Is Vek There?

Taking his debut Irish appearance as part of BudRising is UK artist Tom Vek: a much whispered-about multi instrumentalist who’s been compared – albeit a tad prematurely – to the likes of Beck and Talking Heads.

The brand of soulful rock accessorised with glitzy electro as illustrated on his self-titled debut album sent something of a tingle through the music industry and has earned Vek the weighty title of Cool Kid On The Block, making his Whelan’s show one of the festival’s most highly anticipated.
The album was recorded partly in his parents’ garage in London and partly in a flat on Exchequer Street, Dublin 2, over a year ago. “Tom Rickson, the guy who produced the album, was living there (Dublin) at the time," he explains. "It was cheaper for the label (Tummy Touch) for me to hop on a Ryanair flight than for him to come to London. I didn’t really leave the studio very much over those few weeks, to be honest. It had a mezzanine floor where I slept and I’d just work from 11am to 4am. We did pop out once to have the obligatory Guinness, though. I think it was at The International. I’m very much looking forward to playing Ireland. It seemed like a nice place, apart from the smoking ban thing.”
In the studio Vek is something of a one man band, tackling everything from drums to backing vocals. “I work like a band would jamming, except it all happens stage by stage,” he says. And though he freely admits that recorded music is “the truth” to him, the live arena is one he always intended to conquer. Throwing out the option of backing tracks at an early stage (“using backing tracks live is a contradiction in terms”), he instead assembled an additional three musicians to animate his sound, and set about booking some gigs around London.
It was around then that the frenzy began to gather pace. “A couple of gigs in, someone’s there saying ‘Hi, I’m from blah blah blah records,’ and we’re like, ‘Great, but I already have a deal, thanks very much’. Then it got to a point where it got a bit silly, and there were some people that really wanted to get involved.”
After many negotiations,Tom eventually signed to Island, who released his album last month. “I’m really proud of it,” he beams. “What is exciting about the process of making albums, and the reason I continue to do it with so much enthusiasm, is because you can pick up one instrument and write something, then pick up another and hear them next to each other reacting and generating that fantastic thing. It’s all about the excitement and being the listener all the way through – hearing something and thinking, ‘Wow, I really like that’. That’s the best thing about making music.”