Older/Wiser: Vinnie Caruana And The Bruised Optimism Of 'Survivor's Guilt'

Vinnie Caruana is a nostalgic person. He’s cool with that. So are the fans yelling along to each word of the Movielife’s set at the Dome in north London. It’s 13 years since the band first split, leaving images from a harrowing van crash in North Dakota tattooed across their final album, ‘Forty Hour Train Back To Penn’, and there’s a new energy at work.

At the end of the set they again head west on Interstate 94, feet flying over heads and jokes getting out of hand, with Jamestown. But the song, jokingly described as the band’s hit single by Caruana, feels different now. Its refrain, “If my mind’s the weapon, my heart’s the extra clip”, is these days less a wounded cry and more a worn-in motto. The accident pulled the Movielife apart at the seams, but over the years they’ve stitched the wounds closed.

Caruana’s first solo full length, ‘Survivor’s Guilt’, is framed by the passing of time and the accumulated experiences that made the Movielife’s recent reunion not only possible, but enjoyable for the five of them. From I Don’t Believe You’s see-through-the-bullshit stance to Angel of the North’s celebration of Caruana’s Anglophile streak, or the title track’s anxious glances at grains slipping through the hourglass, it’s about doing right by the dead by ensuring that you make the most of being alive. Accordingly, the lows of Jamestown or I Am The Avalanche’s The Shape I’m In are filed for posterity.

"Our friends that are in the ground have no say in the matter and they’d smack us around if they knew we were complaining about the lives that we’re so lucky to have.”

“There’s this fatalistic thing going on,” Caruana said. “It’s just soaked into my bones. I’m a happy guy but I think it has a lot to do with the fact I get to write and record and perform this stuff. Mental health-speaking, it’s the reason I’m not a completely lost soul. I had a chance to do my own record and I’m still addressing these things, even more so as I get older and the more serious life seems to get.

“At the same time I’m trying really hard to make sure I’m not making a depressing record. It’s a little bit of a balancing act for me to be singing about a lot of my fears and the things that are running through my mind all day, and the anxiety. Not just with death, but with life. Life can be fucking awful. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s not. This is all we have. Our friends that are in the ground have no say in the matter and they’d smack us around if they knew we were complaining about the lives that we’re so lucky to have.”

‘Survivor’s Guilt’ is a different proposition to Caruana’s debut solo offering, ‘City By The Sea’. That EP, released by Run For Cover at the turn of 2013, was closer in spirit to traditional singer-songwriter records, steering clear of the gruff full-band instrumentation of its follow up. Here Caruana is aided and abetted by Kellen Robson and Brett Romnes of I Am The Avalanche, who in addition to producing played drums, and RX Bandits guitarist Steve Choi.

“I listened to ‘City By The Sea’ and I’m proud of it,” Caruana said. “But I think when we were recording that I was learning how to make a solo record. I might have held some of those songs back a little bit by saying: ‘It’s a solo record so let’s not do this song justice.’

“[This time] I was just like: ‘I’m not holding anything back.’ Exactly what I feel needs to happen to have the song be as good as it can possibly be is what it’s going to be. It’s not going to hinge on the fact that it’s my name on the cover. It’s still an intensely personal record. We produced it that way. We don’t have those big guitars and the vocals are at the forefront.”

"I don’t feel pressure from society or anything like that to have a conventional thing going on."

‘Survivor’s Guilt’, and the shows that will accompany it, is set to take up room in an already crowded calendar. To keep his long-held ambitions alive, Caruana has become adept at spinning plates, with sporadic bursts of Movielife activity underpinning his more regular gig in I Am The Avalanche and now his solo career. The fear that it’ll all one day disappear in a puff of smoke remains a real one, even if his old band can now play venues that were beyond them at the peak of their initial popularity over a decade ago.

“As you get older your friends are having kids, your friends are buying houses,” Caruana said. “You have a slightly different lifestyle than they do, or a completely different lifestyle. I don’t feel pressure from society or anything like that to have a conventional thing going on. Our generation has proven that most of us can have jobs that we actually like and do things that we actually want to do with our lives. But being a musician and making a living through music isn’t always easy. In fact it’s rarely easy. You have to do a lot of different things. 

“The Movielife is definitely something that enhances our lives in every way and old friends get to travel again. The most money we made, even when people perceived us to be a popular band, was probably a few hundred dollars a week. It’s nice to come back and play bigger shows than we’ve ever played. I don’t remember playing in front of a thousand people in London. We played the Electric Ballroom last year. I think our last show was at the Garage or something and I don’t think that many people came. It’s nice to play festivals, see our old buddies, occasionally make a little extra money, which is nice because guys got families, diapers to buy, mortgages.

“It’s a different approach than when we were younger. We didn’t think about that. When I left our UK tour I’d go back and sleep in my bedroom that I’d had since I was a kid. Doing music is what I need to do to be happy. If that means staying busier and being more creative in different ways then I love that.”

Back in March, the Movielife did the unthinkable and released a new song. Future Feeling (Afraid of Drugs) was written by Caruana and Brandon Reilly with the sole focus of adding something fresh to their set prior to hitting the road for this recent run of shows. But to get to that point wasn’t easy. When the band first came out of hibernation half a decade ago, Caruana’s was one of the loudest voices putting a stop to any talk of new Movielife material. He wasn’t alone.

"Could you imagine playing music and not having any fun? That’s when I would seriously start thinking about having a more conventional lifestyle."

“I wasn’t ready. And I’m not the only one,” he said. “A lot of us were like: ‘This is not the right time to do this.’ So we stopped. This time around it’s so different. It’s so leisurely and the way it should be. That bus parked outside? That’s not because we’re rockstars. That’s because we’re like: ‘Hey, we’re going on our European vacation together, why don’t we not drive?’ These are the ways we look at it now. We’re having fun and that’s exactly the way it should be. Could you imagine playing music and not having any fun? That’s when I would seriously start thinking about having a more conventional lifestyle. Doing the solo record, that’s a big step for me.”

The bands that you loved when you were in school or university grow up too. ‘Survivor’s Guilt’ is cast-iron proof. It has beats that you’ll recognise from Caruana’s past and others that work well with the grey at his temples, including a sense of optimism with more than a couple of dents in it. Take it from the Boss: it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.

‘Survivor’s Guilt’ is out on May 27 through Big Scary Monsters. Caruana plays the Deadpunk Special in Bristol on May 7.

Vinnie Caruana Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:

Fri May 06 2016 - LONDON Boston Music Room
Sun May 08 2016 - NOTTINGHAM Bodega Social Club
Tue May 10 2016 - LIVERPOOL Shipping Forecast
Wed May 11 2016 - LEEDS Key Club

Click here to compare & buy Vinnie Caruana Tickets at Stereoboard.com.

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