For the past 16 years, Joe Vannucchi—the voice behind From Indian Lakes—has built a steady presence in indie music.
Raised off the grid in California and later shaped by life on the road, his story has unfolded in irreplicable ways.
Revue caught up with Vannucchi to talk about his DIY roots and life beyond music.
What’s something you always wished you were asked during an interview?
One thing that I have kept secret for my entire career is that I’m very obsessed with basketball. It’s pretty much all I care about, but I have almost never talked about it in interviews until recently. When people meet me, they don’t expect it, but I’ve played in a ton of leagues. If I could just do one thing in this world, it would probably be to play basketball.
How did your love of basketball begin?
I come from a big basketball family. We watch games, and I take my parents to games in the Bay Area every season. I used to have a hoop in the dirt at my childhood home, and I used to shoot on that.
What was your childhood home like?
My parents bought 40 acres up near Yosemite when I was really young. The plan was to have a house and have power, but they didn’t have any money. My siblings weren’t really thrilled with the situation, but my personality was always go-with-the-flow.
Even to this day, I think the reason why I’m even able to have a career in music for this long without having some kind of explosive moment along the way is just from being cool with whatever is happening and adapting.
What are some of your earliest memories there?
I had a drum set. Someone forgot their guitar at my house, so I started playing that, and I read a lot of books. I walked around outside a lot. We lived by a creek, went to the creek, swam in it. It kind of feels fake, but that was the vibe.
Coming from such a small town, how did you start getting into a music scene?
I had a minivan in high school. I would just fill it up with whoever, and we would go to whatever park, hardcore, or metal show was a show in Fresno after school, which was 40 minutes away.
We were also in bands, and we’d play up in the mountains at these weird places. Our first tour was when I was like 18-ish, 19-ish, and it was just a really bad, self-booked opening for another local band. But then we randomly met the owner of Chain Reaction in Anaheim, who was managing Thrice at the time. He was like, “Hey, you should come play at my venue.” From there, stuff like that just kept kind of happening.
Did you have a breakout moment in your early career?
We toured with this band, The Dangerous Summer, who was like an MTV emo pop punk thing. They just met us in a bar while we were in Southern California playing at Chain Reaction. They played to 800 or so people in most cities. So for us, it was like, “Holy shit, we made it,” you know? But it’s not like we had fans yet. We were still booking basements in between those shows.
It sounds like the DIY community was a big supporter of your career from the start. What were those shows like?
They were floor shows at taco shops in Vegas to 200 kids. Or an outdoor show on a day off on the 4th of July in Indiana, playing in someone’s backyard to like 100 people before fireworks. I don’t know why they were there for us. There is lost text and feelings of some of these places.
How has being a musician evolved for you since then?
We’ve always just felt so uncool because of where we come from. Nowadays, musicians are smartly really selective about what they do and how they’re perceived. But it just never occurred to us at the time, and because of that, it’s hard to explain how things happened for us, especially when I talk to young people in music with social media.
I was just this weird kid who was mega isolated and happened to get into music. It never even occurred to me that one day we would be the cool people on a tour.
La Dispute w/ From Indian Lakes & Flooding
GLC Live at 20 Monroe
May 9, 6:30 p.m.
fromindianlakes.com, glcliveat20monroe.com
