOU HOPE PEOPLE WILL TAKE AWAY FROM THE EP?
We put a lot of time into the lyrics, so we hope people can relate to the lyrics that we have written and love the melodies we created. But also knowing that this is just the beginning to our journey and that we are improving every day in our songwriting, because they’re only getting better and better.
MOST MUSICIANS HAVE THEIR OWN INDIVIDUAL WAY OF HOW THEY ENVISION SOMEONE LISTENING TO THEIR MUSIC. WHAT IS YOUR IDEAL WAY OF AN AUDIENCE LISTENING TO THE EP FOR THE FIRST TIME?
I’d say sitting down with headphones on, eyes closed completely engulfing themselves with the beginning to Vona Vella.