All For One And All That.

Velour 3's message is "cosmic oneness"

What is Velour 3 doing here and what does it have to say for itself? "Our message," says Jonathan Schubert, "is cosmic oneness." This causes Paul Marcotte and Flavio Monopoli, the other two members of Velour 3, to stare at him in momentary and unusual silence.  "Our message," Flavio says more seriously, "is that we have something to say and we want to entertain. We don't want to ram anything down anyone's throat..." "Or to preach." adds Paul. "But we do have things to say." Flavio says.  Exactly what those things are will have to be gleaned from the band's bright and fizzy CD as the band never actually comes out and explains them in the course of an interview.  "We haven't really thought of a band philosophy," Paul says. "We've preferred to let the music do the talking." If Velour 3 hasn't given much thought to a band philosophy, it has thought a great deal about being a band. Formed a little more than a year ago in the aftermath of a personnel shakeup in a previous group. Velour 3 knew the kind of sound it was after - a light, melodic sound that shows a strong Britpop influence and also, when trumpet player Ben Van Slyke is added to the mix, that of The Jam/Paul Weller.

Given that John is from Winnipeg (where he attended Neil Young's alma mater, Kelvin High School), Paul grew up in Windsor within pummeling distance of Motown hard rock and Flavio is from Montreal (where, at the age of 16, he lasted seven minutes of an audition for the drummer's seat in Men Without Hats), perhaps it's no surprise that Velour3 doesn't sound like any other of Vancouver's many indie groups.  "We do think of an image for ourselves - how we present ourselves on stage and in photos," Jonathan says. "Which is necessary."  "But it started with the music," says Flavio. "We thought about the style of the music we wanted to play and the influences we had in common and how we could make it all work. After playing more and more together, we started to look more like a band." "Certainly, we look more like a band now than we did a year ago, We're still three Individual personalities but we've meshed as a group."  "Our rapport as musicians has grown since that time as well." says Paul.

"And our ability to convey our message and our energy to our audience live has gotten better." says Flavio, returning to the theme with which this statement of purpose from Velour 3 began and which ends here. - Tom Harrison, The Province, 27 February 1997.