Cover design by Jennifer Merrick
They’ve been written about all over England. They’ve gotten rave reviews in NME, Times Metro, Melody Maker, iD, P.U.R.E. and The Guardian. They’re the Long Island band Joy Zipper.But the members of this band are particularly special, because they’re not only a duo, they’re a couple. Tabitha Tindale and Vinny Cafiso have been together for over seven years, and nearly three years ago, they decided to make an album.
Joy Zipper, named after Tindale’s mother whose name really became “Joy Zipper” after she remarried, have become popular for their soft, harmonic, trippy self-titled album that is often compared to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Although it was released on Eye Q in England, Joy Zipper is on the Hoboken based label Bar None for their U.S. release. After spending a few months in England to promote the CD, they’re back home in the States to play a few shows on their native soil, including a stop at Maxwell’s Dec. 7 at 9 p.m. The current caught up with this charming couple to find out more about their music and their rock-n-roll fairytale love story.
LT: How did you guys meet?
Tabitha Tindale: Vinny was playing guitar in a band at some Battle of the Bands contest in Long Island, and my friend dragged me down to see them and they were really good. I met him after the show, and that was it. Then he started writing some songs and singing them to me, and I liked his voice so I told him he should sing. So the band fell apart and reformed with him being the lead singer, and I was kinda managing them for a while. Then I started singing as kind of a joke on some of the demos, and that’s basically how we became Joy Zipper. Right after that, we got the record deal in London. It happened really quick.
LT: So for all the girls out there, how do you go from seeing and liking a guy playing on stage to becoming his girlfriend?
TT: My friend who dragged me down there knew him, and I started asking about him, and she told me to go to the band practice. So I went down to the band practice, and he kinda knew some girl was coming down to meet him. It was Halloween.
LT: And he didn’t act like you were just some groupie?
TT: He was pretty shy, so it wasn’t too difficult. I got him.
LT: Vinny, did you know that she went to meet you that day?
Vinny Cafiso: My friend said that a girl was coming over because she liked somebody in the band, but they didn’t really tell me. I kinda knew it was for me, but it was weird. You know, every week there was another girl. No, she was the first girl that came down to practice.
LT: What did you think of Tabitha when you met her that day.
VC: I always think of the same thing: ‘Does she have a car?’; ‘Is she going to help me get out of this hell I’m in?’; and ‘Does she have money to get Taco Bell after practice, because I’m really hungry ’cause I just smoked a lot of pot.’ What else is there? No, it’s just a jinx to talk about, I think.
LT: So what was the first date like?
TT: There was a lot of tequila in the beginning; there was a lot of Cuervo Gold. We both didn’t want to say that we liked each other really, so in order to be comfortable, we would just do shots. We also made all our plans through my other friend, like, we never exchanged numbers, even almost when were officially together; we were both playing a little hard to get.
LT: What about him were you so attracted to in the beginning?
TT: We’re both from Long Island, and most of the guys from Long Island are either Guidos or they have a toughness that they try to put up. There was just something about his face that was the opposite of that. I don’t know, I just saw something pretty deep behind that front that I wanted to find out more about.
LT: So you wrote her songs in the beginning. What were some of the titles?
VC: That’s personal. There were no titles. I don’t know, ‘I Will Always Love You.’
LT: That’s a Whitney Houston song.
VC: No, that’s my song. I wrote that for her. You know me and Dolly Parton wrote that one? What is the other one? ‘Love Song,’ then there was ‘I Love You More than Words Can Say,’ and ‘Love is a Many Splendored Thing,’ and ‘Love is in the Air.’ No, I can’t tell you any of the names, because I don’t think any of them had names.
LT: What about her inspired these songs?
VC: That’s for me to know, and Tab to find out. No, love is love. Love needs no explanation. That was the name of the song, “Love Needs No Explanation.” Love is never having to explain love. Oh, and she had a nice car, and I didn’t have a car, so she drove me to band practice. I don’t know, sometimes you’re with someone, and you feel like you can do anything.
LT: Yeah, you keep saying that in your interviews.
VC: Well, you know, it’s like an inevitability when we get together, whatever we do, it’s just going to work. Have you ever been with somebody and you just feel like you can do anything with them? Like if we had to become lawyers or doctors or open up a business, we could do it together.
LT: So are you guys that strong together, or is she that strong of a person for you to lean on?
VC: I think it’s the combination of the two of us. I come up with the idea, and Tab helps facilitate it. I get excited about things, and she works on it with me.
LT: When did you decide she should sing with you?
VC: She’s not really a singer, but one day we were in the car and she was singing the Beatles song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows,’ and I knew she had a good tone to her voice. So I got an 8-track, and I had her sing backup, because it added a nice frequency to my voice, because my voice is kind of flat, and I’m not really a singer. So her voice kind of completed my voice. It just instantly worked, and it was perfect.
LT: When are you two getting married?
VC: We’re probably not going to get married. Unless there’s some kind of reason for it. If they gave us a tax break, maybe. Otherwise, why buy the cow, you know? I gotta change my image, you know? I’m tired of being the nice guy. If you’re nice, then no one takes you seriously.
LT: I read that you play guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. Why do you play all the instruments?
VC: Because no one can do it better than I can. And when someone comes along that can, then they can play with me. I don’t know, I guess I had a bad experience with the former band. I can do it, so it’s like, ‘Let me just do it myself.’
LT: What happens when you play live?
VC: We get a band to play with us, but it’s hard. It’s weird, because I have to tell everybody what to do, and never get a really good natural sound, because everyone is doing what I’m telling them to do, so it’s forced. It never is that good live. But I’m hoping, actually, to put together a good band and I want to make an amazing band album with other people’s ideas. There’s a little bit of a one-dimensional feel when you do it yourself. I just haven’t found anybody yet that has good ideas, and can play really well.
LT: Ideally, what instruments would you like to have someone else play?
VC: I think I’d like to find a bass player and drummer. That would be good. The drums are the hardest for me. I like to play them the most, even though I don’t know how to play them that well, but it’s just really not tight when I play the drums. It sounds like a guitar player playing the drums. It’s got that certain sound to it, like tin cans.
LT: I read a lot about you and drugs. Why are you so open about your LSD experiences?
VC: I wasn’t open. When we were in England, the guy who did publicity for us asked us about the first song on the album, which has numbers. I just hold him that I took acid, and I started looking at numbers and everything had to add up to eight. It was like an obsessive-compulsive thing. Everything had to add up to eight, 16 or 24. After I told him that story, he put that in and it he made it sound like some big thing, and other people just take that and use that. But I’ve only done acid like five or six times the most.
LT: Your bio makes it sound like you wrote the whole album on acid.
VC: No, that’s not even close. It doesn’t sound like it. If it was, it would be a totally different album. But it was definitely influenced by it. I don’t know, have you done acid?
LT: So, did the two of you ever do LSD together?
VC: No, but the first time I ever went over her house, we did mushrooms together. But we were both trying to control ourselves too much that it wasn’t that good. I don’t think it’s something you should do with someone you don’t really know that well.
LT: Are you both drug-free now?
VC: I smoke pot. I don’t drink a lot, but Tabitha drinks sometimes. We’re not really addictive people, but I still smoke pot.
LT: I read a quote where you said ‘I have black moods and a lot of pessimism.’ What was that about?
VC: I think some people have that chemical in their brain that gives you black moods; I think it’s just probably genetics. One day can be really good, and the next day I’ll feel like ‘What’s the point?’ It’s like a manic thing, like one day I’ll think everything’s good and then the next day, I can’t feel that anymore.
LT: They have medication for that.
VC: Well, to me, if I’m going to do what I’m doing like writing, that would take away from it. I don’t want to be medicated and think everything’s great. I’d rather just go through it. I know there’s reasons why you go through it, and if you medicate it, you won’t get through it. You’re not facing it. I’m learning to like being this way, because when I do go up, it’s really up and it’s really good.
LT: So how does Tabitha put up with you?
VC: I don’t know. That’s probably why we’ve been together this long.
LT: You’re a pretty good-looking couple, so how do you guys control admirers? TT: Vinny will be making out with someone in the corner, and I’ll have to beat him up. No, we’re pretty cool with it. After a show, some girls will be talking to him or whatever, and I just have to monitor the situation. Usually what happens is I’ll just walk up to whoever he’s talking to and introduce myself and divert the situation and vice-versa, because I see him do the same thing with me. He gets really quiet when I’m talking to a guy.
LT: If you guys ever had a falling out, would Joy Zipper be over?
VC: Nope. I think we’ll continue. See, now you’re planting little seeds. You’re a journalist. You’re very tricky. You want the sequel. No, I’m joking. We really love the music, and I think we need to do it, so I think it will continue. I mean, why not?
LT: How dependent are you on Tabitha?
VC: Are you trying to say I have a co-dependency problem? Are you a therapist on the side? Are you trying to prescribe me some medication or something? How dependent is she on me – that’s the question.