You've read about The Vita Ruins on DCist before. You may have even seen them perform at our 4th Unbuckled concert. When all that buzz was going on about the band, they'd only had a few (literally -- Unbuckled was their third show) performances under their belt. Since then they've built up a reputation that's allowed them quite a bit of luck in booking shows and getting people talking. But the Virginia natives are really starting to grow into the publicity they've backed into and deserve another look.

Last Friday night, we caught the band play as part of the Six Points Music Festival at the Rock & Roll Hotel. Sandwiched in between The Sentiment and The Dance Party, it was a loud night -- in a good way. After listening to their EP (which you'll learn in the interview, they're not very fond of), we expected a much less energetic, much more introverted performance than we received. The Vita Ruins -- with the exception of their bassist, who stood with his back to the audience most of the set -- seem very at home on the stage. Their dark but dancey sound was a delight to the audience who didn't stop moving for a moment of their set.

Front man Tim Kratzer and his counterpart Greg Balleza mirror setups, each with a keyboard, an electric guitar and a microphone in their arsenal. Backed by Mike Seaner on drums and Dave Phillips on bass, they ballance out the stormy lyrics and heavy ambience with quick rhythms and a droning bass line. Though fraught with emotion and talk of suicide and other not-so-sunshiney topics, we couldn't keep still during the Interpol-esque set.

Photos by Kyle Gustafson

Visit them online at: thevitaruins.com

See them next: On May 5 at Iota with Cedars and Shade

Questions for Tim Kratzer and Greg Balleza of The Vita Ruins:

Where'd you guys meet?

G: We went to high school together.

Around here?

G: In Fairfax

T: We actually met in guitar class.

G: I've known our bassist since third grade.

And your drummer?

T: We got him off of Craig's List.

So when did you pull the band together?

G: This one….

T: January or February of 2006.

Had you been playing together in other bands before that?

T: Yeah, our bassist and the two of us had a band earlier. A really really awful band.

G: It was a little more pop… more British.

Did you guys play out at all?

G: We actually played here once. [at Dr Dremos]

T: That was probably the biggest show we played.

G: That band was together from about 2001 to 2003. Tim and I would always play together. That band ended but then the two of us decided we were gonna move to New York, and the big idea never happened.

T: The defining moment was when I went to Boston to visit Berkley [School of Music] to go check it out, and I met with the music director there, and his idea of music was just completely different than mine. It was all about making money.

G: Making pop hits.

T: So after that I went to New York for a while, but I finally came home and asked Greg if he wanted to start a band instead.

G: We basically were still playng music, not really together but Tim was still writing songs, and he called me up and was like, "hey, you got some time to talk?" We hadn't been playing together for at least a year and a half at that point. He said, "I'm gonna stay in D.C. – under the condition that we stay in a band together." I was like, "you don't even have to ask."

Did you guys have an idea of what you wanted the band to be going into it? A particular sound?

G: We wanted to make it harder

T: Darker, more progressive than what we were doing before.

Any particular influences that you had in mind?

G: I guess at that point we had started to listen to more indie rock, cause back in our old band, our big influences were like Radiohead, Doves, Coldplay, Travis…

The bands we all liked at some point.

G: I mean we still like em – except for maybe Coldplay's last album.

T: Yeah that was pretty horrible.

G: So yeah, we started listening to a lot of Interpol, The Strokes…

T: We didn't want to lose the atmospheric part of it, but we wanted it to be more raw this time around. Heavybass lines, hard beats

G: Another band we listen to is Air – kind of incorporating a little of that electronic element into it.

So you guys have an EP out – did y record it yourselves, did you go somewhere?

G: We went to Cue up in Falls Church.

A: Did you have a good experience there?

T: No. Horrible. Completely awful.

Was it the people or the facility or…

G: A combination of both, I think. When we were in our old band we tried to record there once before – we didn't do much research and it was just a studio that we knew about. So I guess the way it works there is they just assign you an engineer. We knew how we wanted it to sound, so we didn't need a producer. But I guess this guy – really nice guy, but, I think he thought he was doing us a favor…

T: He was making it all clean and… I don't even know how to describe it.

G: His idea of music was completely different than ours.

T: We kept asking him like, "Do it like this, do it like this, please – this is how we want it." And he'd just do it his way.

So you had some artistic differences.

T: Yeah. And we're completely anal about every little sound, so that wasn't helping any.

G: By the end it became a big joke.

Are you happy with the way it came out?

T: Um…. No. We don't like it.

G: But, it works. We have something tangible for people to listen to.

T: Yeah, we're happy about that part.

Do you have plans to record a full length?

T: We just decided we're gonna build our own studio and do it ourselves.

G: When you're in the studio you're lookin at your watch the whole time. We'll just be in our practice space, with unlimited time. We're not sound engineers by any means, but

T: We know what we like.

G: We'll work at it to make it happen.

Have you been writing any new stuff lately?

T: Yeah

G: He's the principle writer

T: Yeah I'm always writing, so we've got a bunch of songs to work with.

Do you normally write the songs then bring them to the band?

G: Usually he'll write a lot of parts and arrange them, then he'll bring them to the band – we'll change or add parts, making them work.

When you get something new do you like to road test it, or do you like to hold on to it until you've perfected it?

G: We pretty much road test them all.

T: Yeah we do – but sometimes we play them out live when we shouldn't.

Do you have an idea in mind for what you want to put on the LP?

G: Yeah pretty much.

T: We have maybe 12 or 13 songs right now. We wanna re-do the EP. We're re-recording all those songs.

G: We think the way they were recorded before didn't really do them justice.

So, what do you guys think of the local music scene?

G: I love it.

T: Yeah I love it.

G: The fact that everyone's so close. We have good relationships with a lot of bands around here. We're pretty good friends with MDR, Telograph

T: We'll probably do something with the Dance Party soon.

G: Cedars -- we like those guys.

T: I actually tried out for that band.

G: Yeah like a year ago, they asked him to be in that band.

T: They wanted a guitarist, keyboardist and singer I guess. In the end though I just wanted to start my own band.

Yeah they're pretty well established.

G: Exactly.

Do yu guys find that the local clubs have good relationships with local bands?

T: The owners always seem to like us.

G: Yeah, like Bill over at DC9, he got us our first gig at the red and the black, and then he asked us to play an LDP anniversary party. I think we were the first band to ever actually play there. He's always encouraging us.

So your first gig was at The Red and The Black? That must have been really early on for the club.

G: It was probably a month or two after they opened. It was probably in August.

How was playing DCist's Unbuckled show different from standard gigs?

T: It was nice because we didn't have to promote. We just showed up to play and there was a bunch of people there.

You're also playing the Six Points Music Festival – have you ever played a festival like that before?

G: No – I guess we've only been playing out for 7, 8 months.

T: Unbuckled was like our second or third show. Oh – going back to the D.C. scene though – nobody here really parties very much.

G: Yeah, nobody moves around much in the crowd. We're getting more comfortable now on stage, we're trying to get more into it – and people are just standing there.

Do you have any theories about why that is?

G: No idea. I don't know if it has to do with this area or….

Have you played anywhere else?

G: No we haven't.

T: We're workin on that right now. We're working on New York right now.

G: The last show we played at R&R Hotel, we o pened up for Snowden and Malajube. Snowden are pretty known for their live show, just really opening it up on stage. They sounded good, but they sounded kind of reserved on stage. But if you go on you tube and watch clips of them performing, it's so much more energetic.

So you think the bands act differently here too?

T: I think a lot of the bands get into it. But a lot of the people watching it don't.

What's your favorite venue to play?

T: Velvet Lounge – Rob the sound guy is amazing. R&R Hotel is probably second.

G: We've only played there once but it was a really cool venue to play.

Are there any bands that you guys really enjoy playing with?

T: Snowden I mean – we're humongous fans. The reason we got the gig is because we wrote them and were just like "hey, we're from D.C., can we play with you?"

Did they already have the date booked?

T: Yeah they did. They weren't gonna have a third band, but we asked both bands and they liked the music. Then we sent a message over to Steve at R&R Hotel. Otherwise we like playing with The Sentiment.

What are some of your favorite local bands to listen to?

G: Recently I started listening to the Hard Tomorrows.

T: Yeah, the hard tomorrows. Telograph.

G: MDR. Cedars.

Who are some of your favorite bands in general? Who are you fans of?

G: Interpol, …

T: I've been listening to Peter Bjorn and John lately. And Elbow's first album.

G: You know what band I'm a huge fan of?

T: Oh, the Velvet Teens?

G: Yeah. They're awesome. They're from the west coast. There aren't a lot of west coast bands we're into.

In the perfect world, ultimate fantasy – what do you see your band doing? What would be the track that you follow?

T: All we really want is to tour.

G: Just make enough to live off.

T: That's our dream. See the world. I couldn't see us on the radio – just tour and make enough money to live. That's my ultimate goal.

One last question – is it "veeta" or "veye-ta"?

T: It's "veeta."

How'd the name come about?

T: It was kind of a long process. We started with The Ruins. But we wanted to add something more to it. So I found vida – the Spanish word for life. But I wanted a similar word in English. So we went to Vita – which meant the stories of people's lives. We thought that had a nice sound to it.

Nice and dark?

G: Yeah == people meet us and our sound is all dark and they expect us to be all miserable ass holes, like 'I hurt myself to feel alive.'

T: But it's not like that at all. We make fun of ourselves a lot. We're not that serious.