Recently reformed and on the road, Velvet Crush brings its pop power to ONCE Lounge on Saturday, July 6.

Velvet Crush reunites and heads to ONCE
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By Blake Maddux

The rock ‘n’ roll subgenre power pop has never been reliably lucrative or considered to be particularly cool. However, since its emergence in the 1970s, each decade has produced its own batch of purveyors who have been kept afloat by an unfaltering fan base. In the 1990s, these artists included Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, Sloan, The Posies, and Velvet Crush.

Singer/bassist Paul Chastain, guitarist Jeffrey Underhill, and drummer Ric Menck formed Velvet Crush in Providence, RI, in 1989. They released three albums together between 1991 and 1998. After Underhill’s departure, Chastain and Menck – who are both longtime members of Matthew Sweet’s band – recorded three more between 1999 and 2004.

It has been two decades since Chastain, Underhill, and Menck have recorded or played live as Velvet Crush (although the three performed onstage together at a Matthew Sweet and Tommy Keene show in Boston five years ago). That will change when the trio – along with guitarist Jason Victor – plays POP in Providence on July 5 and ONCE the following night.

Menck recently spoke by phone to The Somerville Times from his home near Minneapolis, MN.

~Photo by Rob Fraser

The Somerville Times: What prompted Velvet Crush to get together for a few shows this year?

Ric Menck: We’d been talking about it for a while. We used to have a guy who played lead guitar for us named Tommy Keene. He was in the band for quite some time. For years he had tried to encourage us to get back together and we put it off and put it off. And then just as we began the process Tommy died, which was shocking. Then we figured we really gotta do it now, for Tommy and for our own sake. About a year ago, Jeffrey and Paul came here to Minneapolis and we ran through the songs for a couple days and it was super fun. The hardest part’s been trying to get everyone together, because Paul lives in Japan now with his wife and kids.

TST: How did drums become your instrument of choice?

RM: When I started getting into rock music heavily, I was just drawn to the drums more than any other instrument. Also, when I sat down to play them the very first time, it was almost like I knew how to do it. Nothing had ever been so easy in my life as that, so I sort of took that as a sign that this was a think that I should be doing.

TST: Who was your favorite drummer?

RM: At the time I was living in a little town, a northwest suburb of Chicago called Barrington. It’s not far from Rockport, where Cheap Trick are from. We kind of knew about them before the rest of the world did. All my friends and I were really inspired by them. Bun E. [Carlos, drummer] was, even more than Ringo or Charlie Watts, the first drummer who made me think, that guy is the coolest, greatest drummer ever. There’s no way I am or will ever be as good, but he was a major, major influence to me. Still is.

TST: Which Velvet Crush album would you say is your personal favorite and which do you think is underrated?

RM: The one that we’re most proud of is Teenage Symphonies to God, and then closely behind that would be the first album, In the Presence of Greatness. Those are probably my two favorites, I guess. The one that I think is probably the most underrated is the very last one we made, called Stereo Blues. At that point Jeffrey was no longer in the band. It was just me and Paul. It was the last album we made before we took the 20-some-year hiatus. I think that is actually a really cool record, but by the time it came out, I think we had just lost the energy and drive. I don’t think anybody really heard it that much.

TST: How did you become the author of a 33-1/3 Series book about the Byrds album The Notorious Byrd Brothers?

RM: That came about because I’m really good friends with this guy called Joe Pernice, who’s from Boston. He had written one of those books, and we were talking one day and he said that I should do one. I didn’t even know if I could do it, but he said to submit a proposal and if they say no, you’re off the hook. But they didn’t say no, they said yes, so then I actually had to! It was a challenge, but it was fun. I enjoyed doing it. As a kid, I liked The Byrds more than I liked The Beatles. For me, they were like the perfect band. They always meant a lot to me going way back to before I was a teenager, and that album in particular always intrigued me.

TST: How likely is it that Velvet Crush will record new material?

RM: Oh, very. I don’t think it will be for a while, but we’re definitely going to do that eventually. I mean, the whole point of doing this is to sort of get Velvet Crush up and running again so that we could play periodically whenever the situation arises. So after these shows, we’re going to Japan towards the end of the year to play shows. We used to be very popular in Japan. We played really big places and we’d go there frequently for many years. After that, we’ll probably do other live stuff.

Velvet Crush, Sleepyhead, Hilken Mancini & Chris Colbourn, and DJ Ty Sesso at ONCE Lounge, 156 Highland Ave., Somerville, Saturday, July 6. Show at 8:00 p.m.