By Benjamin Joe
Allison Mitchell of Velvet Bethany, lead music-maker of such pop/punk albums like “Rock n’ Roll Vacation” and “Forever Cool and Double Nice” doesn’t fret the future much. The universe seems to have carved out a place for her.
Mitchell spent most of the quarantine time recording and making food. She said she was psyched to begin her “bike-job” at a local school when the program was rudely cancelled in 2020. Lucky for her, her muse turned on as the world tuned out.
“I did a lot of recording during that time,” Mitchell said. “I just had time and the money at that point to just constantly record. I was just like, ‘Wow, I wish I could just record all the time,’ and then I did.”
Mitchell’s newest released piece is called “Teamwork” which came out in January of 2022 with herself on guitar and vocals, her boyfriend Michael DiStasio on drums, Andrew Biggie on bass and Tom Bornholdt on guitar.
The track features melodic sing-song lyrics like, “I’m tired and thirsty/I’m going to make some tea” and “bend down and touch/touch of the water” with Mitchell and Bornholdt strumming and riffing on guitars, DiStasio’s own seemingly electrified drumming toned back in the recording and Biggie keeping the four-piece in time.
Mitchell’s said her own personal tastes favor grind-core, but described her production as “dreamy rock n’ roll,” a sound she came upon after leaving her acoustic, almost country-western roots she initially created before tuning into electric.
In the last full album “Bliss City (Quarantine Mixtape)” released in January 2021, she said she changed up styles on each track.
“Every song on ‘Bliss City’ is so different,” Mitchell said. “There are 11 songs on here. But I like to go on a more rock n’ roll route now. Sweet Citrus. I just want it to sound like CCR on here. Black Sabbath or the Rolling Stones.”
Mitchell also broke down some cold truths about the music business.
“It does feel like a job,” she said. “I’ve never really thought about it., but … I’ve always wanted to do it myself and not have to depend on other people, but I’ve become really good at networking because you do have to depend on other people.”
From finding the right engineer, to T-shirt printing and even those able to “fix your pedals and your amps,” Mitchell talked about the realities of her dreams. She said even though she’s stupid sometimes, people have lifted her up.
“For the longest time, I’ve just been like, ‘the amps broken. I can’t do anything … the input fell in the hole!’,” she said and laughed.
For most of her life Mitchell has had to content herself with communicating with the world through music and writing. She is not, she said, an extroverted stage presence, in fact, she thinks that trying to fill that role has even been harmful.
“Even as a musician, I don’t know what to say,” she explained. “I can only speak through songs and writing. I’m not good at talking like this. I feel like I don’t know how to explain myself. It only comes out through words and songs; and I have to dream about my experience; and then I can translate it through music and writing. But I don’t know why I can’t speak. … I have to learn how people speak … I’m not one with the moment when I’m in conversation.”
But while this goes on – when she is about to play – Mitchell feels a “burden” being lifted.
“I’m constantly like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ and I fluxuate between it,” she said. “And then once we’re playing the music, I’m like, ‘That was great! I’ve finally like expressed something.”
On why her work seems to attract attention and how she bridges apparent chasms in genre and energy, Mitchell is frank.
“I’m a song writer, so I try to write a song for everybody,” she said. “It just happens that way.”
One other thing: Mitchell found another “bike-job”
Check out more on Velvet Bethany’s Teamwork at https://velvetbethany.bandcamp.com/track/teamwork
Buffalo Music Players 