doubleVee are Allan and Barb Vest (hence the duo’s name), who are partners in life as well as in music. They launched in 2012 (and married in 2015) and are set to release their new EP, ‘Songs for Birds and Bats’ this Friday, April 12. ‘Ladder for the People’ is from that EP, and has a throwback sort of sound something akin to that of DEVO, together with a fun music video.
Prior to their collaboration, Allan was the main songwriter, lead vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist for indie/orchestral pop group, Starlight Mints, who released four albums between 2000 and 2009. Their music has been synced to tv shows including Malcolm In The Middle, One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, and Californication, while films including Van Wilder 2: The Rise Of Taj, and The Art Of Getting By have also used tracks from the band. Allan’s instrumentals have also been used by Disney in animated shorts.
Barb spent sixteen years in public radio, where among her other credits, she wrote, hosted, and produced ‘Filmscapes’, a nationally syndicated film music programme, and where she was given the opportunity to interview such rewnowned artists as Danny Elfman, and Philip Glass. She edited a music webzine for several years, and marketed and produced eight Rock ‘n’ Roll Garage Sale and Shows, which featured local Oklahoma bands and merchants. Her vocal credits include appearing in shows produced by the Mix Tape Club, and backing vox for local bands.
‘Ladder For The People’, released on March 29, is upbeat and quirky, and immensely re-playable. It comes with a music video shot in a mid-century American style house (which according to the video notes, belongs to April, Mike and Lucas Mays), and features stop motion animation, as well as live action footage of the duo performing in various locations around the house, including some rather cool sequences where they’re singing in one part of the room at the same time as they’re playing their instruments in another. Mike Mays features as “the King”, who roams about the house doing things according to the lyrics, such as lighting a fire in time to “all I see is tricks and flames”. The lyrics, although on the surface seemingly nonsensical, fun and upbeat, – “the right kind of people jumping through the loop holes/but everybody wants to be a ladder for the people/so they keep a broken ladder by the rooftop door” – have a deeper meaning regarding being careful who we trust, as when it comes down to it, everyone has their own interests at heart.
Find doubleVee online on their official website, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. ‘Songs for Birds and Bats’ is set for release this Friday, April 12, and will be available to stream and download from Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon, SoundCloud, and Spotify.
