The Verinos started the year with a lot of interest from media. The idea that ordinary middle aged women could start to learn instruments and quickly form a band is very popular.
Best Magazine interviewed Vim Verino – aka Ruth Miller about the music project. The journalist who wrote it has to tug on your heartstrings, so be warned!
Hilarious!
We formed in July 2021 and life as a band has been exciting and fun ever since! We asked the band members what they like doing apart from playing in the band …
Volcano Verino has played drums since July 2021.
“Walking in muddy countryside, starry skies, whisky, knocking bits off wood.”
Vi Verino is an ex-choir member, now a punk rock singer!
“Sitting in front of an open fire, cuddling cats and dogs, watching Guy Richie or Tarantino films”
Vee Dee Verino only started playing bass this year.
“Racing pigeons, chasing patterns, making pompoms, colouring in”
Vim Verino started the band to show what older women can do. She was previously in Ruth’s Refrigerator, and is still playing with her band Po!
“Growing vegetables and making a mess”
Vixen Verino plays keyboard and was also in the 1990s band Ruth’s Refrigerator.
“Waving at animals, welding and walking alpacas”
The Verinos will be recording their next song and YouTube video very soon. Look and listen out for it!
We formed a band, including three women who’d never done anything like that before, and made an impact very quickly. Many of our ideas are way off what most people do, so let’s try and find out why it worked. If you’re someone who would like to have a band, here’s an alternative way of doing things and thinking about it, particularly if you’re a woman or someone who wouldn’t be expected to get up on stage.
“I can’t find anyone else”
Tell everyone about the idea. “I’m looking for someone who wants to learn bass” can be more interesting than just looking for a bass player.
“We never seem to get started”
Only have one talking meeting with your new band mates at the start. Don’t waste six months in the pub discussing the band name or chatting fantasies, just get on with it.
“They’re not as committed as me”
Agree how much time you want to devote to the band – a two hour rehearsal on a set day every week is ideal. If it’s less than once a fortnight, or it depends on people’s changing shifts or commitments, it’s much harder. But those who have more time can think about song ideas and work on their own.
“I don’t have a guitar”
There are always musicians who have a lot of equipment. If you meet any of these, don’t ask them to be in your band. Ask them whether they’d lend their 5th best guitar to a beginner who will take good care of it.
“I can’t afford £600 for a bass guitar”
If you can’t borrow anything, see if you can buy anything second-hand. Often there’s guitars and basses for £30-50. They’re not the best, but that doesn’t matter at the start. Make sure that you see someone playing it through an amplifier though, to know that the electrics work. Buy a good guitar lead if you can afford one.
“We don’t have a drummer or a drum kit”
If someone will agree to have a go, you can hire a rehearsal room with a complete drum kit including cymbals and pedals. All you need are drumsticks (about £4). Alternatively, hit carboard boxes to start with.
“We don’t have anywhere to play”
You can play quietly in people’s houses, or find a community centre or someone’s warehouse etc if you have all the gear. But focus and progress tends to be better when you’re paying by the hour in a proper rehearsal room. There should be a few within reach of most people if you search online. Many are run by enthusiasts, who should be delighted to help a bunch of beginners so try them out. If not, there’s a chain of unstaffed rehearsal rooms called Pirate Studios, where you book online and get a keycode to get in. The disadvantage is that help is on the phone, not in person. Pirate charges £12 per hour for a room on Saturday morning with the full drum kit; we found that other local studios, like Stayfree in Leicester have a similar size room for £9.50, plus they have someone to help you, snack and drinks machines and a mini shop for musical essentials.
“We don’t know what to do to get started”
Don’t bother trying to learn songs by famous bands. You’ll only get frustrated because it takes so long to get every player in the band sounding like the original. Start really simple with what the least experienced player in the band can do. Always count what you’re doing and agree how long each bit goes on for – 8 beats in a riff maybe and then repeat that 4 times and then a drum roll. That could be just playing a single chord or bass note like this EEEEEEEE, EEEEEEEE, EEEEEEEE, EEEEEEEE <drumroll>. By starting really simply, you can focus on the band interaction to play together, as a group, with communication, rather than the typical 3-4 musicians all playing marvellous independent things at the same time.
“We don’t know how to progress”
Decide whether you are just playing for fun in the rehearsal room. This is a totally fine kind of thing to do. But if you want to play any gigs, then you need to think of your audience and why they might like watching your band. Secretly many people dread having to go out to see their friend’s band, because it’s not a lot of fun, and it’s not really fair to expect people you know to subsidise your hobby out of loyalty. Inexperienced, earnest musicians are often so focussed on ‘getting their bit right’ that it’s a real chore to watch the ‘musicians all playing marvellous independent things at the same time’ kind of thing, when you’re not a regular gig-goer.
“We’re not ready to play a gig yet”
You should play a short gig or support slot as soon as you can. The fact that you’re brand new endears you to audiences and honestly, they would rather see a half-arsed band having a go, making mistakes, being humorous and engaging with everyone than a note-perfect replication of Bring Me The Horizon or some other men’s study band. And that is the theory that has worked well for The Verinos.
Thanks for reading. We’re thinking of starting some YouTube content about getting started in a band – at a very basic level – learning your instrument by playing in a band from scratch! Comment below if you’d be interested to see this!
The first song of our set is the song ‘No Time to Form a Band‘ which is a 1-chord song written by Vim and Vixen before all the members of the band had been found. The idea was that by having just one chord, it would make the song playable by anyone new to playing guitar or bass.
“What’s the bassline? shouts VeeDee? “It’s E E E E E E E E E E E …”
Here’s a picture of Vim and Vixen on 24th May 2021 – the day we wrote ‘No Time to Form a Band”. In order to be properly creative, we booked a serious artists’ work room in the LCB Depot in Leicester. And, as you can see, we had a lot of fun. It was a room where passers-by could see that a couple of middle-aged women were pratting about planning to form a band.
Here’s the words; it’s a list of excuses why women might not have time to form a band. But of course, at the end of the song, the words change to ‘there’s always time to form a band.’
Got to wash the dishes; Got to feed the cat
Got to learn to Zumba; Got to find a hat
So many things to do … we’ll never have time to form a band
So many things to do … we’ll never have time to form a band
Got to pick a number; Got to go to Greece
Got to get on Tik Tok; Got to buy the cheese
So many things to do … we’ll never have time to form a band
So many things to do … we’ll never have time to form a band
Got to put the bin out; Got to write some code
Got to book the tickets; Got to hit the road
So many things to do, but there’s always time to form a band
So many things to do, but there’s always time to form a band
If you want to hear what the song sounds like, you’ll have to wait until we record it, or, alternatively, come to Duffys Bar in Leicester on Thursday December 9th. Why? Because we’ve just had another gig confirmed – this time supporting act for The DeRellas. We’re really looking forward to it!
The Verinos played our second gig at The Soundhouse Leicester last month as an audition for the next Glastonbudget Festival in June 2022. The audience really loved it and we’ve now been confirmed for our first festival.
The Soundhouse is a cool music pub painted blue that hosts open mic nights, local bands and touring acts from the UK and overseas. Promoter Muz had been so positive about the idea of The Verinos, that we felt we’d be welcomed. We know we’re not as technically skilled as some of the usual bands that play there; our instruments are cheap or borrowed and we haven’t had much live experience.
But what we do have is confidence and energy!
Here we are hanging about before the gig. The other bands that were playing were really friendly and let us use their drum kit. They were interested to hear about what we’re trying to do, and very encouraging – old-fashioned sexist attitudes really do seem to be changing in the world of music!
We had a little soundcheck, which sounded good and there were fabulous stage lights and then it was time to play. The small stage meant that the fun and energy of the band came across even better – several of our songs involve band members shouting out their thoughts or joining in with the singers!
After we finished, there were dozens of great comments from people we don’t even know. Most frequent comment was “Brilliant songs!” followed by “Amazing energy”. So we think it was a great success, and want to go on to do more … especially festivals next summer! And today, apparently we’re featured on the BBC News page. Amazing! Please follow/subscribe to the blog to get news about The Verinos.
Yesterday The Verinos heard that we have been picked to play at Glastonbudget Festival in June 2022. Also BBC East Midlands broadcast a film about the band in their news reports throughout the day, so we were buzzing with people congratulating us and wanting to find out more.
You can see the evening BBC news slot here – the piece about The Verinos is after 22 minutes.
Although most of the bands at the festival are tribute acts, there’s a small stage for local bands and that’s where we’ll be, but hopefully we’ll be well known enough by then to get a good crowd!
The Verinos are now looking for more gigs in the local area; the unglamorous music project is also working with more women to create more all-female bands to play for fun and to record and play live. Get in touch if you’re interested via the comments or by emailing unglamorous music@gmail.com.
Here we are on Sunday 14th October 2021 at the last band rehearsal before our gig today. Keyboard player Vixen isn’t in the photo because she took it.
The best things about being in an all-female band are the friendship, enthusiasm and the unhealthy snacks.
In putting together a website and posters for The Verinos, I’ve done a lot of picture searches for ‘women’ ‘music’ ‘band’ ‘older’ – words like that. And honestly, the images that come up are either a well-preserved Los Angeles blonde beauty earnestly strumming an acoustic guitar on the beach, or a woman in a care home shaking a tambourine as therapy.
Here, Google, please have our picture. This is what some women do in their 40s, 50s and 60s! They go to a rehearsal room, play punk rock and share a picnic on the floor. They moan about the disgusting toilets but that doesn’t spoil the fun!
The Verinos playing live in Leicester at the International Arts Centre, Garden Street LE1 3UA Monday 18th October 2021 onstage 7.30 and also on Friday 22nd October at The Soundhouse Leicester onstage 9.15pm.
Up Yours! is the first song by The Verinos and here’s how it happened …
On 24th May 2021, Vim and Vixen booked a room at Leicester’s LCB Depot in order to write songs for a new band. We wanted to do it in public, so people could see us song writing as they walked past. We wondered whether any cool-looking women might walk past and then we could run out and recruit them for the band. It cost us £6 an hour but we got free wifi, a flipchart and when we bought Grays coffee, it was delivered to us in the middle of the meeting, so we felt like real creatives.
We didn’t know who else would be in the band, so had to write a simple song with just one chord. That chord was E, and we guessed the singing had to be a bit shouty. Vixen played her long-form melodica and Vim played all the different versions of E chord that she could – mainly ‘cowboy’ E and barred E at the 7th fret. Then we made a list of the kind of things people might say to us if we got on stage with a band of older women who couldn’t play very well. We knocked it into shape and a 1-chord song was born.
What the hell do you think you’re doing here?
Who let you into this song?
What on earth do you think you look like?
What have you got to say?
Up yours! Up yours! ………. Up yours!
Get over it! Get over it! Up Yours!
Why oh why are you even bothering?
Aren’t you embarrassed …at all?
Get a grip; exit by the gift shop,
What can you be thinking?
Up yours! Up yours! ………. Up yours!
Get over it! Get over it! Up Yours!
Once we’d got the band together, after our first rehearsal on 5th July 2021, Up Yours! was sounding great, especially with the call-outs and general mayhem, but the one chord was quickly expanded to a classic 3-chord sequence over the next few weeks, because bass-player VD complained that playing just E was boring. So welcome A and B and fancy keyboard parts, and by August, we introduced a key change at the end of the song .. “Just play the same pattern two frets up”
We booked a recording studio 4pm – 8pm 6th September 2021.
3pm With Vi still at work, four of us met and talked about how we were going to do a speedy session. Then we had a cold drink at The Tree.
We recorded the instrumental parts for two songs all together playing live and then added the vocals afterwards, when Vi arrived. For the shouty bits, we all stood at a distance round one microphone.
With a rough mix, we were ready to film a video, but the light was going so we quickly went onto the fire escape and played the song again.
We’re amazingly grateful for studio engineering and photography skills of Wong and Hancock which made this easy for us. And we’re back in the studio in early October!
The Verinos had done one rehearsal when we decided to apply to play Glastonbudget Festival. It’s a big festival in Leicestershire consisting mainly of tribute acts. Over the last 16 years, it’s built up to be a big deal with multiple stages. Next one is 2nd-4th June 2022, and some of the less-well known bands are picked via a talent contest audition process at Leicester’s Soundhouse venue.
There will be loads of very competent bands and artists auditioning to play Glastonbudget, but how would a brand new all women garage band do in the process? On July 3rd, we emailed the Director. The argument for having more women in bands at festivals is obvious, but that generally means young women just out of music college, or girls who have a musical parent in the wings. It doesn’t generally mean a bunch of ordinary women only just starting to learn how to play. But that’s us – The Verinos. We’re not bad for a 10-week old band.
But did we get the audition? The first response from Glastonbudget was encouraging:
I like this idea, it sounds like a terrific and inclusive project.
Lets talk more about it, and see what we can do.
Follow The Verinos to find out whether we get to play an audition gig, despite having never played a gig.
Playing in a band was not something most of The Verinos had ever thought possible. Guitarist Vim was at a birthday party in Leicester’s Kayal restaurant and got chatting to VD about punk. VD had just decided to start playing bass and was going to take lessons. Next came Vixen, who could play a bit of keyboards, and her friend Vi, who can sing and shout. Volcano had always fancied playing drums and turned up to the first rehearsal having watched one drum lesson on YouTube and was completely brilliant at it.
The experience of going to a rehearsal room, being extremely loud, having fun with no-one watching is really powerful. The other thing that’s great is playing and creating original songs so that we own and define our art. Our music can’t be compared to some well-known artist’s original version; we are the original version. Our songs are about laughing, being invisible older women, being in a band and just about ourselves really. They’re upbeat, singable, interactive, and we have a lot of fun playing them!
Here’s a photo of us on the way to our first rehearsal
L-R: Volcano, Vi, VD Vim and Vixen Verino on the way to the studio.
The Verinos 