Vedera
Encyclopedia
Vedera is a pop
/rock
band from Kansas City
, Missouri
.
Kristen May grew up in the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs, as did the rest of her bandmates. Her entire family was musical; her mother was a singer who loved Joni Mitchell
, Carole King
, and Jim Croce
. “I listened to those artists, as well as my older brother’s rock records,” she says. "He loved Stone Temple Pilots
, Soundgarden
, and Nirvana
, so that rubbed off on me. Otherwise maybe I’d have holed up in my room and become a folk artist!”
When May was 17, her father, a drummer, gave her a guitar and she began writing her own songs. “It felt really good for me to express myself in that way,” she says. “That’s when I began wanting to be in a band.”
Meanwhile, Brian Little’s father gave his son his first guitar at age 13 and Little played in bands throughout high school. “I played trumpet as a kid and performed in competitions,” he recalls. “It was so nerve-wracking to have to memorize six pages of a classical movement and perform it perfectly onstage, alone. So to play with a band was exhilarating for me.” Little loved classic guitarists like Jimi Hendrix
, Jimmy Page
, and Lindsey Buckingham
, whom he cites as someone who “knows how to add melody to a song, but not take away from what the singer is trying to say.”
May and Little knew each other in high school and began playing in a band together called, Red Authentic, after May returned home following an aborted stint at college in Nashville. “I didn’t want to study music anymore, I just wanted to play it,” she says. In 2003, the band she had formed with her brothers needed a guitarist and they called Little. “He and I clicked and our worlds collided in the greatest way,” she says. With her brothers unable to travel and pursue the career musician life that May and Little craved, they asked Little’s high-school friend Jason Douglas to join and also recruited Brian’s younger brother Drew to play drums.
In the summer of 2004, Vedera recorded its six-song EP, This Broken City
, at Black Lodge
with the support of Ed Rose
. In 2005, the band released an LP entitled The Weight of an Empty Room
. Since the summer of 2005, Vedera has been touring at various times with Dredg
, MewithoutYou
, Communiqué
, Thrice
, Mae
, and Underoath
. In early January 2006, Vedera went on a 40 city tour opening for MUTEMATH, followed by an opening stint for Owen
. In the Summer of 2006, Vedera joined a tour with Lucero and Murder By Death. After a month off, they headed back on the road for another tour with Mae and The New Amsterdams.
In early December 2005, Vedera's label, Second Nature Recordings
, announced that the band had been forced to change its name from "Veda" to avoid legal complications with another band of "a similar moniker." Though the other band Vaeda
spells their name differently, it's pronounced exactly the same way and had caused them several instances of confusion in the marketplace. http://www.secondnaturerecordings.com/.
Kristen May and Brian Little recently married.
According to a recent blog on the group's Myspace page, Vedera will be recording their next album with Epic Records
http://www.myspace.com/vedera. Recording began October 17, 2007. The album, Stages
, was released on Epic online October 6, 2009, and is produced by Mike Flynn
and Warren Huart
(The Fray
, Augustana
). Vedera opened for Eisley
on their Combinations tour in early 2008. In early 2009 Vedera opened for The Fray on their club tour and also performed in the spring with The All-American Rejects
on the I Wanna Rock tour. Vedera is currently scheduled to tour with Mat Kearney
in the fall.
Stages, which May describes as about “our blood, sweat, and tears over the past five years as a band on the road. It’s about our relationships to one another and the changes we’ve gone through.” Vedera recorded Stages with Epic Records A&R executive Mike Flynn, who co-produced the Fray’s double-platinum album How to Save A Life and Augustana’s 2008 album Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt, and Producer/Engineer Warren Huart
(The Fray, Augustana, Howie Day). “Mike is like our George Martin,” Little says. “He has a great sense of melody,” May adds. “As a vocalist and a songwriter, I’ve really benefited from working with him because of his great sense of a song.”
The songs begin with May and Little (“we live together so we’re constantly writing,” May says), then the pair bring their ideas to Jason and Drew who “take it to the next level,” May says. “That’s the great thing about being in a band. Brian and I could have been a couple of folk songwriters, but Jason and Drew really make us who we are as a band.
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
/rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band from Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
.
History
Kristen May grew up in the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs, as did the rest of her bandmates. Her entire family was musical; her mother was a singer who loved Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
, and Jim Croce
Jim Croce
James Joseph "Jim" Croce January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973 was an American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and 11 singles...
. “I listened to those artists, as well as my older brother’s rock records,” she says. "He loved Stone Temple Pilots
Stone Temple Pilots
Stone Temple Pilots is an American rock band from San Diego, California that consists of Scott Weiland , brothers Robert DeLeo and Dean DeLeo , and Eric Kretz ....
, Soundgarden
Soundgarden
Soundgarden is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984 by singer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto...
, and Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
, so that rubbed off on me. Otherwise maybe I’d have holed up in my room and become a folk artist!”
When May was 17, her father, a drummer, gave her a guitar and she began writing her own songs. “It felt really good for me to express myself in that way,” she says. “That’s when I began wanting to be in a band.”
Meanwhile, Brian Little’s father gave his son his first guitar at age 13 and Little played in bands throughout high school. “I played trumpet as a kid and performed in competitions,” he recalls. “It was so nerve-wracking to have to memorize six pages of a classical movement and perform it perfectly onstage, alone. So to play with a band was exhilarating for me.” Little loved classic guitarists like Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
, and Lindsey Buckingham
Lindsey Buckingham
Lindsey Adams Buckingham is an American guitarist, singer, composer and producer, most notable for being the guitarist and male lead singer of the musical group Fleetwood Mac. Aside from his tenure with Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham has also released six solo albums and a live album...
, whom he cites as someone who “knows how to add melody to a song, but not take away from what the singer is trying to say.”
May and Little knew each other in high school and began playing in a band together called, Red Authentic, after May returned home following an aborted stint at college in Nashville. “I didn’t want to study music anymore, I just wanted to play it,” she says. In 2003, the band she had formed with her brothers needed a guitarist and they called Little. “He and I clicked and our worlds collided in the greatest way,” she says. With her brothers unable to travel and pursue the career musician life that May and Little craved, they asked Little’s high-school friend Jason Douglas to join and also recruited Brian’s younger brother Drew to play drums.
In the summer of 2004, Vedera recorded its six-song EP, This Broken City
This Broken City
This Broken City is an EP produced by the Kansas City indie rock band Veda .-Track listing:#"The Falling Kind" – 3:37#"Moments Rewound" – 3:55#"Safe" – 4:08#"Still Standing" – 3:48#"Your God, Your Country" – 3:15...
, at Black Lodge
Black Lodge
The Black Lodge is a fictional setting featured in the television series Twin Peaks. It is an extradimensional place which seems to include, primarily, the "Red Room" first seen by Agent Cooper in a dream early in the series...
with the support of Ed Rose
Ed Rose
Ed Rose is an American sound engineer and record producer. He has worked extensively with groups in the modern emo and pop punk scenes. He also co-owns Black Lodge Recording with Rob Pope and his brother Ryan Pope.-History:...
. In 2005, the band released an LP entitled The Weight of an Empty Room
The Weight of an Empty Room
The Weight of an Empty Room is the first full album produced by the Kansas City indie rock band Vedera .-Track listing:# "Trade This Fear" – 3:55# "Song for a Friend" – 3:36# "The Falling Kind" – 3:36# "Lover's Lie" – 3:20...
. Since the summer of 2005, Vedera has been touring at various times with Dredg
Dredg
Dredg is an American rock group formed in 1993 in Los Gatos, California. The band consists of vocalist Gavin Hayes, guitarist Mark Engles, bassist Drew Roulette and drummer Dino Campanella....
, MewithoutYou
MewithoutYou
Me Without You, stylized as mewithoutYou and abbreviated as mwY, is an American rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The band consists of vocalist Aaron Weiss, guitarist Michael Weiss, bassist Greg Jehanian and drummer Rickie Mazzotta. MewithoutYou's music is generally dominated by...
, Communiqué
Communiqué (band)
Communiqué is an indie rock band from the San Francisco Bay Area. The band originated as American Steel, but decided to record under the name Communiqué during the taping of A Crescent Honeymoon in 2002 because the synth-rock sound did not match the punk style of American Steel.-Band members:*Rory...
, Thrice
Thrice
Thrice is an American rock band from Irvine, California, formed in 1998. The group was founded by guitarist/vocalist Dustin Kensrue and guitarist Teppei Teranishi while they were in high school....
, Mae
Mae
Mae was an American alternative/indie band that formed in Norfolk, Virginia in 2001. The band's name is an acronym for "Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience," based on a course taken by drummer Jacob Marshall while a student at Old Dominion University....
, and Underoath
Underoath
Underoath is an American Christian metalcore band from Tampa, Florida. Founded by Dallas Taylor and Luke Morton on November 30, 1997 in Ocala, Florida, subsequently its additional members were from Tampa, Florida...
. In early January 2006, Vedera went on a 40 city tour opening for MUTEMATH, followed by an opening stint for Owen
Owen (band)
Owen is a solo project of Mike Kinsella, and part of the Chicago indie scene.Kinsella is one of the dominant and influential figures in the Chicago indie scene, having also led the band American Football, and played in the bands Cap'n Jazz, Joan of Arc and Owls .Owen is known for its soft melodies,...
. In the Summer of 2006, Vedera joined a tour with Lucero and Murder By Death. After a month off, they headed back on the road for another tour with Mae and The New Amsterdams.
In early December 2005, Vedera's label, Second Nature Recordings
Second Nature Recordings
Second Nature Recordings is an independent record label based in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. It specialises in indie rock and punk and co-releases vinyl pressings for other labels...
, announced that the band had been forced to change its name from "Veda" to avoid legal complications with another band of "a similar moniker." Though the other band Vaeda
Vaeda
Vaeda is an American three-piece alternative rock band formed in Brooklyn, New York in 2003. In September–October 2005 Vaeda was the Number 1 unsigned artist on the Myspace music charts and has since been featured in films, television and national tours including the Vans Warped Tour and Rockstar...
spells their name differently, it's pronounced exactly the same way and had caused them several instances of confusion in the marketplace. http://www.secondnaturerecordings.com/.
Kristen May and Brian Little recently married.
Stages
According to a recent blog on the group's Myspace page, Vedera will be recording their next album with Epic Records
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...
http://www.myspace.com/vedera. Recording began October 17, 2007. The album, Stages
Stages (Vedera album)
Stages is the second album from Kansas City rock band Vedera. It was released digitally on Epic Records on October 6, 2009. The album was produced by Mike Flynn and Warren Huart . Rough cuts of "Back to the Middle," "Satisfy," "Forgive You," and "Taking Chances" have been made available on the...
, was released on Epic online October 6, 2009, and is produced by Mike Flynn
Mike Flynn
Mike Flynn may refer to:* Mike Flynn , American baseball player* Mike Flynn , American basketball player* Mike Flynn , English footballer* Mike Flynn , American football player...
and Warren Huart
Warren Huart
Warren Huart is an English record producer/musician/composer and recording engineer based in Los Angeles, California. He currently lives in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California with his wife and son.- Biography :...
(The Fray
The Fray
-Literature:*Fray, a phenomenon in Terry Pratchett's The Carpet People*Fray , a comic book series by Joss Whedon**Melaka Fray, titular character of the comic book series-Music:*"Fray", a song from the album 14 Shades of Grey by Staind...
, Augustana
Augustana (band)
Augustana is an American rock band from San Diego, California who are signed to the Epic Records record label. They are best known for their singles, "Boston" and "Sweet and Low."-Beginning years:...
). Vedera opened for Eisley
Eisley
Eisley is a rock band from Tyler, Texas, consisting of four siblings and their cousin , all of whom were born and live in Texas. Although the band's name translates to ice island in several Germanic languages, it was actually selected by the bandmates because of its link to the Star Wars saga...
on their Combinations tour in early 2008. In early 2009 Vedera opened for The Fray on their club tour and also performed in the spring with The All-American Rejects
The All-American Rejects
The All-American Rejects are an American rock band formed in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1999. The band consists of lead vocalist and bass guitarist Tyson Ritter, lead guitarist, Nick Wheeler, rhythm guitarist, Mike Kennerty, and drummer Chris Gaylor....
on the I Wanna Rock tour. Vedera is currently scheduled to tour with Mat Kearney
Mat Kearney
Mathew William "Mat" Kearney is an American musician born in Eugene, Oregon, now based in Nashville, Tennessee. Kearney has received critical acclaim and widespread recognition for his Columbia Records debut, Nothing Left to Lose. So far, he has a total of four top 20 hits on the Adult Top 40...
in the fall.
Stages, which May describes as about “our blood, sweat, and tears over the past five years as a band on the road. It’s about our relationships to one another and the changes we’ve gone through.” Vedera recorded Stages with Epic Records A&R executive Mike Flynn, who co-produced the Fray’s double-platinum album How to Save A Life and Augustana’s 2008 album Can’t Love, Can’t Hurt, and Producer/Engineer Warren Huart
Warren Huart
Warren Huart is an English record producer/musician/composer and recording engineer based in Los Angeles, California. He currently lives in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California with his wife and son.- Biography :...
(The Fray, Augustana, Howie Day). “Mike is like our George Martin,” Little says. “He has a great sense of melody,” May adds. “As a vocalist and a songwriter, I’ve really benefited from working with him because of his great sense of a song.”
The songs begin with May and Little (“we live together so we’re constantly writing,” May says), then the pair bring their ideas to Jason and Drew who “take it to the next level,” May says. “That’s the great thing about being in a band. Brian and I could have been a couple of folk songwriters, but Jason and Drew really make us who we are as a band.
Band members
- Kristen May: vocals, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal... - Brian Little: lead guitarLead guitarLead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
- Jason Douglas: bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- Drew Little: drums
Discography
- 2004: This Broken CityThis Broken CityThis Broken City is an EP produced by the Kansas City indie rock band Veda .-Track listing:#"The Falling Kind" – 3:37#"Moments Rewound" – 3:55#"Safe" – 4:08#"Still Standing" – 3:48#"Your God, Your Country" – 3:15...
- 2005: The Weight of an Empty RoomThe Weight of an Empty RoomThe Weight of an Empty Room is the first full album produced by the Kansas City indie rock band Vedera .-Track listing:# "Trade This Fear" – 3:55# "Song for a Friend" – 3:36# "The Falling Kind" – 3:36# "Lover's Lie" – 3:20...
- 2009: StagesStages (Vedera album)Stages is the second album from Kansas City rock band Vedera. It was released digitally on Epic Records on October 6, 2009. The album was produced by Mike Flynn and Warren Huart . Rough cuts of "Back to the Middle," "Satisfy," "Forgive You," and "Taking Chances" have been made available on the...