To coincide with their immense September tour and the launch of the iconic The 4th Album, we caught up with The Record Company’s lead vocalist and guitarist Chris Vos, to find out more about the band’s journey to this point. Here’s how it went.
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The Record Company – great to chat with you! Loving last year’s album, great music and great songs to match. You guys are crushing it as a live band right now, but where and when did this journey start – and why this band name?
We are all lifelong music fans and each of us has been a musician since we were very young.
The band got together in 2011, and we came up with the name because the music industry was experiencing this huge hiccup at that time, there was a lot of talk about whether record companies were going to survive, and we realized that there was an opportunity to name ourselves “The Record Company “as a play on that. We looked at it as kind of a defiant thing to do, like a “we live in LA and we are The Record Company,” all in good fun. The Who, The Band, names like that.
That opportunity hadn’t existed beforehand because of the way the industry was since the beginning, and to us, for a band to take that signified a rebellion in a harmlessly positive way.
How important is it to be friends first and bandmates second, in terms of the unbreakable connection required to get vulnerable and stand the test of time as an act?
“To truly understand the test of time you have to have a space for each other – egos need to be checked. You are ultimately a family; and that means a lot of love and understanding has to be curated and tended to always.”
As a group, you need to have a good deal of emotional intelligence and self-awareness to make sure all are feeling heard and valued.
You are making a sacred thing, which is music. The closer and the more you can respect each other as people, the more respect you are going to have within the art. That makes the music shine all the brighter, and I believe listeners can feel that connection.
Mutual respect in a band helps you weather the storms and find the opportunities within the lessons that lay in every peak and valley.
What are you the most excited about for the upcoming September tour?
I love to play live; it is a major source of joy in my life. Playing live is a gift, and the people that come to the shows give us all the greatest opportunity to use that gift – that being – some of their time and consideration.
People taking the time to support our music is something I hold very dear and I want us to always show how much it means by digging in with all the energy and feeling that we can.
Joe DiMaggio once said that he played so hard on the diamond because he never knew when somebody was going to see him play that day who was only ever going to get to see him play once. If he didn’t play hard in every game, that person could be disappointed. That’s a lesson that I try to carry into every show. Make them count. Play with everything you got, every show.
Do you write songs on the road, and is there a new project in the making?
Yes, and yes.
There is a song in every corner of life. Experiencing life and growing is part of the process as an artist. So, you are always writing, even when you are not sitting down and doing it.
To put a finer point on it, you’re living your life and the songs are forming through your experiences whether you are conscious of it or not. I try to limit my phone usage except for my voice memo use, to capture ideas and melodies, and later look back on them and bring forward those ideas to a deeper process. yes, writing everywhere all the time. Everywhere all the time. Even if it doesn’t look like it or feel like it, you’re taking in or putting out ideas all the time.
Which song from your repertoire would you recommend to new listeners first, and why?
I suppose I would recommend “Off The Ground” just because it was the song that got things started for us. It’s a live staple, and one that people tend to really connect with. That being said, you can start anywhere, and you will get a good window in to who we are.
What’s been one of your most impactful or unforgettable moments from the band’s journey so far?
Going from playing in our living room to traveling and seeing people from all corners of the globe show up on a show night singing your songs. Meeting some of our heroes. Going on tours with larger acts like John Mayer or Bob Seger and playing places like the Forum and Madison Square Garden or The Forum in LA. Hearing your song on the radio or on television – just things that, when you are a kid, you wonder if you can do that.
Those things are extra rewards, but the biggest reward is just: on a given day having a show to play, getting up there, feeling good, and playing well. That’s probably the most impactful thing on a day-in-day-out basis. Just having a musical moment.
On or offstage, anytime there is an instrument in my hands, I feel it is an impactful moment if I’m giving the right stuff to the music.
Was successful touring the dream, or is there a bigger ambition at play?
That’s a good question. Well, successful touring is a moving target. If you don’t know what your version of success looks like in a given moment, you may miss out on a lot of joy.
I’m from Wisconsin and I just saw a great documentary about Giannis Antetokounmpo, in which he explains how, when he was in Greece and his family didn’t have a lot of money, just eating was a success. And then when he got to play on a professional Greek team, that was a success. And when he got to the NBA, that was a success. I took from that the lessons that your definition of success always is changing as you go through the process of learning
“Everything in your life is a step towards success – even in the really tough challenges, and those do come – but if you are being a student and enjoying the process of learning you will be addicted to the feeling of growth.”
What’s something about you that would surprise your fans?
I’m going to stick with the fact that I was born and raised on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and I went to grade school with a class of four kids total, now I live in LA. I am a farm raised city dweller. The Vos family farm has been there since 1847– two years before Wisconsin was a state –and my dad, my brothers, and my uncle are still farming it.
My Grandpa Don lived on that farm until he was 92 and he worked right up until that age. I am a proud son of a family farm, they taught me the value of work, to be kind to animals, to value people, and to have a passion for what you choose to do with your life. Thanks Ma and Dad.
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Find Tour Dates & Tickets via The Record Company.
