5 questions with The Vindys lead singer Jackie Popovec
Ahead of the band’s final hometown show of the year at 7 p.m. Saturday at Westside Bowl, Mahoning Matters is getting to know the lead singer of The Vindys, Jackie Popovec.
Who are The Vindys?
According to Popovec, she and the band have been performing for almost ten years.
Recently, the band’s music video for their song called Bugs was selected for this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
The band’s name pays homage to Youngstown’s roots by referencing the daily newspaper, The Vindicator.
The Vindys first had success on local radio stations like The Summit FM, and created an exclusive song deal for the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball called “Are You Ready.”
Here are the questions and answers with Popvec, including the inspiration behind the Bugs video and what’s next for the band.
Question: How long has it been since you first started playing with co-founder John Anthony and really got The Vindys going?
Answer: It was around 2013 when I met John Anthony down at a local bar in Youngstown. I just noticed that there was like a lot of like, tribute bands and cover bands happening in Youngstown at the time, and not a ton of original music. So we kind of played that game... played the cover band thing for a little bit. Then in 2014, we developed an EP and just had like four or five songs on there. From there, we’ve kind of just been radiating out from Youngstown to Akron and Cleveland and Pittsburgh, Columbus and beyond. We’ve been doing this for almost ten years now next year. The band has done original music since 2017. We had our first album released; the EP had some of those songs on there. But John and I have been doing this for a long time. Now we have a nine piece band, plus a horn section with trombone, trumpet and saxophone. It’s a large band and we travel a lot; it’s been fun.
Q: What was it like to see your audience grow from locals to the state to Pittsburgh to across the country?
A: A lot of bands think they need to be doing this from a home base like L.A. or New York or Nashville. When we started going out and garnering somewhat of a fan base in and around town, I just felt that we should just keep it going. With the grassroots nature of this band, I think there’s a ton of great cities within reach of a half day’s drive from Youngstown. You can be in Chicago in seven hours, in New York in six hours. In that capacity as a touring band, Youngstown works for us. Having national attention along the way has been super helpful for bands like us in the Midwest. We just got licensed this year with ESPN using our song on their ACC network for softball. Then we also got screened at the Tribeca Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for our music video Bugs. So I mean, it’s just been really wild this past year has been so it’s just been lots of celebrations.
Q: What’s your favorite song to perform?
A: I have a lot of different moods, so it really just depends on the space. We started out as a band working in bars. So I love that bar scene, where it’s loud and people are having fun and beers are clinking and people are laughing. But the theater scene is a whole other different element. It’s very intimate feeling because people are quiet and staring at you. There’s something cool about that too. So really it just depends on where I’m at, my moods; I really like to rock out so any of the hard rocking songs that we do are probably my favorite. Those just get like my nervous energies out. Like all my nervousness, it just all comes out with a rock tune.
Q: What was your reaction to seeing the music video for Bugs featured in the Tribeca Film Festival?
A: We actually shot the music video October 1, 2022. When we did it, it was a one-day shoot at one location at a friend’s house that has all these different like rooms that you can imagine. We were like, ‘Oh, this is just a perfect’ for the concept that we were going for Bugs. The concept of Bugs came from this time when, literally, I had bees in my ceiling. One night, I discovered them in my bedroom, and from there, I didn’t sleep well for two weeks. I was constantly thinking about these things and thinking about them metaphorically as the things that bug you at night and keep you awake. I just love that concept put into song. When we went in to do the music video with director Peter-John Campbell from the Canton area. We were so loose about what it was going to be. It was a concept that kind of evolved that day, so we didn’t really have any sort of script except a vague outline of what we wanted. But when we got in there and saw all the cameras and how they were filming this with, I mean down to every single detail. With the help of Kent State University and their costume department, I was just utterly amazed at when it came out. I was like ‘This is professional.’
But quietly, Peter had, submitted this to different film festivals, I did not know that Tribeca was one of them. And we got the call. They said that we were one of only eight music videos selected, among Lizzo and The Black Keys. When I heard that, I just could not believe it, the very fact that we were among that selected because it’s a very exclusive type of festival. Just us, a band from Ohio, it’s crazy. And now there are two bands, us and The Black Keys from Ohio. It was just really cool to be there, do the red carpet and be among all the directors and see the other films. That was really cool.
Q: Can you tell me about your upcoming Youngstown show Oct. 14 which will be the final show of 2023?
A: We love to perform at our favorite spot in town right now at Westside Bowl in Youngstown. They have just premiere sound and stage lights. It’s just the perfect atmosphere and we love to be a part of because like I said, we came from the bar scene. It’s going to be a great way to wrap up the year and celebrate with all of our friends and family who don’t get to come out to the shows that we do out of town. So this is the one show that we do every year that we just absolutely love. It’s going to be filled with new songs that we’re workshopping, ones we have been working on this past year. We plan to release an album next spring. It’ll be this combination of new songs and old songs in our set along with some friends that are going to be featured and some extra surprises for sure.
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This story was originally published October 10, 2023 at 11:21 AM.
