The warm KVRX station was a welcome relief from the biting wind when I sat down with Ricci and George of Valice (pronounced like release). In fact, anything other than warmth would be out of place for this group. With their lively tunes and laid-back attitudes, it’s hard not to associate Valice with cloudless skies and short-sleeved tees.
“We’re always thinking of ways to surprise people,” said Ricci, vocalist of the funky Austin-based band – and surprise people they do. With influences ranging from The Beatles, Beck, to a cheeky Radiohead, it’s clear Valice isn’t looking to pigeon-hole themselves into one thing: “we ask ourselves what our sound is for each song and we try to be as eclectic as possible because that’s what we love.”
Valice’s music isn’t the only thing surprising us: their onstage presence is all-consuming. The group settles right in once they enter the stage, establishing rapport with the crowd, playing with vocal effects, and ultimately commanding their space. Ricci, a UT alum, credits parts of their magnetic presence to some of the group’s experience in improv. Ricci himself boasts the resume-worthy title of retired Giggle Pants captain, while bassist George and keyboard player David were both improv connection additions to the band. James on guitar has been with the group since its inception, while a drum spot was filled by Ethan just last year.
After releasing their first full-length album in 2023, this groovy pop group is already coming back for more. Their next album is slated for this spring, and it’s definitely one to look out for. In five words, the group calls the album “energetic, quirky, powerful, dancy,” and, after much deliberation, “French.” However, when George reminded me “we’re really focusing on heavy, well-mixed beats,” it’s clear Valice’s first priority is their commitment to making music they can feel proud of.
In our brief meeting, Valice talked megachurches, Paul McCartney, and rhinestone cowboy outfits, but most importantly, the boys talked music. It’s clear their love for the art rings true in everything they do. George said it best when I asked him why he creates songs: “writing music allows you to speak an emotional language that transcends linguistic barriers. If you pair that with lyrics and intent, you can create an art form that speaks to people on multiple levels at once.”
Keep reading for more of my interview with Valice.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Watching you guys perform, all I could think about is how you guys met. I see Ethan joined you guys on drums this year, but how did Valice get to be the group it is today?
Ricci: I submitted one of my CDs to Sun Radio for Sound of Our Town. A DJs there picked it as his favorite and asked me to perform the album for Texas Radio Live. They asked if I had a band and I lied and said yeah; I wasn’t gonna let them take the next guy. I met George and David through mutual improv connections, and we met James, our guitarist, at a gig we played before Texas Radio Live. He was with another band, and I asked if he wanted to come drum with us. And Ethan joined us this year because James wanted to move to guitar. George, how did we find Ethan?
George: Was it an open call? No…
Ricci: Oh, I know! David, our keyboard player, works at Home Slice, and Ethan came in as a customer. I guess they started talking, and Ethan said he was a drummer. It was all organic stuff; friends of friends. No internet was involved, actually! It’s like the 90s.
George: Just like the 90s.
Q: You guys have been around in some capacity since 2019, and we all know what kind of turn that year took. What was the Pandemic like as a new group?
George: I mean, during the beginning of the Pandemic, we were starting to take off and write music. We were at the point where we wanted to record our debut album and everything. When the Pandemic hit, I was getting the stimulus check, and I was like “I guess I’m just going to spend all my time mixing this album!” Ricci would come over. We got a lot done in those early months.
Ricci: 11, maybe 12 songs…
George: It ended up being productive for us that way. We couldn’t go and play shows, but we actually did a series of shows that we called Apartment Tours from our houses.
Q: Do you need to be in a certain physical or mental space to write your music?
Ricci: If I just sat down and tried to hum something, I would never think of it; it’s about getting in the right mood. But, the music comes in different ways, like piano, bass, or even a word. Sometimes if I catch my guitars looking aesthetic, I’ll be like “I bet there’s something in that bass.” Or I’ll be listening to music quietly and I’ll think I’m hearing a song that’s not even there. That song exists in my head, though, and I can try to make that.
George: Removing as many barriers between myself and starting to play is the main thing that makes it easier to write. I can get distracted by other stuff even when the thing I actually want to do is write music. Going into music making intentionally is important, too. Ricci came over one time, and we did a 48-hour writing session. A lot of the music from this new album came from that.
Ricci: We closed the curtains, changed the lights…
George: Yeah, we were like, “let’s go pure red for this one song!” You might be able to catch that one on the album.
Q: Ricci, you got to perform on stage with Paul McCartney! How does that happen; what was that like?
Ricci: Oh my gosh, The Beatles were everything to me; at any point in the song, it feels like anything exciting could happen. That’s been my whole music inspiration. I saved up all my money from working one summer on a ticket to Chicago to see McCartney when he was on tour in the late 2010s. I had a sign that was a reference to one of his new songs, “Queenie Eye.” It said “Queenie eye, Queenie eye, we’ve got the balls…to play a song with you.” And then he invited us up! It was freaky. You see him on TV, or magazines, or albums. Suddenly he’s right there as a person. I was surprisingly at ease, but I think it was shock; it was so out-of-body that I felt normal. It can only go downhill from here.
Q: I have to talk about you “don’t know where, don’t know why;” it’s so creative. How did you guys come up with that song and video?
George: We were in the studio, and I came across this old transistor radio, and I started randomly twisting knobs. I came across this crazy sounding fire and brimstone preacher. It was so specific in its apocalypse.
Ricci: (quoting the sample) now don’t be surprised if only 23,000 are saved in the entire world…
George: I just sampled it right there; it had a neat sound because of how it came out of the radio.
Ricci: I just knew we needed a choir in it, so we were in the studio flipping through a random Bible verse generator website to find something for the choir to sing. This one, “enter through the narrow gate” sounded cool, so we landed on that. It felt like such a music video song, too. That filming day was scary, though.
Q: What do you mean, scary?
George: They smuggled me into the church because I was fully dressed as the devil…
Ricci: The idea wasn’t to bash the Church; we were really focused on the human side of it, how a megachurch pastor like that could corrupt it. So much so that even Jesus and Satan were teamed up to liberate the people.
George: Most of the guys in the band have had relatively religious upbringing, and we all have complicated relationships with religion.
Q: Do you think that religious upbringing impacts your stuff today?
George: It affects everything, including the music. It’s inescapable in a way. I grew up in a megachurch and it’s kind of pervasive even long after the fact. “Don’t know where, don’t know why” is the song where it’s most overt, but it’s leaked into lyrical decisions, too. It’s not very forward, though, so you could pretend it’s not there.
Ricci: For that song and video specifically, I didn’t feel like I needed this as a cathartic release of my childhood or anything, it was more, like “wouldn’t it be fun if we did some dancing?”
George: That song was just a unique perspective that we had; not that we were reeling against religion. It’s a complicated thing for a lot of people, including us.
Q: You guys have such a fun stage presence; how do you get used to performing live?
Ricci: I feel like I’m still getting the hang of it, as many times as we’ve played. Improv definitely helps with in-between songs. If we have a technical issue, I’ll be like “all right, let’s make some noise for George…George time!” And George and I can just riff on anything until the issue is fixed. But I still get super nervous every show; it doesn't matter how many people are there.
George: Same, like clockwork. I’ve been in a couple bands prior to this one, and I’ve still never gotten used to it. You’d think after a certain point, your stomach would stop twisting into knots, but it hasn’t yet.
Ricci: The only way to get around it is to practice as much as possible. If we feel like we can press play on our live set and we know it’s gonna be locked in, that can put us at ease. And free up our minds to have fun with the crowd, look at people.
George: When the crowd is really responsive, that helps. It’s like a back and forth energetic exchange.
Q: Speaking of live music, do you have a favorite spot you’ve performed in Austin?
George: Mohawk for me. Having played there and seen some of my favorite acts of all time there, it’s the perfect venue for a mix between intimacy and that epic feeling.
Ricci: Or Swan Dive. Their sound guy, shout out Chris Corbo, is the best sound guy in town.
Q: Is there anything about your music that people might not know?
George: We put a lot of hidden samples in our music that I don’t think anyone has identified yet.
Ricci: Yeah, also a lot of bands will be really prolific; they record a lot and put it all out. For us, every single song feels like we’re chiseling something out of marble. We put so much care into them.
George: Probably to our detriment, but we’re perfectionists. We try to translate as much of it into our live show as possible, which can be really tricky. Poor David gets the brunt of it. He’s got the key station, and he’s evolved into this crazy sample pad where he can play all these weird sounds.
Q: As perfectionists, is there a moment when you know you’re done with a song?
Ricci: I never feel done…
George: Maybe when we as a band feel done is when we’re on version, like, 24 of a song, and I know we have to move on. I personally feel done when enough people I respect have told me the song sounds great and doesn’t need any fixes. If we work on one song forever, we might have the Best Song Ever…when we’re dead. But that isn’t what we need. We need music.
Q: To round us out, what are some highs and lows from your time together?
George: Definitely the point I want to quit is whenever we have to send something like 30 booking emails. That’s the worst. We wanna play music for people.
Ricci: Having to network and sell ourselves is foreign to us. If we get a rejection or get ghosted, it can feel like a low. It’s hard to get involved in the scene; there are so many tiers you’re supposed to reach, or festivals you’re supposed to play. But, we played our first Hot Summer Nights this year, and that felt really good.
George: If I could think of a particular high, it was probably the end of the tour. We were in Dallas on our way back to Austin. We were wearing these crazy cowboy rhinestone outfits that we wore in our “Julie, Pt, II” music video. Something about it, we were completely exhausted, but we’d been practicing by playing so much. I can remember that night so well.
Ricci: Every song is so fun to see come to life; that’s my high. We have fun regardless of whether people listen or not.