Durham based folk duo Viv and Riley spoke with Evan Miller ahead of their show in Yellow Springs at the Foundry Theater. Some of their earliest gigs took place here in Ohio while co-songwriter and mult-instrumentalist Riley Calcagno attended classes at Oberlin College.
The pair were both raised up with folk music, and this is eventually what brought them together to start their own project as Viv and Riley. Creating music under this banner is a representation of their long shared love for the genre and song writing says Calcagno.
"We were sort of both born into it. Viv's parents are great musicians and made music that my parents actually were fans of before I was born. I grew up on the West Coast, going to Fiddler's Conventions with my folks and they grew up in the East, going to Fiddlers Conventions with her folks. This duo is like our shared love of writing songs and sort of pushing the sonic limits of folk music."
For their next album the duo took a different creative approach by recording straight to tape. This was done in an effort to capture more earnestly what they sound like live, but Vivian Leva says it's helped them embrace their imperfections.
"In this age where we can perfect everything, edit and gloss over everything, you think something is bad, so you change or fix it. But often it's actually what was interesting. So now we're just being and trying to accept some things as just human and something that has character."
Keep up with Viv and Riley by following them on instagram @vivandriley.
