Transviolet Interview
Members: Sarah (vocals) – John (Drums) – Mikepan (Bass) – Judah (Guitar)
KDUP had a chance to catch up with rising stars Transviolet in Austin, TX during SXSW after their tour with Twenty-One Pilots.
Tell us a little bit about who you all are, where you are from, and how you met.
Sarah – I’m Sarah and this is John, Mikepan, and Judah. The guys are all from Rochester New York and I am from Central Coast California.
Sarah – We met because of a lie. I had said on a musician networking site that I was living in San Diego, but I was actually living in the Grand Cayman Islands. Mikepan reached out, and despite my lie Mikepan decided to work with me. So we wrote some songs together and thought they were cool. We hit up John and said “Hey, do you want to collaborate with us?” John put some cool beats on it and then we decided to hit up Judah as well because we needed a guitarist and keyboarder.
John – Keyboarder?
Judah – (laughs) Yeah I have been boardin’ for a while. I actually never boarded before this band so I had to jump head first into it because they needed a keyboar-dur more than a guitarist.
John – He is a total boarder.
Sarah – (laughs) Board lyfe.
What was your first gig?
All – The Satellite in Los Angeles.
Judah – Funny story: So we had one computer for our midi-controller and one computer for our tracks, and I left both of them at the venue that day. I don’t watch the computers anymore.
John – Yeah he almost lost everything.
Dream venue?
Sarah – Red Rock.
Judah – Glastonbury Festival. Of course Madison Square Garden.
Mikepan – Hollywood Bowl.
Sounds like there is a list.
Sarah – There is. It’s an extensive list of venues we have to play before we kick the bucket… or kill each other.
What were you in a past life?
John – I was an African warrior.
Sarah – I was an old Jewish man. I know this because I have a reoccurring dream in which I am an old Jewish man who is the Patriarch of this family. I think it is how I probably died. So in the dream we are all having dinner, and suddenly there is this loud banging sound that comes from the ceiling. Everyone at the table looks to me because I am the Patriarch and naturally I need to go take care of business. So I go up to the attic to check it out. The attic is all dusty and dingy, and as I am crawling on my hands and knees through this tiny space all of a sudden this rat monster pops out and eats me.
Mikepan – I have reason to believe that I was a domestic house cat. I have an oddly strong connection to house cats where it is more than just that the cats like me, they really like me. I think they recognize that I was a domestic house cat in a past life.
Judah – I don’t know… some kind of royalty. I was definitely a female though, a Queen.
Sarah – A princess? Princess Judie?
Judah – Yeah… Until I was Queen.
Sarah – Yaaaas Queen!
John – I would like to change my answer. Now that I am thinking about all my past memories from my past life, I was more of a farmer. Not quite a warrior. A bit of farming… I remember that.
What are your highs and lows of touring?
Sarah – Well we just got back from the U.K. on tour with Twenty-One Pilots, and that was absolutely insane. The fan base for Twenty-One Pilots is die-hard yet they are so sweet and receptive. We were all kinda worried whether Twenty-One Pilot fans knew our music or even cared that we were there, but to our surprise there were people singing the lyrics and even after the show the fans wanted to give us hugs. So yeah, that tour was definitely our high; playing in front of five-thousand people in Brixton.
Mikepan – There is a whole slew of lows… anything from lugging gear to having gear smashed or having a combined six hours of sleep over four days…
Judah – Traffic when you are running late to sound check.
Sarah – Not being able to eat properly because you don’t have the time so you end up eating a sad gas-station-salad at 3am crying and then your tears become the dressing.
Mikepan – That was real.
Sarah – Yeah I think I have cried about dozen times on tour.
Judah – I have only cried like three or four times.
Sarah – Talk about a real low; hotels in the UK are very different than hotels in the U.S.
How so?
Sarah – Well in the U.S. there are standards. Everyone has their space and there is usually a clean bed… even in the crappiest hotels in the U.S. are not that bad. In the U.K. it is completely different. The rooms are more like cubbies and you have a twin bed that’s touching the walls. Sometimes the showers are in the same room as the bed. This very specific time: we got in to the hotel about 1am and we were all exhausted, so we get into the elevator and there was vomit on the floor – it was dried vomit that had been there for a few days – so I thought, “Alright, red flag number one.” But I don’t care because I am too tired and I just want to go to bed. So I get to my room, and there is a little spec on my pillow. I go to flick it off and it starts crawling. I rip off my covers and there are bugs all in the bed!
Judah – Imagine you just had an eighteen-hour day and all you want to do is go to sleep, and then bugs happen.
Mikepan – My room was so gross! But I just wanted to sleep so bad…
John – I slept on the lobby floor for a couple of hours.
Sarah – We had to go down to the lobby to get a new hotel, and we ended up going to bed around 4:30 in the morning.
Judah – That was a sad night. We were all so sad. I had called at least twenty different hotels. Sarah was calling hotels; our tour manager was calling hotels…
Mikepan – When we finally got a hotel I was like “Oh! Time to head back out in the cold and pack up the van, again.”
Let’s talk about the music for a minute. When I listen to Transviolet EP I get the sense of a story being told through a new identity called the New Bohemia. What is the New Bohemia?
Sarah – The New Bohemia is about being able to express yourself in whatever way you want to. Live the life you want to live, pursue the dreams you want to pursue, love who you want to love. It is not about where you are born, your gender, sexual orientation, or money.
Radical freedom.
Sarah – Exactly! Have that freedom. We have the belief that each individual has the right to live the life that they want to and though this freedom the individual has the power to change the world.
So what is the message to the youth?
Sarah – Understand that every person wants the same thing. We want to be free, we want to be loved, we want to be accepted… If you can understand this, then we can make the world a better place. We do not all have to believe the same thing. We do not all have to have the same culture. If we can allow individuals to live the way they want, we can be happy.
What is the biggest lie in the world today?
Sarah – The biggest lie is that we are not connected.
Judah – Yeah the lie is that invisible lines separate us. Whether these lines are borders, colors, or genders. We are just the same animal in a different place.
Sarah – Exactly! We are all the same in different bodies. These imaginary lines that they paint divide us and keep us at each other’s throats… It is really sad. It is sad because some people choose to believe this lie. The media is relentless in pitting us against each other. You can see it in the headlines.
Thank you so much for your time and that was a great explanation of the New Bohemia. To end on a light note, what is your favorite cartoon character?
Judah – Bart Simpson.
John – Spongebob Squarepants.
Sarah – P.J. Sparkles.
Judah – Well… Sid the Sloth from Ice Age actually.
Sarah – Ooh I like the Powder-Puff girls a lot too. I am set on P.J. though.
Mikepan – Cat Dog because c’mon how ridiculous is that? Seriously they rarely agreed over which direction they wanted to go; they were constantly fighting.
John – And how did they go to the bathroom? That’s what I want to know.
Judah – It is kinda like a reverse human centipede huh? Do you think the human centipede came from someone watching Cat Dog and wondering how they went to the bathroom?
John – (laughs) Wait a second… I have this idea!
Judah – (laughs) A marvelous idea!