Interview: Keith McCurdy Looks Forward to Vudu Sister’s European Tour
For an artist who isn’t on a label along with not having any major monetary support, going out on tour is a momentous excursion. Now imagine this tour isn’t simply around the artist’s particular region or through a handful of states, but in an entirely different area. This is what’s going to be happening with Keith McCurdy from the Providence gothic folk act Vudu Sister over the next few weeks. After a sendoff show at Myrtle on 134 Waterman Avenue in East Providence on April 10, McCurdy is going to be performing all over Europe. This won’t be his first time venturing across the Atlantic to play a few shows, but this expedition promises to be unlike anything he’s ever done before. He’s also going to be bringing his music to a few unique locations while getting more in touch with his fan base overseas.
We had a talk ahead of the tour about how he put it all together, which places he’s most looking forward to performing in and his plans for when he makes his return.
As an independent artist, it can be difficult to book a show in another town in the same state you live in, let alone another part of the world. With this being said, how did you go about booking this European tour that you have coming up?
My love affair with Europe started years ago. People from Italy started messaging me on Facebook and Instagram, and I started developing relationships with these people. A lot of them were just fans who had been listening to me either through Spotify, Bandcamp or whatever, and then I became friends with a lot of people overseas in Spain and France. I went to Europe for the first time in 2019 with my friend Anita De Luca and she helped set up a few shows in Sicily. I fell in love with Sicily, I went back there, I spent a month there, then I went again in 2022 and I played in Paris, it was just one show.
I paid for a little bit of advertising around the radius of Paris and this young songwriter, Lisa Hartmann, she found my ad, found my music and fell in love with it. She wanted to meet me, so we spent a couple of hours by the river talking. She was telling me that she was also a songwriter and she wanted me to come back to Paris and play a bunch of shows with her. I kept in touch, I let her know when I was coming back and I asked for her help, so she put together the first five or six shows for me in Paris. I got in touch with people in Italy and people in Spain, some of whom are musicians, so they all helped me put together this tour that I did last year.
I was solo, very DIY and I was traveling by train. I eventually got connected with Neri Bandinelli who runs Dark Donuts Booking and he helped me put together this amazing fuckin’ tour. This one is a bit of a level up due to me working with a booking agent for the first time, I’m playing more countries and 27 shows over the course of four weeks. I’m going to be in Germany and Switzerland for the first time as well as Italy and France again and I’m also going to have a different violinist with me. She’s a touring violinist named Francesca Caruso who plays with The Infinity Ring, they just got back from South by Southwest and they’re going to be playing at the Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands right before she starts touring with me.
That’s awesome.
It’s interesting because I’ve now made a living basically playing the kind of gigs a lot of musicians don’t like playing where you’re playing two or three sets a night three or four times a week. It’s exhausting, but they pay my bills. There’s always somebody listening, there’s always somebody who appreciates what I’m doing, and I make new fans. I sell some merch, I usually get some good tips and it’s enabled me to make a very, very modest living, but it’s a lot of work. Honestly, it’s actually really tough to book around the Northeast.
I’ve had an easier time getting gigs in Europe than I’ve had in my own region. In Rhode Island it’s fine, but I’m trying to hit Portland, I’m trying to hit Portsmouth and I’m trying to hit Vermont. I do get to those places, but it can be tremendously difficult. The infrastructure here isn’t that kind to artists and I’m hoping to branch out and play more shows. I’ve been talking to people in New York & Boston and I’m just trying to push it more and more.
It’s funny because ever since I moved to full-time, it’s kind of forced me to have a sense of urgency and light a fire under myself, so I’ve been really trying to get a lot done. I’ve been working with Judith Bingham, who has been getting into artist management, and as much as she works with me she’s been working with other artists, comics and musicians. She’s been tremendous, we get together once a week and strategize.
Speaking of comics, have you ever thought about doing a show like that where it’s you on the same bill as a comedian?
I’m all about mixed-genre shows and mixed-medium is great too so it can almost be like a variety show, I guess. I’m not opposed to it and I love stand-up, I think it’s a tremendously difficult artform and I think it’s one of the hardest to do.
I agree.
You can’t fake laughter. In the music world, I hate to say this, but art is subjective, and people politely clap no matter who’s playing, even though it depends on the audience. With comedy, if you’re not funny then you’re not going to get a laugh out of people.
You’re going to eventually get booed off stage.
Yeah, the evidence is there. If the audience doesn’t respond to you, you know you haven’t succeeded. That doesn’t mean you can’t later because even great comics bomb, but with music, there’s sort of a reluctance or hesitance with people to be critical, especially if it’s local. Which is fair because you should support local acts, it doesn’t matter if they’re good or bad but in turn, I think the flipside is that it can get saturated because everybody is a fuckin’ musician.
Everybody is a comic too, especially with podcasts and all that.
It either takes or it doesn’t. I do think at a higher level that’s true for music as well, but comedy, even at the bottom, you’re either making them laugh or you’re not. Nobody can force a laugh, but you can force a clap, so I have a lot of respect for even the bad comics. I got a lot of respect for someone who goes up there to do stand-up, so I would absolutely do a show with a comedian.
Sweet. For this upcoming European tour, you did a lot of crowdfunding for it through GoFundMe as well.
Yeah, I work my ass off and I don’t want to go out there without emergency money.
You want to play it smart.
It’s a bigger tour, it’s a level up, but it presents its own new set of challenges. I needed to make sure that Francesca was taken care of, she’s doing a huge solid for me because we’ve never played together before. This is going to be our first time and the rehearsing has been great, so I had to make sure that a lot of ends were covered along with unanticipated things. I was reluctant, but I’m not on a label and I don’t want to harp on this, but I don’t come a rich family so nobody can help me other than fans and friends. I want to be on a label, but as long as it makes sense.
The neat thing about doing all of this by myself while really going for it is that I’m learning a lot and I’m learning that if that ever comes, I’ll have a better idea of what I need to ask for, what my needs are and how to be clear about it. If I was 20 or 25, I don’t think I would know what to do with a situation like that, even if that were miraculously happening. I think that’s how a lot of bands get fucked because they’ll just want to be on a label, and they’ll sign shitty deals. We’re not there yet, so we don’t need to worry about that, but I stopped pretending around town that I don’t have any ambition.
I kind of got sick of listening to jaded and cynical people, I don’t believe in discouraging people who are very passionate about their work. I have 25-year-old friends now who are musicians, that was the age I was at when I was hanging out with these jaded guys, and I don’t talk to them like I was talked to. If someone tells me they’re passionate and working on their craft, then good, they should go for it. The world needs more original art and I’m happy when more new art is out there because I get to consume it. It’s weird to hear people say “Oh, don’t waste your time with that”, but I’ve learned a lot in the past couple of years.
After over 20 years of doing this, it wasn’t until I started playing in Europe that I got a booking agent, so it’s interesting how this works.
Yeah, it is. You mentioned that during this tour, you’re going to be playing places you haven’t played before. With this being said, what’s the one place that you’re the most excited to check out?
I always hear great things about playing in Switzerland, so I’m very excited about that. I’ve also never played in Germany, so that’s exciting too. A lot of these shows are in very small towns, I’m not playing in a lot of huge cities. I have a couple dates in Munich, Leipzig and Hannover, but it’s going to be cool to see new places. As far as Italy, I love Italy and everywhere I’m playing there this time around I’ve never been before.
One of the most interesting places I’m really excited about is this little town in Viterbo called Calcata Vecchia. It looks like this little village that’s resting on a mountain that’s carved out of rock and I’m going to be playing at a place called the Bard House. I’m also very glad to be going back to Paris where I have a lot of friends and fans. I started reaching out to a lot of the venues just introducing myself while asking for some details about the show and it’s been great because everybody has been so warm. They’re all enthusiastic, they’ve been listening to the music, so there’s a mutual excitement and I think we’ll do well.
I hope it goes well; I think it’s great that you’re doing this. After you get back from this tour in May, what are your goals for the next few months when you get back to Providence? Are you going to be working on a new record? Are you looking to explore more around the New England region?
I always need to work, so exploring New England and playing more gigs outside of Rhode Island is obviously an important thing. I’m looking to do some stuff in Vermont and New York, but that’s work. It’s important too because of the opportunity for fan growth and to make more connections with the community, but in terms of goals, I have a whole album’s worth of new material that I want to record. I’m actually going to be dropping a new single on April 13 that I made at Dyerville Recording with Eric Hanson. It’s a very rough demo, I just finished the song and I just wanted to fuckin’ record it.
It’s on a baritone guitar, which is something I’ve never played before, and I’ve never recorded with before. It’s in a very low tuning, Eric laid down some bass and my friend Mario De Florio put a little bit of piano to it. It’s called “Passage of Ships” and it’ll drop on all the streaming services, but I’m going to re-record it and it’s going to be part of the next album. This is sort of a trial run, so I’m just going to drop the single.
Especially with you going on tour.
Yeah, it’ll be good to have something very fresh. As you know, I’ve been working with a cellist now, Isabel Castellvi, along with Diane O’Connor on violin. The trio is great, the two of them together is amazing and Isabel is an awesome human, a great player, very creative and she comes up with great ideas. I really love collaborating with her and I’m looking forward to doing more writing with her, so we have a whole album’s worth of stuff that we’re ready to record. We just have to get the rehearsals in, get tight, hopefully by the summer or fall we’ll have at least some singles and hopefully before the end of the year we’ll have a new album out. The other thing I need to get done this year is live video, I really need to get some video done.
New photos are always a must too. I’m also in talks with someone about maybe putting our next record out on vinyl. I think it’s the right time, I’ve been wanting to do vinyl for a while, and I feel like I’m in a position where I can justify it. Hopefully I can go back to Europe and tour again in November, the strategy is to tour Europe at least twice a year if I can. I’m going to try to make that the strategy because I think there’s real potential out there for me for fan growth.
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