Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tart Vandelay. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Tart, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
We took a huge risk moving out west from our hometown of Rochester NY. A lot of our friends and family are there, and that’s where our band was based for the first few years. After 3-4 years we were craving a change of scenery (and weather!) and we decided to move to the Phoenix area. It was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating, packing all of our belongings in a trailer and driving across the country. And taking that leap was hugely rewarding; although we had to take a step back from performing because our time in Arizona lined up with the pandemic, we were able to reinvent our sound and enter a new creative era together. Ultimately the risk paid off, and the experience taught us to keep taking chances. So last year we moved to LA, and even though it was a huge step, it’s already paid off in all of the amazing musicians and creative people we’ve been able to meet. We’re so grateful to be part of such a supportive community, which we would never have found if we hadn’t been open to taking risks.
Tart, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We’re a married couple, we met while we were both college music students in our hometown. We’d both been performing for most of our lives, and Kate, although primarily a vocalist, also had a multi-instrumental upbringing; while Marty almost exclusively studied the guitar. Eventually we started dating, and after being together for a few years and transferring to a few different schools, we realized that our songs were more than just class projects, and that we wanted to write music and travel around performing it together. Ultimately what sets us apart is the music we make, and the experience we provide. Our music is specific to us; it’s the combination of our unique tastes, our perspectives, our love for each other. And we try to make our live shows as fun as possible, from lights to exuberant performance to bubble guns, anything we can do to create a fun and unique experience for the fans. So that’s what makes us the most proud, is seeing the creation of what we envision, and having it translate to others. We’re also proud to still be going strong. So many bands come and go because life gets in the way, so the fact that we still continue to learn and grow together writing and performing music is something we’re also really proud of.
Have you ever had to pivot?
We changed our sound after the first 3-4 years of performing. Originally we were more of a jazz/funk/rock act, with a rhythm section, and now we make electronic-based alternative pop music. We just got tired of our old sound, and we could tell it really wasn’t resonating with our audience. Obviously as a creative person you can’t create with others in mind because this will negatively impact the art, but if you want to commodify it, it also needs to find an audience. Since it wasn’t resonating with us or our listeners, we scrapped the old style, parted ways with our rhythm section, and immersed ourselves in electronic instruments. And we’re so grateful we made the change, even if it felt like a setback at times, because now we’re ecstatic about the music we play, and we couldn’t see ourselves playing anything else.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Katie: Healing myself and others through music one song at a time. Giving myself and others a safe haven to express their true selves without judgment or inhibitions. Plus a constantly burning inner passion to express my soul through creating and performing music. It aches me physically to not create and not perform. Music has always been my best way of connecting with people because it’s a universal language. Marty: To piggyback on Kate’s point about music being a universal language, I’ve always felt like the best songs connect with a universal aspect of being human or alive. I believe that there’s something universal in our experience as people, that we’re all very similar and the differences between us are mostly on the surface. So I think that with music being a universal language, it’s something that can capture aspects of our experience like no other medium. And I think trying to tap into that in the songs that I write or co-write has been a huge driving force in my creative journey. Striving to write something that resonates as deeply with me as with it does with others, due to tapping into something universal in the experience of being alive.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tartvandelay.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartvandelay/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tartvandelay
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tartvandelay/featured
- Other: https://linktr.ee/tartvandelay
Image Credits
Live Performance Picture – Raymond Vasquez Marty standing Kate kneeling, Kate Banana, Sunglasses- Oriane Gfy-Beaulieu “Janus” EP Cover (heads facing forward and back) – Olivia Szpylman