Vincent Gallo Sets Sights on Musical Improv

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"I'M KNOWN AS a quintessential provocateur," confesses Vincent Gallo. Also as "an a------," according to "Buffalo 66" co-star Christina Ricci. Gallo's polarizing career as an actor-director-painter-model-musician is littered with epithets, allegedly absurdist racist remarks, plus one notoriously unsimulated sex scene with Chloe Sevigny.

But his new band RRIICCEE — a live improvised musical collaboration with former Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson — "comes from love and from what I think is right."

After three decades, Gallo found the traditional rock band dynamic — compose songs, rehearse to perfection, regurgitate onstage — stifling. He found Erlandson, an old acquaintance, "on the cusp of a similar thing."

They recruited old pal Nikolas Haas. And at an L.A. street festival, "we got a really strong vibe from this girl Rebecca Casabian. It's not how pretty she is, or her style, but that she's an open person."

Openness being a key element of RRIICCEE. The band prepares no riffs, no songs — it doesn't even claim a genre.

But Gallo distinguishes the quartet's approach from jazz improvisation, in which "you've learned a scale, chord progressions, how to solo in a key. We're remaining open to musical forms that don't exist yet, until we hear them making sense." Gallo promises a cohesive result. "If we didn't say we were improvisational, you wouldn't know that."

The setup onstage includes guitars, bass, 12-string, melodica, flute, keyboard, various percussion and an early sampler called a Mellotron. Musically, says Gallo, "It's different every time. You would think that not having the security of preparation would be scary, but it's so exciting."

"Maybe I'm a little more controlling and bossy in ways — that's part of the old horrible part of myself," says Gallo. Though Gallo's probably no competition for the likes of, say, Courtney Love on that score. But, says Gallo, RRIICCEE is about "connecting in our openness, not the old part of ourselves."

"The concept," says Gallo, "is to always remain very conscious. When you're an unconscious person, you repeat the wounded parts of yourself over and over. When you're conscious, you invest energy in yourself and grow.

"So how does one intentionally reach that far, to make work that's more dynamic than oneself? By avoiding cliche, by avoiding things that keep you comfortable."

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Written by Express contributor Bob Massey
Photo by Brady Brock