More strings to her bow

Two things that you’ll probably know about Vyvienne Long. One that she plays the cello with Damien Rice, two that she does a neat line in off the wall cover versions.

So far so good, but as the world is about to discover, there’s a lot more to Ms Long than that. Her debut Birdtalk EP is the first sign that here is a potentially stunning artist in her own right and is certainly a long way from her earliest musical forays.
“The only route that you can really take with the cello is the classical one”, she says of her formative years, “so there was lots of practice, lessons and getting up on Saturday mornings to go to orchestra. You had to practice every evening, when you could hear everybody having fun outside.”
Having become firmly ensconced in the classical world, Long was about to make something of a sharp turn.
“It was just fate, not a conscious decision to switch. I did my degree and then more cello studies. I’d met Damien at college a while before and then we met again when he had just left his band. He wanted to start work on a new album and that was when I got involved. It became full-time very gradually, he just got busier and I got swept along. It was never a case of ‘today I’m going to be a rock cellist’.”
It must be said that there’s work to be had for string players in the rock world, although it rarely involves being anything other than window dressing.
“There’s a lot of cynicism about string sections being brought in when they would really rather have a bunch of models to hold instruments; they don’t need to be able to play. A lot of them are good but you wouldn’t ever know that. With Damien it wasn’t a string section, it was more to use the cello as a third voice alongside himself and Lisa. I have a lot of creative control so I can play parts that would challenge me a little bit rather than just being told to move the bow and look like I’m playing”.
It was while on tour that Vyvienne began to experiment with other material, usually other people’s – something that became an integral part of the live Damien Rice experience. Did she have a constant urge to get her own thing underway?
“Not really,” she asserts. “I’d always been writing music on the quiet. I had this idea that I’d love to have a cello band. The stuff on tour happened incidentally and became a regular thing, I would play something every night. When we finished touring I found myself with a lot of time on my hands and thought I’d try something. I really surprised myself that I managed to organise it all. I did one gig and was really happy with it so I put on another. That encouraged me to finish off the ideas that I already had and do something with them.”
The resulting EP is hugely impressive and features a couple of those famous cover versions – in this case the Flaming Lips and Pharrell Williams. Is there a concern that they might end up overshadowing her own work?
“I’m not worried. From an audience point of view it’s good fun and they’re fun to play. There’s a thing about being accepted artistically but I think I’d like to have an album of purely my own stuff and then a separate one of all covers. I don’t think I’ll ever get to the point when I say I’m never doing any more covers because I’m a ‘serious artist’.”
What you do gauge from her original material is a sense of freedom, that it’s possible to move beyond the standard bass, drums and guitar format.
“I write on the cello and the piano. Maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t play guitar very well. I can play a few chords but I’ve resisted trying to write a song on it. Again it’s not a conscious thing; it’s the instrument I can play so I write for what I know. That’s how it’s working and as a result of that it’s going to be different. I always wanted to have an instrumental cello band with piano and drums. Now I’ve decided that words are the way to go as well. I’m just writing the music that I like and I’m not trying to push any boundaries. If I do that’s good, but it’s not my intention to be shocking”