It is, perhaps, inevitable that we find our way to the unexpected through the familiar, and this was certainly the case with Venamoris. The band initially caught my ear both because of the Ipecac label (a firm badge of quality), and because it is a venture between legendary drummer Dave Lombardo and his stunningly talented wife, Paula.
I’m so, so glad that it did.
An eclectic, beautifully produced record, To Cross Or To Burn draws first and foremost from the imagination of Paula, whose demos informed the recording, with Dave then adding the bulk of the instrumentation. The final album is a unique fusion of triphop, darkwave, singer-songwriter, jazz, and even a hint of metal, which makes for a consistently inventive and interesting journey that draws the listener right along with it.
I was fortunate enough to have the chance to chat with Dave and Paula, who kindly spent forty minutes or so on the phone with me, talking through the challenges for Paula of returning to an industry she thought to have left over a decade previously; the excitement of building these tracks from the ground up; and the process of recording that led to the final work. Throughout, the interview, you can feel the bond that led to this most remarkable collaboration, and it was a genuine pleasure to spend time with two people so obviously excited by the music they make together.
To start with, I know that this is your second album, but I believe that the way that this project came to life was very much Dave trying to persuade you, Paula, to open up about your musical past, is that right?
Paula: Yeah, I basically left the industry as a whole, I would say, probably for ten years in total. I just lost joy in music. I didn’t feel like writing any more, I just didn’t have any joy with it anymore, and we had gone back and forth over this.
Paula: He [Dave] had heard a little bit of my music, and we had gone back and forth trying to figure out, and I think he was trying to inspire me to get back to it. It just didn’t work for like the first ten years of our relationship. And then the pandemic happened, and that obviously allowed for many more conversations, and some passionate conversations with Dave saying, “how can you walk away from something that you loved for so long?”
Paula: And he just really worked with me to break down those walls and get back to it. Yeah. [To Dave] I don’t know if you want to add anything?
Dave: You know, having a voice like she did – I remember the demos that she had sent to me… I mean, reluctantly she sent me those demos. She just didn’t, you know, want to have anything to do with it anymore. And I’ll never forget, there was a time when I was going through a bit of a difficult period in my career, and she sent this track – she was playing guitar and vocals, and she was singing, obviously, and it just pulled my heartstrings, man. I was just bawling, basically [laughs]. Her voice, her tone, the richness… how can you leave something like that? You know? So, I’m really happy that she’s back.
Paula: Thank you
I think it’s an incredibly vulnerable thing to share demos for the first time, especially if it’s heartfelt vocals and sketched out guitar – getting past that innate fear of whether it’s good enough is actually something incredibly challenging.
Paula: It is! And the other thing is that I really wasn’t too familiar with Dave and Slayer. I mean, obviously I knew the band Slayer, but I didn’t really listen to that. So, when we first started dating, and I started to learn more about his style of music and everything, it was even more intimidating! It was just, ugh, I didn’t want to play this [laughs] legendary metal drummer these very heartfelt guitar and vocal tracks. It was already scary lyrically for me, but then there was also the intimidation of that. Especially going through some rejection and difficult times in my career previously, it was like, why open yourself up to even more, you know? So, it was a bit scary.
Dave: But little did she know that I’m a very open-minded musician! I love all styles of music. I find beauty in all genres. I find good in all genres. I say there’s only good music and bad music; you’ve just got to find the good stuff. So, I was really open to what she was doing and hoping that maybe one day we could work together. But it wasn’t that easy, because there were so many walls that were built up around her, that she had built herself. You know, I could totally understand how you can do something like that when you’re told certain things, you know. It’s… she’s come a long way, and I hope that we can continue this path and continue creating.
It’s interesting to me that you did the first album and then the second, you started tracking really quickly off the back of that – certainly I’ve had experiences like that, where the enthusiasm of the creative process runs straight out of the back of the first record and into the second, so I guess you built a remarkable musical relationship to go alongside your personal relationship?
Paula: Yeah, and there’s a lot of trust and respect that came out of that first album. Just the communication and everything. We already had that in our personal relationship, and it then translated – or transferred – into that first album. Which is why that one has so much innocence. It’s more stripped down. It could almost be guitar and vocals the whole way through if we wanted. And the second one was darker because Dave was out on tour, and I was alone. And that suddenly felt very uncomfortable after having him home for two years, so that’ s why it took a darker turn. But I feel like the communication we had, the trust, the respect, the love – it just made everything so much easier all of a sudden. There was a moment that I had, where I remember with the first album just saying to Dave “I don’t know why all these ideas are, all of a sudden, coming to me, but if something happens, please put the music out!” Because it was that scary in that moment.
I think you’ve really hit on something there, because every band is like a relationship, and it’s trust that sits at the heart of absolutely everything in the creative process. Because music’s kind of unique in the way that you have one person who pours their heart and soul into an aspect, and then the rest of the band fill in the colours around that – again it’s that vulnerability you have to learn to accept so you can trade ideas in that way.
Paula: Yeah, and also to release it. The second album specifically – sending these songs to Dave while he was on tour with Testament. They were very dark songs. I think at one point, I said to him – “you don’t need to worry about me, everything’s fine, I’m just getting this out.”
Paula: But there’s a certain trust when handing off such deep thoughts. And then Dave, in turn, taking that song, living with it while he’s on tour and then coming home and saying “OK, this is what I want to do with this.”
Paula: You have to sort of let it go and trust the other person is going to treat it with the respect that you feel it deserves.
Dave: Yeah, um yes [laughs]. It’s interesting because I’m immersed in this metal, hardcore music world. But then, when I was getting these songs from Paula, and I’d come off stage and, you know, it was time for me to hit my bunk and we’re off to the next city, and then the phone dings and here’s another song. I’m able to be in the confines of my little coffin on the tour bus, as I call it, and listen to it and it’s such a brilliant escape from what I’m doing on stage. So, really, it kind of balances out my musical, I guess, journey. It’s just really cool and inspiring. And, as soon as I get off tour and I’m home, I wait 24 hours, unpack, and then “hey, you want to go up to the studio?” [Laughs]
Dave: And the excitement’s there, like: “OK, this is the idea I have for this one, and this is the idea I have for that – I’m hearing, you know, 1930’s radio sound”, you know, like on Stay With Me. Or, let’s say, Burnt Paper goes in another direction – so, it’s really fun, to say the least.
To think of your career for a moment, Dave, like so many people who are into heavy music, I found you through Slayer, but one of the things I’ve absolutely loved about your career is that, although a lot of your stuff sits at that heavier end of the spectrum, it’s not typically heavy – you’ve got, like, Mr Bungle, and Fantomas, where there’s bits of jazz, and there’s bits of electronica, and bits of lounge – so you already have that really exciting, really eclectic background to what you do.
Dave: Yeah, so it’s not really too far off, you know, my radar. It’s pretty much there. You know, I think it just shows that, you know, I just love music. And I just want to continue on this path of being creative. This is what’s left behind. It’s your journey. I think I’m on the right path – at least it feels that way.
It’s possibly the difference, in many ways, between the musician and the fan. You’ll very often get fans who are very focused on one area or one genre and stick to that quite closely. But then the musicians that I speak to, they’re very open to so many different things. And you wouldn’t necessarily know all the things they listen to, but those little influences creep in and that’s what makes their music unique rather than just a tribute. If you listen to Slayer all day long, you’ll make something that sounds a bit like Slayer… but, if you listen to Slayer and Miles Davis, then what comes out is going to be really fascinating.
Dave: Absolutely true and I hugely encourage other musicians to do that and don’t fall into the same old same old. Because you’ll eventually regurgitate the same thing, and it just becomes mundane. And uninteresting.
So, in terms of this record, it sounds like the initial process was very similar to the first album, with Paula sending you material while you’re out on the road, which then sparked ideas in you. So, what’s the process when you come back home? How do you get from those initial demos to what we hear on the record?
Paula: The first step is always Dave opening up a track for me on Pro Tools to get to the very basics – so, setting up the time signature and getting the click track where it needs to be, and then I’ll lay down the basic idea of the song and a scratch vocal. And then Dave will kind of live with that. If he’s more familiar with the song, he’s able to immediately go “OK, I want to create some space here, I want to add an extra two bars at the beginning. I think that there should be…” well, whatever it is.
Paula: Once he establishes that, sometimes he’ll go and immediately lay down a scratch drum track, just to give me an idea of how it feels to him, because drums can make the feel of a song change drastically. So, he’ll do that and then, if that works for me, then we’ll build from there. Whether it’s Dave laying down a guitar track, or me laying down more piano.
Dave: Yeah, adding layers… and there comes a time when we’ll add instrumentation and then it still doesn’t feel right. It’ll feel like it’s lacking something. And I don’t know what it is. I can’t pinpoint it, and I’ll tell Paula that “we need to add something to create a little more melody or something…” Whatever it is. Again, I’ll open up another track, and she’ll start looking for different synthesiser sounds, or something…
Paula: Something to inspire us…
Dave: Something to inspire us and then, once we capture that, we start homing in on it and dialling in the tones and the frequencies to see where it sits. And sometimes it’s still not enough, or it’s the wrong instrument. Maybe it just rubs me wrong or doesn’t feel right. All of this is, based on feeling – you know, how does it feel? And so, it’s quite the process, and what’s interesting is that you never know when it’s going to hit you that it’s done. I’ll sit there for days, and it doesn’t feel right. And I’ll go through it and It’s not right, it’s not there yet, it’s not there yet. And then three, four, six months later, I’ll do something, or Paula will do something, and there it is. It’s done! It’s ready to go, it’s off to mixing. And that is a really magical moment, at least for me. You don’t know when that moment’s going to happen. Especially when we’re working – it’s just us two in a room. You don’t know, but when it does [happen] it’s magical. Nobody knows where music comes from – it’s from the mind, and we try to interpret this sound or idea into music, and it’s fascinating. Especially in this… at this level. It’s not a band; it’s not four guys in a room. It’s not this multitalented, you know, multi-instrumentalist creating the song that we’re trying to record. It’s just us, so it’s fascinating.
It’s a really exiting way of working and I think, one of the things for me (and it felt like this when I was listening) is that, when you’re working slightly outside your comfort zone, trying out things like synths or instruments that aren’t necessarily your own, there’s a level of creativity that comes from trying to translate the sound in your head… and sometimes you get it exactly as you want it, and sometimes it’s even better than you thought it could be. But it comes form that process of trial and error – and it’s really the most exciting thing about writing music in this way.
Dave: It is, and very true, what you just said, that sometimes it’s better! It’s better than what you imagined. And you could never have thought of it turning out the way that it did. We didn’t! We didn’t know this record was going to be this way. Then you put it in order, and I love this process too. This is the opening. We know this is the opening track. Then what comes next? And what comes after that? How do we keep the momentum and keep the excitement and keep the listener interested. And it’s so much fun.
Sequencing is another…. It’s an artform in itself. Putting the songs down is one thing and then taking the listener on a journey through the album is the next step and, with this album, you take the listener on a remarkable journey. You mentioned the 30’s kind of radio opening of Stay With Me, which is lovely and you’ve got Trevor Dunn there on the contrabass, and then you go all the way through to the kind of heavier stuff at the end – the whole album really ebbs and flows beautifully and it feels to me like an LP that you flip over, so it has that dual ebb and flow that disappeared for a while when CDs were the dominant format. Did you spend a lot of time working on that side of it.
Paula: Um
Dave: Um, I think so.
Paula: Yeah.
Dave: I don’t remember how much time we spent working on it, but we did have to keep in mind that it was going to be released on a record, so we needed to know which song was the last song on side A and what was going to open up side B. So, that was taken into consideration. But sometimes that process happens during the recording session and during the mixing. Like – this one comes first, this one sounds like it would be here. You know, and then we start moving them around as we get closer to the album completing.
At some point, when there’s two of you working on closely on something, it can be a good idea to get an outside pair of ears. Was there a point, during this process, when you involved anyone else, or did you keep it very much between the two of you?
Paula: We’ve kept it just between us, honestly. I don’t think we’ve ever bounced anything off anyone. It’s just something that we’ve… I think we just trust one another that much. I think, maybe, on this album, the only thing that had an outside influence, and I don’t even think he realises it, was Gary Holt. And that was only for Animal Magnetism, because it was something that I was a little hesitant about doing. I wanted to make sure that we did it respectfully and that we weren’t just shoehorning this classic song onto the album. So, I was a bit scared of that, and when Dave handed it off to Gary and he loved it and his wife loved it, we got kind of the stamp of approval to move forward. So, I think that might have been the only outside influence on either album.
Dave: Yeah, it’s true.
The production on the album is really stunning and I love the balance between the organic elements, especially Paula’s voice which is very intimate and up front, and then the synths and the electronic elements… and also the way that you worked with the drums to serve the song rather than the instrument – how long did you spend developing the appropriate sound for this album?
Dave: I’ve always heard that the drums are the foundation of the mix. And so, I kept that in the back of my mind while developing these songs. And it’s true – once I laid down the real drums; I have a little electronic kit that I lay down ideas first; and then I’ll have Paula punch me in while I lay down the drums, downstairs in the living room. So, the ambiance you hear, the foundation is the drums – and that’s our living room and dining room that you’re listening to. There are no, you know, sampled drums or anything like that. Everything is organic, except obviously for the synthesisers and any other little instruments that you hear. So, the vocals and drums are all organic, and so the most difficult part is blending the two – the electronic sounds and the acoustic drums. Because it’s very tempting to replace the acoustic drums with just samples. But, I think, to capture the… I guess a personality of her and I and the music – to capture that, I feel I have to keep it as organic as possible.
Dave: And it’s important. You can’t over produce. Oh my god, I can’t tolerate over production, and I hear it right away. And I hear sampled drums. I hear it all quantized and it’s such a pet peeve. You don’t hear personality. Back in the 70s and 60s or the 70s and 80s, if you flip through songs on your Spotify or Apple music, every band was sonically different 0 every band was unique. And they didn’t have a huge number of songwriters to create one song. It was just, you know, Freddy Mercury and Queen. Bohemian Rhapsody – one songwriter, if I’m not mistaken. And there are a lot of songs that are just masterpieces and only two people – it’s just the band. And today, it’s so disappointing. So, you try to keep it as pure and respectful to the music, to the voice, the songwriter, as you possibly can.
I agree – I think it’s really important. One of the unfortunate corollaries of more computing power is that anyone can get behind Pro Tools and dial in the sound straight away of your favourite guitarist and sound like that, whereas in the past, you were probably trying to sound like your favourite guitarist, but what came out ended up being yours because you didn’t have the money for their amp or their pedals
Dave: Right, yeah! Yeah – we have a lot of great advantages with this new technology, but you have to learn how to limit yourself and not use everything. Because otherwise it’s overprocessed and, like I said, you lose the magic.
Paula: I would also add on that, in my experience, if I had ever laid down a guitar and vocal and then gone to a professional recording studio, which is very common in a place like Nashville, Tennessee – to go there and pay someone $100 and lay down as many songs as you can – all of a sudden, you have this very accomplished, clean, acoustic guitar player laying down your songs for you. It’s just what it is. When I’m working with Pro Tools and using the different samples, it’s opening up my mind past the guitar and vocal, I’m all of a sudden able to hear what maybe came to me for the first melody and lyric. It’s like wow, I hear all these voice, I hear strings right here, I hear this. And I can kind of play with that now and open up more tracks and play with it and see if my idea actually makes sense. You know, instead of having to hire things to make that happen for you. So, that for me is a massive bonus. And where we go from there is typically Dave saying “hey, I think we need to bring in Alex Skolnik” or whoever, “because you can tell it’s a sample, it doesn’t feel good. We need the musician on here.” So, it’s been helpful, in the development.
Dave: Yeah, and bringing in other musicians kind of colours it, and gives a nice balance to the entire album. So, it’s very beneficial also to bring in other musicians, but in a very limited way.
Paula: And then, a lot of times, too, I’ll lay down a bass part, because we just need a bass guitar sound. So, I’ll lay that down just to get it going, but Dave will almost every time pull out a bass and re-record it live. So, it’s great for demos.
Dave: Yeah, it’s great for demos. But adding real bass adds that human nuance, and it just feels so much better.
I do love the fact that you said, Paula, that you kind of hear the sections in your mind as you’re recording, because it’s those little moments of inspiration, I think, that make the song and make it yours and make it unique. And, again, that’s the exciting part for me.
Paula: Yeah, I love it!
Dave: It’s very, very exciting. Yeah.
Paula: And especially if you’re limited. I’m a piano player. Vocalist first and then piano. I’m not great at guitar. I can get by a little bit but not enough to really allow a song to go where it should. And so, all of a sudden, you know, I feel much more accomplished than I am [laughs] on any instrument. I mean I can play anything on Pro Tools with all these samples – it’s so helpful.
In terms of working up the lyrics, and I know we touched on this earlier, but I was speaking with a songwriter the other day and he argued that great lyrics come from bad experiences – and then it’s what you do with that that makes the lyric really relatable for the audience – is that something you’ve found.
Paula: Absolutely. On To Cross or To Burn there’s a tonne of soul searching on there and introspection for me. You hope, you know – it’s terrifying to put it out. You hope that people can related to it, but a lot of it is based in pain and the cathartic part of it is maybe, for an example, who hasn’t dealt with malignant narcissism in their life? There’s a tonne of that, it’s an epidemic really, I guess you would say. So, there’s a lot of those experiences for me, dealing with really just that personality type. So, it’s very cathartic to put that frustration, that anger, to paper, rather than, say, go to jail! [Laughs]
Paula: So, it’s cathartic in that way. I’m going to try to find a way to word it that, you know, I feel comfortable singing and makes sense for me. But it’s cathartic for sure.
And it’s amazing, too, because if that music finds one person who can relate to it, then that’s amazing, and that’s where music becomes a language with a universality to it. It’s so at the core of what music is, I think.
Paula: yes, it’s a gift. And we got lost in the weeds and more, in this day and age, the numbers – the algorithms. Why aren’t people hearing me? I’ve seen Dave work so hard on a random project and it doesn’t get the reaction, for example on social media, that maybe we would have expected. But then a random picture of a rock outside gets a tonne of interaction. So, it’s a little frustrating, I think, and it’s really easy to get caught up in all of that. But, when you strip it all away and think what you’re doing it for, for me it isn’t for the numbers. It never was for the numbers. It didn’t exist when I started doing this. I just loved to sing. And I loved when I would sing a ballad, I could see form the emotion on somebody’s face that it really touched them and so, for us, if one person is listening to this and it reaches them in a way that makes them feel good, or relaxed, or it’s background music, or even something that they’re going through the wors time and all of a sudden they’re like “hey, how did this Venamoris band know that I needed to hear this right now?” Any of that is just amazing to me. So, kind of a funny thing that we were talking about when it comes to numbers is that we’re able to see, at any given moment, how many people are listening to us on [to Dave] what is it? Apple?
Dave: Apple music
Paula: Apple music, and one morning we woke up and Dave was looking at everything and he said “hey, there’s somebody listening to us right now!” And it was like six o’clock in the morning, and it was one person, and I was so excited. I was like “what? There’s somebody listening to us right now? That’s crazy!” And I just love the fact that our music left our home and found its way to somebody else’s home.
Dave: You know, I’ve told Paula that… she was worried when we first started this…
Paula: Like, when it was going to be released…
Dave: Yeah, like the first record. She was saying “oh my god, what are people going to say?” And I told her, “It doesn’t matter – this is for us. This is what we’re doing. We’re documenting this moment in our lives. And, if you want to look at it in Lombard – Dave Lombard’s career – this is something he’s doing. But this is what you’re doing, and this is what’s important. And it doesn’t matter if nobody likes it. You like it. Your mom likes it. Your dad likes it. I love it. It just doesn’t matter beyond our little circle.”
Dave: But then, we release it and it’s… wow! People like it! And she said, “Dave! Slayer fans are kind of embracing it, what’s going on here?” And all of a sudden, you see this big grin on her face and… it’s still scary for her.
Paula: Yeah, it is.
Dave: And, I think, for any musician to release music, it’s a scary moment. But it’s exciting, and we look forward to it every time. You know, I’ve had to teach her that that anxiety that you feel, you know, that nervousness – it’s excitement. Let’s not translate it into anxiety. Let’s translate it as something exciting that’s happening. And it’s working! Because she’s doing it!
