Bowling with Virgins

By nishamaxwell on Fri, Feb 13, 2009 2:04 pm

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Hailing from Manhattan, the Virgins are a fun revival-rock band. 2008 was crazy for them. They made 68 on the Rolling Stones 100 Best Songs of 2008 list with their hit Rich Girls; came out with their first signed LP “The Virgins” with Atlantic Records; and were featured on Gossip Girl. Their tours covered Europe and major cities in the U.S alongside bands such as Jet, Patti Smith and Sonic Youth. They were launched into the spotlight and are now headlining around the country.

We all met at Lucky Strikes Bowling Alley in the Fenway and later went over to B.U for them to do a radio interview and play a few songs. Once we were convinced to put on the shoes – which was a hard task, the waitress came around to take our order. Donald (lead singer) ordered a hot tea and when he was thoroughly scoffed at for this he didn’t want anything. Nick (bass player) ordered a diet Pepsi. Although I had been expecting a drug infused drunken brawl, I followed suite. It was quite refreshing. The band had been on the road for quite a while and “every shitty thing you can imagine has happened to us in transit, except, knock on wood, planes crashing.” griped Nick. But things have gotten good since Obama’s election. Nick told me “We went to Europe right after he got elected. It was the first time we could proudly say we were American. Before that, it was like ‘tell them you’re Canadian’”. Along the way their guitarist Wade Oates had gone home and their drummer Eric Ratensperger has left the band. “Eric has a girlfriend and we were never home. They just moved in together. He wanted a life. We don’t have lives.” Explained Nick. Donald took his bowling very seriously and made quite a few strikes. But seriously is a relative term because he bowled for both teams – took our turns for us when we were feeling lazy and was heard yelling “Don’t you see that gutter balls are the same thing as strikes” throughout the game. He does not come off as very competitive. About their sudden fame he has a similar attitude “We just focus on what we’re about to do. So its really hard to have a perspective on what we intended this to be.” They are optimistic about the future, however, and feel like they’ve been through their first high expectation album experience already with their LP so now they are relaxed as they start on their second album. “I think our next album is going to be amazing.” says Nick. Genuine is not usually a word associated with the music world. The Virgins, however, live up to their innocence-assuming name. These boys are grateful for their dramatic luck of the last year and it shows in everything they say and do. Exhausted from their U.S tour with Nick unable to remember the last time he had a full nights sleep and Donald so sick he had to keep jumping off the B.U. stage to get tissues, every fan still got a signature and a chat if they wanted – in good humor, no less.

Donald Cumming, often mistaken for a drug addict because of his outlandish comments and behavior in interviews – is a) not and b) lovely. What was mistaken for him being totally out of his mind is just the goofiest charm in the world. He is very serious about his music and overwhelmed with appreciation to his fans, his label and his band. Nick says of Donald “You can get all the facts from me but if you want the color, he’s the one to talk to.” The things Donald says would be enough to make him a star. When I asked him if he drank he gave a reasonable response but topped it off with informing us matter-of-factly that “Drinking is very popular.” – not a trace of sarcasm tangible. Another fabulous sound bite of his was “The Rolling Stones and World War Two are probably the two things that have shaped current popular culture. They are the times that we live in. “ When asked about his favorite album, whether he’ll play big venues, and about their massive label Atlantic Records, there is no trace of snobby hipster shame in his answers. He says they’ll play on a lawn or in huge auditoriums, that it makes no difference. About the label he put it simply “they gave me money and that was cool and then we got some stuff like a practice space. So I’m really grateful that we had the opportunity to get signed.” He is super excited about it all and rebuffs the cynical criticisms of The Virgins as mainstream music with a disarming sweetness that’s hard to recover from.

Nick is less airy but still astonishingly positive. He’s a fashionable city boy that likes good food and expensive guitars. Donald says of him “Nick won’t let me play his guitars because his are worth money and I smell.” One of the first things that Nick confided in me was that the best Italian food he’s ever had was in Tokyo (and he’s been all over Italy, mind you). We got in heavy with art and literature within the first hour of our interview and before I knew it he was holding the recorder and grilling me on all the same questions he’s asked daily by reporters “Favorite movie? Book? Piece of art? Album?” Nick is the one in each group interview that speaks cohesively and comes off a little like a manager. His favorite movie is Pee Wee Hermann’s Great Adventure. He thinks everyone should read War and Peace, but his favorite book is a tie between Orlando, by Virginia Wolf and My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl. His favorite artist is Yves Klein (the black and white stuff, not the color). Album-wise; he says, “I think the best rock n’ roll record ever made is Exile on Main Street. Ha-ha, obviously I’ve answered this question before.” His favorite thing in the whole world is “British low self-esteem”.