“Tonight I want you to hear my lyrics,” says Martinez jumping out of the chair, and pumping the air with her fist as her voice fills with enthusiasm.   “A lot of times I let the music carry the energy, and create the energy. My words and lyrics get lost in that, and they have done great as far as giving people a show, but tonight I want to play songs, and I want it to make sense.  There won’t be too many extended solos.”

In the past couple of years, Martinez’s music has matured, but it has sometimes been at a great cost, as her father, whom she affectionately refers to as ‘my Pops,’ passed away, and she has experienced both the joys and heartbreak of love. Soon she will be the stage, performing for the first time, her incredibly emotive song, “Don’t Trust Me,” a tune that flows directly from her heart and a relationship which recently ended.

“It’s so hard being in a relationship, when you are in this business, and you love the person so much, especially if they are older. It is really hard to find that common ground, especially when they don’t do what you do (referring to her music career). It’s hard,” says Martinez.

She recites the chorus for “Don’t Trust Me,” “Don’t ask me to tell you how I feel / because you don’t want to know / don’t trust me to love you / because I’ll break your heart and I’ll break my own.” Providing insight to her lyrics she describes her collaborative writing session with Sigerson as being somewhat of a therapy session and says about her recently ended relationship with her girlfriend, “I’m happy right now in this moment with you, and it is great, but if we are going to talk about the future, I don’t even know about myself right now. I know that I am toxic for you…. (her voice trails off)…I don’t know. That’s the thing too, (I ask myself), am I looking for something that I am never going to find, and am I (ending it) with someone whom I absolutely love and adore.”

Although confused about things of the heart, something that many twice her age can easily confess to, for Martinez things are becoming more clear on the artistic front. “Right now, I am having a lot of fun writing, and I am so stoked that I am taking criticism so well right now.  I really thought that I was going to be the one who said, “Don’t change my lyrics or else I won’t play it. I have to feel it.”  They (her band, producer and engineer), were the ones who were saying, ‘We don’t want to change what you are trying to say. Let’s figure out what you are trying to say, and those will be the key elements.’ The product that is coming out of that is amazing, and I always thought that I was going to be the ‘could have, should have, would have,’ and I still might be the ‘could have, would have, should have.’ out of Seattle, but there is stuff happening now that I didn’t think that we as a band were capable of.”

While acknowledging that she is still young, Vicci Martinez says, “My goals have changed. I want to be respected by musicians, which means, I want to have a good band, that other musicians watch, and respect.” Vicci, they already do, and so do your fans.

****** On February 23 Vicci Martinez will be performing at the Showbox in Seattle Washington.

Interview by Joe Montague ©

All photos by Jim Cecil, protected by copyright ©

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February 2008