We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Liv Victorino. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Liv below.

Hi Liv, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Learning is not everything. I think ignorance can really work in your favor when you’re trying to write something new. Maybe I’m just trying to cope because I never got the chance to take guitar lessons.

The learning I did on guitar was mostly mimicry to start. To learn to write, I was learning covers, and then essentially rewriting those covers. You can always tell when someone is doing that.

Part of figuring out my “voice” with songwriting was watching other people, and seeing what I didn’t like about their writing or playing. A lot of it was developing my music taste and learning to be very opinionated about how I evaluate music in general. Even if you’re not prolific, I think you can write a lot of great music as long as you have a well-developed music taste. Although, it’s bitten me in the butt recently because now I kill almost every idea I have in the first 5 minutes, because I’m too afraid that it could be bad.

When it came to writing songs, I think I placed myself onto the fastest track I could have. The second I picked up a guitar I wanted to be a songwriter, and so I wrote incessantly from ages 18-21. I already felt like I was too old to start writing songs, so I had to hurry. 6 years later, there’s still a lot to skills to develop, but and I wouldn’t even say I know what I’m doing, but that’s ok. Ignorance is good here, because once you say “ok, I’ve mastered the art of writing good songs”, I think it’s downhill for you hahaha.

Some cool skills I think everyone needs:
Rhythm, audiation, and time management.

Some not cool stuff I have to unlearn:
Superego – perfectionist voice. I feel paralyzed on the daily by it. Everything I write or touch has to be the best, the most original, the catchiest, etc. or I feel HORRIBLE.

Liv, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When I graduated college in June of 2022, I had my acoustic debut EP “Sheer Force of Will” already under my belt. At the time, I had nothing but free/hacked software and a USB microphone. I developed a little a genre-philosophy around it called “Freeware Folk”.

I had been playing drums for 4 years in several bands before picking up a guitar at 18. I began to develop my writing style through the unofficial songwriting school of Elliott Smith.

Since 2022, I’ve stopped being a solo folk act. These days I front a four-piece band with Jesse Moneyhun, Ted Howard, and Benji Herrera. My hope with the live show is that it’s plenty emotional and still filled with distortion and intensity.

I have a single coming out called “Neighborhood” which is, I guess, the pit in your stomach you feel when you walk around your city during a downturn. I wrote it after reading Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism when I was 21.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

If you’re not partaking in the local creative economy then you can’t support it, so pay to go to local shows as much as possible. Talk about the bands you liked to your friends; don’t keep anything secret. If you like a band, show up for them often. It’s too easy to forget to look for music that’s right under your nose in the real world, because art and music is always being fed to you for free online. Sometimes going to see local music is a gamble, but if you find the right artists in your city, I think it’s pretty rewarding.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part is getting to take your friends with you to some cool places.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://liv-victorino.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liv_victorino/
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3YIrk6wfKAjdNp3hwaZPyQ?si=1lo5QMV5SiCPiFUgp-eDSw

Image Credits

Theresa Ambat