Some artists have their moment of commercial fame then head into obscurity, others turn it into a long, under-the-radar career filled with amazing music that die hard fans swear by. Donnie Vie was on top of the world when his former band Enuff Z’nuff had hits like “New Thing”, “Fly High Michelle” and “Mother’s Eyes”. Like so many other bands. the changing musical landscape knocked them off the charts, but Vie kept making great power pop records with the band, and later as a solo artist. He has just released his fourth solo studio record called Beautiful Things and recently took some time to talk about the record, his health and his career.
Please press Play below to listen to the MisplacedStraws.com conversation with Donnie Vie:
On his mindset as he began work on Beautiful Things – I had a little down period there where things just got too ugly and just a downward spiral with the band after a point and so you get to a point where you have actually got to reach the bottom and then maybe even laid out a couple more trap doors and fall to the bottom of that. Then you got to say to yourself “Listen, everything I’m doing to this point isn’t working for me anymore”, so I just took some time to re evaluate my priorities straighten my head out of my ass and just try to take some me time without any of that stuff and try to get healthy and stuff so I can continue to do this. During that whole time whatever sends me the songs decided to shut those off for a while. But once it was time, I was ready and that floodgates opened right back up and all came together really quickly. :49
On guest musicians playing on the record – Paul Gilbert’s great friend of mine he did a great job on “Beautiful Things” and Roger Joseph Manning from Jellyfish. I I’m a huge Roger fan, he’s just amazing. What he did on “I Could Save the World” just blows me away. There’s Matt Walker from Garbage, Beck and Morrissey, he’s on the drums. There is Jay O’Rourke he’s a big artist in Chicago he’s playing guitar, there’s my buddy Phil Angotti, a big artist in Chicago, he’s singing backgrounds with me. 2:00
On writing and recording in the studio – That’s where my passion lies, in the studio writing and recording it because it’s like the closest thing that you could ever find to actual real magic …I mean some of these things it’s like the way you stumble on to something and you try this and you try that, all of a sudden you try something else and then it just like “that’s it!” and it just clicks together. I always follow the song. I get the song idea from I don’t know where and then I what I do is I listen to the idea and I follow it instead of lead it. I follow it and I see where it wants to go and so then I go down that road with it…They’re little creations, they’re little lives but I look at it you know all my little children these songs and so, like the children, your job is to send them out in the world in the best shape….I love harmonies, I love melodies, I love hooks, I love all that stuff. 3:20
If I Could Save The World
On how he’s feeling now and his health – I can’t say that I ever feel very good. I haven’t been too good on my self through the years and now I’m just kind of like working with with what I have left. I’m like a guy who comes home from war with one arm shot off, a foot shot off, ear shot off, you still got to make it through the night. Like I said there was a big down period and then it’s very re charged. I got rid of hepatitis C…got all my legal shit out of the way that out of that depressive mode got surrounded by good people, my family everybody again, got rid of this crazy girlfriend shit that I was dealing with all my life. I haven’t been single since my babysitter. It was a rejuvenated ceiling and and everything was like fresh like like the day I recorded my first song. It was a labor of love and it was quick and I can’t say that I felt the best. I was just in the hospital earlier this year my pancreas liquefied on me so it turns out that I’ve been sick for like a year and I didn’t know that. So I didn’t feel real good physically but everything else you know that’s mind over matter. 10:43
Beautiful Things
On the PledgeMusic collapse – That did hit hard. That was, I think, a wonderful and brilliant concept to be able to get right in direct contact with the people who want to hear your stuff and want to buy your stuff and love your stuff that they can pay for it in advance and actually pay help make it as opposed to you having to hustle and (E’nuff Z’nuff) only had 3 on major labels and all the rest was ingenuity and wheeling and dealing and hustling to get those made. Lots of favors and then you use those up and then you got to find new favors and it wears on the bands…(PledgeMusic)took all the money, all the fan’s money all every other artist’s fans’ money and everything and just bolted. Just one day they were gone. When you get the PledgeMusic wasn’t just you get the money in advance and they give it to you that’s not how that worked. It’s like you get the money from the fans, you set a goal after that goal, which we far exceeded the goal, we like doubled the goal, and so what you gotta do is they delegate out a little bit of money to help you get started and this and that and so everybody who’s on board has to understand that when you get this finished everybody gets paid. I never expected to make a penny, I don’t care i just wanted to get the record made. There are people, like the producer, the engineer, food, and other players and housing and all that stuff that have to be paid, that’s not free. So when (PledgeMusic)happened the whole fucking shit goes down, the people who aren’t with Pledge who are there to help you make your record, they’re not going after Pledge, they’re coming after you… I decided well what’s a few more grand to make sure that these people get what they what they paid for and and keep them around and be able to continue to do this. So that’s what we did, we honored the pledge and some are still complaining because I’ve seen snail mail someplace, when you’re you Council Bluffs, Iowa and you live in a cornfield your C. D.’s not gonna get there as fast as Chicago. 17:52
Fly
On how it feels when fans tell him what his music means to them – That means everything in the world to me because when I’m sitting there in a dark place and you know when you’re in a dark, lonely world like I was living in it’s very ugly and there’s not a whole lot around you at the times when when you step off the stage and you step off the bus and are back at home. What do you do? And then to have the magnitude of what’s happening to your life and what you have done to it and what you’re doing to it really sinks in. So when I’m sitting there writing a song, that’s how I vent my emotions and stuff to make me sort of let them go a little bit. My whole intention, my whole wish and prayer is that this song somehow find it least one guy or one girl that sitting out there feeling the same exact way and if not to cheer them on just say you know “Hey you can make yourself better and get a life and stuff”, because I’m going to do that. Just to say “Hey listen you know I’m here to doing the same exact thing and let’s all get through this together” and it’s healthy for me it’s great for me it’s great for them and that’s what I set out to do. That’s that’s my goal with the songs. Money’s never been (a goal). I’ve never been a rock star I’ve always been an artist first and then I became a huge humanitarian. My heart is a mile wide and it bleeds, it bleeds musically out of my mouth from my soul and and if they can reach somebody, if somebody, one person to tell you that you save my life you literally saved my life and the ripple effect from that you know that’s worth more than all the money, that makes your whole career worth what you’ve done. 25:00
Instant Karma
On recording “Instant Karma” as an anti-bulling campaign – I’m not gonna change the world with cancer or anything like that I’m not going to change the world with anti-bullying or anything but I can try to just do my little part in something and hopefully if it brings 1 or 2 people minimum to the party then you did your job. 30:20
Fly High Michelle
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