Q. How did the band originally start out?

John Ratts-Well, Eric (Kern) and I are high school buddies, and we decided hey, let’s start a band you know? And we started playing in college, and kinda stayed together and kept on playing. I moved out to the West Coast and Eric’s been in a lot of different bands. About ten years ago or so, maybe a little longer we finally put this one (VWR) together and we’ve been playing, so really it’s a partnership of a band formed from a high school friendship.

Q. What was the writing process like?

Eric Kern-Both of our albums are pretty similar, and the project began as sort of a song writing duo. John and I have known each other for a really long time, we have both been writing songs, so he would bring his songs to the band and I would bring my songs to the band. They would become band songs at some point. As John mentioned on the first CD, it was very much ‘this is a John song’ and ‘this is an Eric song’ when we recorded them, and lately, we still start out that way but then we bring them together. We collaborate. We work on the lyrics together, and it is a combined song by the time we are done. It was like we will work hard on a song, record a demo and release it to the whole band, and once we have a demo then the whole band joins in and adds all their parts.

Q. Is there any profound message in particular you are trying to incorporate into the songs?

JR-Every song is an opportunity to say something, and we are saying different things in different songs. The title track for ‘Rings Around the Sun’ was really about how each of us has a contribution to humankind and how we should really all strive to do things that move the human condition forward. It was really paying homage to all the scientists who have done that for all of us, and Rings Around the Sun was another little commentary on how awesome existence is and we should enjoy it.

Q. What are your thoughts on the albums?

EK-The second one seems like maybe the most cohesive of the Vegas of Randolph sound which is what we really wanted to do as a band, and what we were trying to create. And we were very happy with that, and got a lot of really nice feedback on that. And then on the third one, it was a little bit of a conscious effort to branch back out and try some different styles and sounds because we knew we could.

Interview and Music Review by Isabella Cisneros, Reporter