Fun Collaborations - The Rum and The Sea; then founding Victory Swig

Shortly following the completion of the fundraising album, I had a new opportunity to start collaborating again. Jay, who had performed as a singer/songwriter during my fundraising show for Natasha reached out to me, asking if I’d like to try working on an idea of becoming a singer/songwriting duo. He asked if I’d like to come over to his place to explore the idea of a collaboration. I think it was the perfect time for me to explore a collaborative effort. Though I was happy with my progress as a soloist and continuing to develop, the lessons of having other artists to collaborate with rang through my head.

Jay is a very skilled acoustic guitar player. His vocal range is incredible from rich and deep tones for his songs, to higher notes that are perfect for back up. He and I shared a lot in common. We both were dad rockers, our wives were involved with roller derby, and we had the same tastes in music.

We met up at Jay’s garage and started playing to each other’s songs. It was almost immediate, we had a perfect foundation to start from and it wasn’t very long until we had a seasoned bass player, Rick, sitting in on the practices.

I don’t know what came first, the band name or the sound, but we had a pirate vibe. Jay had a list of potential band names and presented The Rum and The Sea. It was a winner for me, being an old sailor, and Jay looked like he was a pirate captain, with his long red beard. The name stuck. I told my coworker friend, Barry, who is a drummer and was in between projects at the time, and he was interested in checking out this ‘pirate’ band we were creating.

Barry came over with his kit to the next practice, and we quickly determined that Jay’s garage was no place for drums after the neighbor asked him to keep it down. Barry said that his practice space was perfect for a band, so we moved it over to his place.

We had four strong players, and we were playing shows almost immediately around town. Jay’s wife was still closely involved with the roller derby teams, and he is a great networker with others in the music world. We were getting booked by promoters who weren’t looking my way earlier, and we had a massive following of roller derby families, right out of the gate.

Shortly after that, one of Barry’s former bandmates, Christopher, started coming out to our practices. He is a multi-instrumentalist, which came in very handy. If Rick couldn’t play bass for a show, Christopher would play. If Barry couldn’t play drums, there would be Christopher. Otherwise he’d play the keys, guitar, and/or provide backup vocals.

Seemingly overnight, we had one of Central Oregon’s most memorable local bands, with a fully packed schedule on big local stages. It was a great time playing live music with a group of dad rockers. The Rum and The Sea became even more of a local music staple than KouseFly. The project was open to many other collaborators, including photographers, a poster designer who would provide hand-drawn art, and amazing musicians would sit in during large performances. We were a celebrated band, and were embraced by the community.

My wife and I found out that we were going to have another child. I knew my days would soon be numbered with the amount of time I could contribute to perform with the band. I decided to start building another project that I would do when I could break away from parenting an infant and a toddler.

I also wanted to start helping other bands build their project, where I could not only live vicariously through them, but apply the knowledge that I’ve learned over the years to help them be a little more successful. I called the solo/manager project Victory Swig.

God only knows where I got the time from, but I was performing big shows with The Rum and The Sea, representing an upcoming local band called The Autonomics during their first regional tour, and setting up shows for my solo performances as Victory Swig.