Strata

Interviewed By: Mike Morrice

Date: 2007-12-10

When a band titles their debut album “Presents the End of the World”, it’s evident from the outset that the lyrical content may be slightly negative in overall tone. However, California-based Strata manage to maintain a healthy balance between tracks that condemn Western culture, such as “Stay Young”, and those that celebrate love, such as the beautiful “Love is Life”. Lead vocalist Eric Victorino best encapsulates where the band was coming from when writing the record:

“I came to realize over the summer that the lyrics for the new album would have to be my best attempt at painting a picture of how it feels to live in America right now. Living in what mostly feels like the end of times. There’s such a thick, black hopelessness all over everything and it’ll get you down if you let it, so you have to keep moving. Our collective mood is like quicksand and whenever we feel ourselves starting to sink, we rely on any little bits of hope we can find to keep us going. For most of us the only thing left that brings us hope is love. There’s nothing wrong with an honest love song – why is it that only blonde, pop-tart sluts are singing love songs now? Has the whole world outgrown love? When did this happen? I don’t care, we write songs about real love because we believe in it, just as much as we believe in intolerance, violence, apathy, loss, corruption and all those terrible things. Each song on the album tells a different story and describes another part of our lives – From love to loss and everything in between…We live in a country at war with the world – This terror culture permeates everything in our lives. It’s not something we can avoid writing about anymore.”

Throughout the album, Strata distinguish themselves based on this unwillingness to avoid some of the bleaker aspects of our culture, as well as the passion that each song is infused with. Best exemplified on the track “The New National Anthem”, Victorino bluntly attacks right-wing Bible-thumping conservatives (“The country's run by lunatics / they're picking up their pens / writing themselves into Revelation, ‘this is how it's gonna end!’ "), censorship in the media (“watching bombs burst in air from a comfortable chair…as long as they never show real blood on TV”), and corporate America’s involvement in the Iraq war (“There are too many unanswered questions / from the towers in New York / to the lies leading up to another corporate sponsored war”).

Foundinthemargins recently interviewed Eric about his literary influences.

When it came to books from his childhood, Eric was honest in vocalizing his frustration with the lack of substance or value he gleaned from any of them. Although he mentioned 1984, The Indian in the Cupboard, and Are you My Mother? as books that affected him, Eric went on to say:

“I mostly only remember reading the required books everyone reads in school... Not much from my childhood reading stuck out in my mind...I just remember knowing when something was no good, I hated when characters were under-developed, I felt really let down when a story didn't completely change my outlook on everything every time I read a book. I know that answer probably seems funny following the silly list of books in my first answer but I think those books showed how powerful a well written story can be.”

Apart from this ‘silly list of books’, Eric explained that authors that have influenced his songwriting include Charles Bukowski, Hunter S Thompson, and William S Burroughs.

Eric went on to explain his current reading list:

“I'm on my own little crusade for science and reason over religion and superstition - Dawkins has inspired me to go back to school and try really make something of myself… Lately I have been reading everything by Richard Dawkins. He hooked me with The God Delusion and I went from that to The Blind Watchmaker, then Unweaving the Rainbow and next I'm going to tackle The Ancestor's Tale."

To balance out ‘all the biology and science stuff’, Eric did add that he enjoys reading some of Chuck Klosterman’s narrative-based pop-culture manifestos.

Strata is currently touring the southern United States, and Eric is constantly reading when on the road: “I bring 2 suitcases on tour. One of clothes and shoes and the other filled with books. Unfortunately I usually end up buying more books on the road and not even reading the books I carry around. Good thing about having so many books with me is loaning them to friends and my band mates, turning them on to new ideas.”

When it comes to his favourite books, in addition to the aforementioned The God Delusion and The Blind Watchmaker, Eric cited four other works. First is one of Charles Bukowski’s collections of poems, War All The Time. Also, The New Pearl Harbour, an analysis of some of the unresolved inconsistencies with the story told by the Bush Administration about September 11th. Next, Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, a collection of pop culture essays that begins with him blaming all of his problems with the opposite sex solely on the shoulders of John Cusack and the ‘fake love’ he manufactures in his films. Finally, Eric offered up Survivor – a story about a media-mogul that is soon to meet his fate, written backwards in a series of flashbacks by Chuck Palahniuk.

Eric’s own book, Coma Therapy, is available on Amazon. He explains that Charles Bukowski was a primary influence on his own writing style: “Charles Bukowski was the first writer whose books I just went out and bought one after the other until I couldn't find any more... He inspired me to write with the most simple and shortest words. My book has been rated in these crazy graphs on Amazon.com and it says things like ‘85% of books have more complex words, more syllables, blah blah blah’ - I take it as a compliment. I like to write how I talk.”

Strata’s full-length album, Presents the End of the World, is now on sale through Wind Up Records.

Check out Eric’s website below for lots more thoughts, perspectives and musings from Strata’s front man.

Video: Stay Young - Strata

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Purchase Books
You can purchase the books recommended by Strata here.

Links:
http://www.stratadirect.com/
http://ericvictorino.com/