On October 14, the senior dance company at Purchase College hosted their show, Divas Through The Decades. Even with all the talent on stage, the audience could barely focus their ears on anything but pure pipes of Sean McVerry. As part of the live, three-piece band accompanying the dancers, he quickly silenced the Dance Theater Lab with his cover of Elton John’s, “Bennie and the Jets.”
As a junior in the studio composition conservatory, he goes the extra mile to be part of Choral Pleasure, the school’s a cappella group, and the Soul Voices Ensemble.
After the show, the brown-haired, blue-eyed suburban singer sat down with me to discuss that golden voice, what it was like being raised in Middlebury, Connecticut, and his growth at Purchase.
“My boss at the local grocery store I worked at told me that I would never be successful in music because I didn’t have an interesting enough story,” said McVerry of his upbringing in a small town. Having lived a simple, comfortable life so far, he’s ready to let his talents determine his future.
Q: What was it like growing up in Middlebury, Connecticut?
A: It’s a very serene, very picturesque little town. Nothing goes on there other then like little squabbles between wealthy, waspy people. There’s no hardships. My family is very supportive. I grew up in a pretty comfortable lifestyle, and I’m at peace with that. Purchase has a thousand less people than my town, which is crazy.
Q: It seems as though you were trying to get away from the typical, suburban lifestyle. How did you end up at Purchase?
A: Purchase was really the only school that wasn’t really safe for me, which kind of attracted me to it. I applied to four other schools, and I auditioned under classical voice, which is like funny to think about now that I could have been at some weird school singing opera. Writing music was slowly turning into a passion, but it wasn’t a reality until I found this program. It was close to the city, and my sister was in the city. As I applied I kind of had this game plan for what I wanted to do, and so far it’s been going quite well.
Q: What was the game plan?
A: Go to purchase, start a band within the first week, play shows in New York City, get signed to a label, play shows all over the the world.
Q: How many of those did you do?
A: Thus far, I’ve done about 2 1/2 of those things, because I did start a band, broke up, started a new band, played in the city.
Q: I know you played one show with a band you really like. How was that?
A: Yeah, I’ve played a few actually. We did a show with Jukebox the Ghost. They do this like really great piano writing. I went to a show of theirs with gave them a demo. They lost all of their CDs on their tour down to Florida except for ours. So the whole car ride they were listening to what I gave them, which was just crazy, and they liked it. Next time I saw them everything just fell right into place. I met their booking agent, and we kind of e-mailed back and forth relentlessly. We ended up opening for them. It was our new band’s first show.
I also played a show with Jenny Owen Youngs. Love her. Just learning to be assertive with people has really gotten me far. I kind of saw her name on the bill, jumped right in and started e-mailing people.
I also have one coming up with River City Extension. I met them at B.O.M.B.fest in Connecticut. I made it a point to go talk to the lead singer, just for him to get my name, and my face.
Q: Other than the performances you just said, what are some other memorable ones?
A: Sometimes some of the most memorable ones are usually the worst. Just recently, we played a show in Danbury, Connecticut, where I played my first show ever. Now, this place was just disgusting, like a fucking toilet. We played at 7 p.m., and we played with six bands, and we weren’t aware that it was an experimental, metal show. I have no fucking clue why this guy booked us. We had about six people in the audience, and they were just standing there, arms crossed, staring at us. I thought we sounded great. But, the sound guy went for a walk during our set, and my microphone stopped working. I did half the songs just screaming into the audience, which would have been cool if there were a lot of people there, and I played punk rock, but it just wasn’t. It was so stupid.
Q: What’s one of the best concerts you’ve ever been to?
A: Well, I went to this Titus Andronicus show at Toad’s Place, which is New Haven’s legendary venue, and I hadn’t been there before. It was last summer, and I was just stressed, and not feeling very myself. I went to that show alone, cause no one in my town is into that kind of, indie-punk kind of music. I just went, and I went crazy. It felt so good, and they were just incredible live, so I felt way better afterwords.
Q: Can you explain a little further how you felt better? What exactly do you remember feeling?
A: I was really inspired. It was a release of all this tension. I was just so wound up, and this is going to sound so dumb but, I just really needed to scream, and I obviously wasn’t going to do it to a CD in my room. I needed to be a part of this mass, and throw myself around a room, and get in people’s faces. It was just like self-therapy.
Q: Ideally, how do you want people to feel when they leave your shows?
A: That’s a good question. I mean, really the same. I just want to inspire people to create music, or create something else. I want people to leave my show and at some point figure out that they learned something about themselves, and want to do something with themselves.
Q: Do you view music and singing in general as self- therapy?
A: Of course, just screaming is therapeutic if you got a lot of tension built up, but it doesn’t have to be loud. It could be very soft. It calms the nerves, kind of like a self-provided lullaby. Singing is so visceral. It physically feels good.
Q: Is singing something you’ve had to work hard at, or is it more natural for you?
A: It’s always been really natural actually. It took me a long time to develop my voice. I sounded like shit when I was younger. But, having a good voice and being a good writer are two very different things. Having a good voice can almost cloud bad writing, like any high school female songwriter or like Mariah Carey: relatively shitty music covered up by impressive vocals.
Q: Well, if you’re not the Mariah Carey type, what type are you?
A: Well, I don’t think I’m at this level, but Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys had one of the most incredible male voices of all time, and didn’t use to it to mask bad writing. Though he sold his melodies with his voice, they were so good a monkey could’ve sang them and it would’ve sounded amazing. I make sure my songs are solid, and melodies are good, then the vocals can take off through them.
Q: Going back to your game plan, you said your first band broke up. What happened to Great Dane?
A: The thing was, I wanted to start a band the second I got here, and I was just overzealous with the whole thing. I started it, we played and it felt great, but eventually I felt that my writing was changing, and I wasn’t hearing things with the same ensemble anymore. Things started getting tough with rehearsals, and everything started sounding bad. I wanted out. We were all frustrated by the end of it. I needed to start fresh.
Q: How did your writing change?
A: I came in here listening to Ben Folds, and a lot of piano stuff. Coming in people asked me if I was jazz trained, or classically trained, and I was really neither. I learned piano in some old lady’s house in Middlebury. I played Scott Joplin and stride piano. That’s where a lot of my writing came from. I was really sheltered in more than one way by Middlebury, just in terms of what I listened to. I didn’t listen to a lot of “cool” music.
Everything I came out with freshman year was very gaudy, and very showy, and kind of in your face. I really just got sick of listening to myself. I figured if I did everything really loud, and was as ridiculous as possible, that I’d get everyone’s attention, and it worked, until I was over it. As soon as people started saying they could hear my music at a circus, I said, okay something needs to change.
Q: How did you find that change in your writing that you were looking for?
A: That’s so hard to answer, cause I kind of dropped everything. I tried to find things that inspired me other than what I was used to. Being here amongst all these bands, be they over indulgent, experimental bullshit, or be they really good writers, I took what I could from everybody here. People ask my what my music sounds like and it’s a culmination of everything I’ve ever learned. And I guess what comes out is a version of indie pop.
Q: What are your plans for after you graduate?
A: Well, hopefully by that time, I’ll already be on at least an independent label. I want to move to the city, and just network. I want to play as much as I can, maybe get an internship at a studio. I want to break into the music world.
Q: Who’s in your current band now?
A: Well it’s me, Brendon Caroselli, Andrew Cowie, Dean Torrey, Andrew Russell, and Jonathan Sacca. Dean was actually in a musical with me in high school. He was one of the best musicians I’d ever met, and I knew I wanted to be in a band with him eventually. He transferred to Purchase this year, and that was it, I had a great feeling.
Q: What happens if music doesn’t work out?
A: I’m going to put everything I have into this, and if it doesn’t work out, I’m going to teach music. I wouldn’t be unhappy, because I love kids. If not that, I’m confident that I can find a job that will involve music and can support my lifestyle. Stevie Wonder said that he didn’t have a fallback because if he knew he had something to catch him he wouldn’t give it his all, but I’m not Stevie Wonder.