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Southwest of Eden

By Robert Welborn

Exploiting Eve, much to my dismay, is not the name of a failed sequel to the book of Genesis.  It is the name of a band that has been packing out clubs all over LA and Orange County.  The buzz surrounding them has gotten so loud that they are popping up in the LA Times and Rock City News.

The band has just released a new full length CD, Getting Thru.  Let me get this out of the way, the guitar work is damned impressive.  Their two talented guitarists simply pay homage to their outstanding rhythm section covered by the brothers Ramos, Vincent and Andres.  Janelle Barretto has voice that sound like it’s been honed on years of red wine and Billie Holiday tunes.  On “1000 Days” and “A Small Incision”, Janelle really shows off the strength of her pipes.

I caught up with two members of Exploiting Eve in late September, to see how the hype and the album compared to the band.

Vincent Ramos is late.  He’s usually a prompt man, according to Janelle.  Vincent arrives about 20 minutes late for the interview.

Janelle:  He’s late but he has scratches on his back.  That has to excuse him or something.

Vincent:  I’m usually a prompt man.

NC:  So I’ve heard.  Who is Exploiting Eve these days?

Janelle:  We’re a five-piece band, myself and four handsome men.  Lead vocalist is me, Janelle Barretto.  We have two guitar players John Vastano and Victor Lozano.  Neither of them are leads they both kind of trade out depending on the song and what their ideas are.  Vincent Ramos is on bass, and Andres Ramos is on drums.  They are brothers in the band.  And what are we?

Vincent:  We are an alternative type of rock band.

Janelle:  Lately we’ve been getting described as Stone Temple Pilots with Alanis Morriesette and Joan Osborne thrown in there.

NC:  How do you feel about being categorized with these artists?

Vincent:  We are definitely setting down our own sound.  It’s inevitable that people are going to say we sound like somebody.  At least they are saying somebody that we are OK with.

Janelle:  I think most people grasp that we don’t sound like those bands, that we are original.  It’s an honor to even be compared to them.

Vincent:  We love all of that music, so we love hearing that.

NC: Folks call the Grateful Dead “the Dead” and the Rolling Stones “the Stones”.  When your band gets really popular and people start abbreviating your name, what do you want to be called?

Janelle:  That’s already started.  Everyone calls us “ExEve”.

NC:  Your band has grown up, if you will, in Southern California. Do you worry that your success here is something that you can translate to other regions?

Janelle:  No.  We don’t worry. <laughter>

Vincent:  We have that big machine that worries for us.

NC:  Have you toured outside of Southern California at all?

Vincent:  No.  We can only concentrate on what we are doing now.  We are concentrating on LA.  Our next focus will be the East Coast then Asia.  I feel strongly that everyone will grasp it and feel it.  LA is the hot spot of the world.  There are two defining cities in the US, LA and New York.  It’s going really, really well here, so I think that it will go well in the rest of the country…

NC:  As goes California, so goes the rest of the world.

Janelle:  We are kind of on the beaten path.  We’ve played a lot of the same clubs and we’ve come out of the same recording studios as several other successful bands, like No Doubt, Sublime, and Zebrahead.  We’ve grown up where a lot of other really good bands have grown up and tried to learn from them.

NC:  Have you had the chance to tour in California?

Janelle:  Yeah, kinda.  We’ve been down to Long Beach, Hollywood…

Vincent:  We’ve also gone up to Bakersfield.  That’s a funny little story.  I didn’t know how people would perceive us outside of LA and Orange County.  We played up in Bakersfield, and during the show we felt like the kids weren’t getting it.  They weren’t into it.  They weren’t moving.  As soon as we finished the show, our merchandise stand was mobbed.  They bought everything.  We were stunned.  The next time we went up there, like six months later, the place was packed and everyone was just crazy.  What we learned was that a lot of people are just not used to what we are doing.  Once they get it, they have a great time with it.

NC:  I’ve read a couple of articles that say that your CD does not do justice to the way your band sounds live. Where do you do your best work? 

Vincent:  Live.

Janelle:  Yeah, totally, live.  I think that it also has to do with being a “baby” band with no budget.  You don’t get the full flourish of being in the studio, working with people who get paid big bucks to work at the art of your recording.

Vincent:  Live is where we are on par with bands of the world.  We have the energy, we have the equipment, we don’t, however, have the budget.  Unless, of course, someone out there wants to invest a lot of money in a little band.  I can guarantee that you’ll make your money back two-fold.

Janelle:  For whatever the album is worth, it’s been awesome for us.  We are at a point where when we play, everybody sings along.  You can’t replace that and you can’t get that without an album.

NC:  What should someone expect if they come to one of your concerts?

Vincent:  Fun.

Janelle:  …and a lot of energy.  Tons of energy.  They’ll probably feel like dancing even after they leave.

Vincent:  No matter what you are thinking when you come into the place, you totally get into our music. 

NC:  What do they get into?

Vincent:  The whole thing, the music, the rhythm, Janelle and the vocals.

Janelle:  That’s part of the reason that the band is doing so well.  We definitely have a sound.  But we really mix it up with all of our songs.  We have a whole array of songs.  We do ballads, rock, mid tempos, and then a bunch of stuff that is heavy with an edge.  Our show is like a ride. You go up and down the whole time.

NC:  So, your new CD came out in April.  It’s called Getting Thru.  Do you have any objections to the traditional spelling of the word “through”?

Janelle:  We were just trying to be hip.

Vincent:  It didn’t work did it?

NC:  Hey, I’m the one asking spelling questions for a rock magazine.  Don’t take me as the denizen of hip-ness.

Janelle:  We were trying to be artsy.  <Laughter>

NC:  Oh well then if you were trying to be poetic, then it’s brilliant.  You can pretend its some type of allusion to our fast food society.  So you’ve got 12 songs on this album.  What is your favorite?

Vincent:  Oh that’s a tough one.

Janelle:  For me, my favorite song to sing is “A Small Incision”.  I find myself signing it when I’m shopping.  It’s a total rock and roll anthem.  When we play it everyone goes crazy.  Dancing around to it just feels so good.

Vincent:  For me, it’s “Getting Thru”, the title track.

NC:  Because the bass player totally gets to jam…

Vincent:  Yeah, I totally get to rip.  It’s the song we open up with, and we come out and just hit ‘em with it.  I’m pumped up before the show and it lets me release right from the get go.

NC:  Who are the songwriters in your group?

Janelle:  It’s all of us.  We write together.  We all write lyrics.  I’ll do the melodies and lyrics sometimes, but we still build everything together.

Vincent:  We were just talking about that last night.  This band is very talented.  We appreciate everybody’s talent so we throw it all in there and blend it all up.  That’s why we sound different.  Everybody is a part of it so it’s unique but like all of us at the same time.

NC:  Vincent, you and your brother, Andres, are the rhythm section of this band.  Did y’all grow up forced into rhythm instrumentals by an over ambitious parent?

Vincent:  No.  Andres, since he was a little kid, would get pots and pans and oatmeal boxes and just go to town on them with spoons.  It was the funniest thing.  I like the guitar, but I was really drawn to the bass.  So we became the rhythm section.  I never think about what we are doing and say “[Andres] we should do this”.  Because we are brothers, we know what the other guy is going to do with just a look.  It’s a weird thing, but I really enjoy it.  When you play with your brother, who’s a great drummer, you just can’t replace that.

NC:  Four out of the five members of your band are Latino.  Has your heritage affected your sound at all?  Has it brought anything to it, growing up with these rhythms around the house?

Vincent:  Technically, I don’t know.  I mean, we don’t have mariachis in the band or anything like that.  Definitely, the rhythm section is for us.  My father led us to listen to music with a lot of rhythm.  He didn’t push us, but he brought it to our attention.  You know when you listen to our stuff that you start tapping your feet.  So it’s there.  It’s just way down deep.

Janelle:  It’s there on an over all level, the male, Latin temper, because I grew up in it.  The machismo.

NC:  Janelle, you’ve been called a husky-velvety alto.

Janelle:  That’s nice. 

NC:  Was this just the result of obsessive singing in the shower?

Vincent:  Obsessive something.

Janelle:  All right, enough, both of you.  I’ve been singing all of my life.  I really wanted to get into musical theater.  I’ve had a lot of vocal training.

NC:  So what is the benchmark event that indicates that you’ve “made it”?

Janelle:  Could it be like when I’m naked swimming at the Playgirl Mansion?

NC:  There’s a Playgirl Mansion?

Vincent:  There is no Playgirl Mansion!

NC:  I sincerely hope that there is no Playgirl Mansion.  Naked, sweaty guys lounging around a pool can be no heterosexual woman’s fantasy.

Janelle:  Vincent and I were talking about this [i.e. not the Playgirl Mansion] last night.  It’s going to be when we turn on the rock radio station is some other city and our song is just playing.

NC:  When is your next big show?

Vincent:  We are playing at the Whisky A Go-Go on October 25.  Our last three shows have just been packed, so we are really looking forward to it.  We just played the Roxy and it has space for a thousand people and it was packed out.  If we can play these big places and pack them out, we are totally excited.  So, long story short, at the Whisky, on Thursday, October 25^th.

NC:  And where can people buy your album right now?

Janelle:  Online!  At www.exploitingeve.com or at the show.  There are a couple of stores that have the CD, but check the site first.