Today we’d like to introduce you to Jackie Popovec.
Hi Jackie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
The band started in 2014 when I returned home from Florida where I attended college. I was out in downtown Youngstown and saw John Anthony (co-founding member of The Vindys) playing with a group and knew I wanted to sing with them. We started playing together around the Youngstown area playing 3 or 4-hour shows primarily consisting of covers. We would play three or four nights a week working up to the 10,000 hours of playing together. Over time, I introduced my originals to the band and we would sprinkle them in throughout our set. We noticed that they received a really nice reception and began to work on more originals which turned into our first release – Red Wine EP.
We were lucky enough to have songs played from the EP on The Summit FM (91.3 FM in Akron, 90.7 in Youngstown). As we had more radio play, we started to expand our reach heading to Cleveland, Akron, and Columbus. We began work on our new songs in 2017 and released our first full-length album Keep Going that spring.
As we started to shift to becoming an original-only band, we expanded our reach heading to New York City, Nashville, Knoxville, Winnetka, and Summerfest in Milwaukee where we won the Emerging Artist Series on the first day of the festival. In 2019, we received the opportunity to write a song for the Pittsburgh Pirates for their Friday Night Rocks series. The song “Are You Ready” was featured throughout the season and has been used also with the Pittsburgh Penguins during their 2021 season.
Our latest full-length album, Bugs, was released in July of 2021. This features what we call the Vindys Family Band which includes Jackie Popovec (vocals and guitar), John Anthony (guitar), Rick Deak (guitar), Matt Jackson (bass), Nathan Anthony (keyboards), Ed Davis (drums), Brian Mayle (trombone), Kyle O’Donnell (trumpet). and Tim Harker (saxophone). Through 2021, the band had the amazing opportunity to open for bands including Pat Benatar, Marty Stuart, Hunter Hayes, Michael Stanley, and the Resonators, Rita Wilson, AJR, Orianthi, and the Drive-By Truckers.
This summer, we are expanding further by visiting Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and a west coast tour that includes Los Angeles, Oceanside, San Francisco, and Carson City.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest challenge of the band is that we are currently self-managed. This creates a lot of work on top of our full-time jobs outside of the band. This includes the never-ending amount of emails to send, social media to post. merchandise to ship and booking that takes a lot of time but with the crew of members in the band, we are able to break down specific roles for everyone.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We are a high-energy nine-piece rock band that has been described as if Amy Winehouse fronted Led Zeppelin. We are most proud of how we are able to “Vindify” a piece of music to give it a unique spin.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up I found an interest in music early on. I would try to emulate big singers in various genres including Steven Tyler and Etta James, my mom would challenge me to try and emulate them as close as possible. Through all of the emulation, I developed my own voice that matches the big, powerful voices in rock but with the phrasing and stylistic nuances of jazz singers.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thevindys.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/thevindys
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/thevindys
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/thevindys
- Youtube:www.youtube.com/thevindys
- SoundCloud: www.soundcloud.com/thevindys
- Other: www.patreon.com/thevindys
Image Credits
Cusano Photography
