More strings to her bow
Not content with being a key member of the Damien Rice band, Vyvienne Long has released an EP that finds her doing wondrous things to the Flaming Lips and Pharrell Williams.
Phil Udell, 27 Oct 2006
Two things that you’ll probably know about Vyvienne Long. One that she plays the cello with Damien Rice, two that she does a neat line in off the wall cover versions.
So far so good, but as the world is about to discover, there’s a lot more to Ms Long than that. Her debut Birdtalk EP is the first sign that here is a potentially stunning artist in her own right and is certainly a long way from her earliest musical forays.
“The only route that you can really take with the cello is the classical one”, she says of her formative years, “so there was lots of practice, lessons and getting up on Saturday mornings to go to orchestra. You had to practice every evening, when you could hear everybody having fun outside.”
Having become firmly ensconced in the classical world, Long was about to make something of a sharp turn.
“It was just fate, not a conscious decision to switch. I did my degree and then more cello studies. I’d met Damien at college a while before and then we met again when he had just left his band. He wanted to start work on a new album and that was when I got involved. It became full-time very gradually, he just got busier and I got swept along. It was never a case of ‘today I’m going to be a rock cellist’.”
It must be said that there’s work to be had for string players in the rock world, although it rarely involves being anything other than window dressing.
“There’s a lot of cynicism about string sections being brought in when they would really rather have a bunch of models to hold instruments; they don’t need to be able to play. A lot of them are good but you wouldn’t ever know that. With Damien it wasn’t a string section, it was more to use the cello as a third voice alongside himself and Lisa. I have a lot of creative control so I can play parts that would challenge me a little bit rather than just being told to move the bow and look like I’m playing”.
It was while on tour that Vyvienne began to experiment with other material, usually other people’s – something that became an integral part of the live Damien Rice experience. Did she have a constant urge to get her own thing underway?
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