BiographyTen Year Vamp have beaten the odds and found an incredibly loyal following and tremendous success all without a record company backing them. In fact, when they wanted to put out their latest release, they went to their fans for funding.
Guitarist Mark Rose explains, "We had a crazy idea. We thought why not have our fans become the record company? We had 60 people give us anywhere from $25. to $2,000. We then put 80 songs up on a website and let our fans choose the 12 songs that would go on the album." Their crazy idea worked and their fans are now more motivated than ever to help Ten Year Vamp become the Next Big Thing. "Each owner will receive their fair percentage of album sales based on how much they invested," says Rose. Owners also voted on which photos should be used for the album, including the cover. The group has been credited by Forbes, CNBC, Yahoo!, AOL Finance, and countless other news sites as completely reinventing the way records are recorded, marketed and sold.
Ten Year Vamp is based in Albany, NY, where they've been voted best Rock Band in the Metroland Reader's Poll for the 5th year in a row. Metroland is the New York Capital District's weekly entertainment magazine and it reaches over 100,000 readers.
Lead singer Debbie Gabrione may be the only rocker in history to admit to having a happy childhood. She recalls, "My family was close. We had dinner together every night." It wasn't until college that both Debbie and guitarist Mark Rose stated getting interested in being in a band. Debbie says, "Believe it or not, I really never had any exposure to rock music before college. I grew up on 50's music, Broadway show tunes, and Italian music like Jerry Vale and Connie Francis. The heaviest music I heard before college was Neil Diamond and Rod Stewart" she laughs, almost embarrassed to admit this.
Ten Year Vamp is known for delivering a top-tier, high octane performance at their live shows and their reputation has fueled interest in their latest release. They've been featured on CNBC, Forbes.com and in a long list of music publications from around the world. They've played for thousands of fans at festivals and prestigious venues from CBGB's to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
Their album, "Don't Act Like You Know Me" is Ten Year Vamp's most polished work to date. The single "Never Know" has the intensity of Foo Fighter's "Everlong" combined with the female angst of No Doubt's "Just A Girl." Ten Year Vamp wants to create music for a large, diverse audience. "Never Know" also features an MTV quality video that showcases Debbie's "girl next door" sexiness. When asked if Debbie feels she's a role model for young women, she says, "Yes. I was raised to value myself and to set goals and work hard to achieve them"
The song "Pleasures (that I call mine)" might just be the most exciting pro-female sexuality song since the Divinyls "I Touch Myself" from 1991. Debbie declares, "It's a song about knowing what I like and owning it. It's not about making myself into someone else's fantasies. I think it's a new version of feminism; being sexy because you want to be rather than because someone else wants you to be"
Ten Year Vamp has opened for acts like, Lifehouse, Gavin DeGraw, Natasha Beddingfield, Fuel, Finger Eleven, Simple Plan, Jesse McCarthy, and the Spin Doctors, just to name a few. With the sure-fire power pop songs on "Don't Act Like You Know Me" and die hard fans willing to shell out their hard earned cash to help their favorite local band get a shot at the big time, Ten Year Vamp will soon be headlining festival stages. As guitarist Mark Rose says, "We wanted to make a record that would hold up to everything you hear on the radio." With "Don't Act Like You Know Me" Ten Year Vamp surpasses many of the songs that are played on the radio these days. Here's hoping that modern day radio, and maybe even some of the record companies, catch up to Ten Year Vamp
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Quotes"Don't Act Like You Know Me, shapes up to be one of the most dynamic rock albums of the year... Debbie Gabrione is the sort of front woman they make movies about, and the rest of the band is incredibly tight. With a sound already refined and highly marketable, Ten Year Vamp just needs that one big break to fall in place. It will happen sooner or later; music this good just doesn't stay hidden. Don't Act Like You Know Me is brilliant; a Wildy's World Certified Desert Island Disc. Don't miss it. Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)
-Wildy's World 9/25/2009
" I was blown away by this band right away... The first time that I heard the lead singer Debbie Gabrione's voice, I was hooked. They got great songs, excellent lyrics, great melodies, and like I said, Debbie's voice just ties it all together. The album Don't Act Like You Know Me, is solid all the way through... I ended up buying the album and wanted to play almost every song on the show today... On top of it all, Debbie is just f&%$in hot... This is a top of the UC Radio List recommendation."
-UC Radio October 15, 2009
"A disc that brilliantly captures the urgency of their sound and the relentless passion of their live performance. From the opening track "Never Know" to the cd's conclusion, "Goodbye," this record boasts a unique sounds laced with hints of Green Day's musical complexity and enhanced by Gabrione's intense and incisive lyrics... There is nothing generic or gimmicky about the music of Ten Year Vamp. When Debbie Gabrione sings of "... a secret you will never know" - one thing is certain - no one needs to know the secret to enjoy the musical rush on the new Ten Year Vamp cd. The music is in your face. The songs will move your soul. This is a cd that flat out rocks."
- Gregg Weinlein, Greenbush Life 9/19/2009
(Gregg Weinlein is the author of "In The Avenue of Tears" and other books. Over the years he has published music related pieces in Rolling Stone, Cream, Circus and Relix magazines in addition to articles in numerous regional publications.)
"It sounds like money--that is to say, it's well-written and performed, slickly produced and extremely marketable."
-John Brodeur, Metroland Magazine 8/13/2009
"Ten Year Vamp don't win crowds over; they own them. The next time I catch them is at Sandy's Clam Bar in Glens Falls, where the atmosphere is like a European rock festival. Then, down by Poughkeepsie's waterfront at Mahoney's, the place is so over-capacity that bouncers help with load-out. Ten Year Vamp bumper stickers are smeared across the asses and pint glasses of the masses, and it seems right."
- Bill Ketzer, Metroland Magazine 1/31/2008
"At the M.E.A.N.Y. Fest finals at the Knitting Factory, I voted for the tighter-than-my-pussy Ten Year Vamp and the completely off-the-wall Maslow, but some showbizzy Scottish band with bowler hats won, maybe because they'd flown all the way from Sweden just for this event."
- Michael Musto, The Village Voice 1/8/2008
"Catchy rock anthems + a sexy frontwoman = the next No Doubt"
- ArtistDirect.com March 2, 2007
"The next No Doubt with Debbie Gabrione as the next Gwen Steffani"
- Lauren Proctor, Northeast InTune 7/2006
"Tight, white-hot and endlessly attacking the downbeat from the gun... Drinks were spilled. Souls were lost.... the band caught more air than Blink 182 backing David Lee Roth on a McDonaldland trampoline.... And, of course, you have leading lady Debbie Gabrione. Sure, Gabrione is a looker, a prime selling point for the band, she plats the manes of her horses in the night with toasts and promises and a sort of reassuring elemental satisfaction... their radiance is infectious."
- Bill Ketzer, Metroland 5/2006
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Ten Year Vamp: Tough SexyRalph Spillengers Bayou Café is by far the finest nightclub on Pearl Street, besting Jillians, the Skyline, and all others in Albanys little Bermuda Triangle with killer grub, a smashing sound system, gobs of live music and sexy-ass regulars who liquor up and boogie down nightly.
Normally, I avoid these things like minefields, but I was intrigued by Ten Year Vamp, who regularly pack such hothouses from here to the Big Apple with their raucous, high-protein attack. So, deep into those badlands I slunk to see for myself whether it was live or Memorex, and two songs into the night the answer was clear.
Tight, white-hot and endlessly attacking the downbeat from the gun, the band delivered, and I pressed my head to a nearby wedge as to feel their murderous telltale heartbeat. Drinks were spilled. Souls were lost. I stood at stage left, gleefully getting my ears fried into chips by guitarist Pete Vromans dual 4-by-12s as the band caught more air than Blink 182 backing David Lee Roth on a McDonaldland trampoline. Vamp cofounder Mark Rose hoisted his six-stringer high as Tim Keenan (one of the finest working bassists around) nailed them all to the wall behind drummer Scott Cards unflappable meter. And, of course, you have leading lady Debbie Gabrione. Sure, Gabrione is a looker, a prime selling point for the band, but she doesnt flaunt her sexuality in a manner that diminishes the primacy of her dream-soaked voice. Thank God. Like the pagan Queen Mab, she plats the manes of her horses in the night with toasts and promises and a sort of reassuring elemental satisfaction.
The throng swooned on the hardwood, cursing their ancestors for not bestowing such talents upon them as the band hand-delivered both a slew of covers (from vintage Tom Petty to the Black-Eyed Peas) and promising original goods like Rockstar and the iridescent Fall, the latter both endearing yet perhaps unintentionally capturing the human blindness to culpability, of promises made that can never be guaranteed. If you give me the chance, I can give you the world, Gabrione wailed to the heavens, as if despite her sincerity she quietly suspects it cant possibly be so. Her lexis is refreshing because it sounds so goddamn there, so pragmatic, and yet the LCD can still derive whatever commercially appealing message is needed to justify the next round of shooters.
During the second set, I noticed I was being cased by a redhead with a Ten Year Vamp bumper sticker on her ass. She alternated between eyeballing me and fixating on Gabriones rump as she shook it to Fall Out Boys Sugar Im Going Down, arms akimbo, ripping open the salty oxygen of the Bayou in her combat fatigues. I love you Debbie! the girl would scream. Then she would look back at me, but not with bedroom eyes. Are you going to stand here for the whole night? she finally asked, the implication being that she deserved my front-row spot, because she was in fact sexy, and I, decidedly not sexy, had no real business being at the front of this sexy game farm, blinded by the blessed sheen of Vromans Les Paul.
There is a tough circuitry beneath the Vamp, a talent, a rockets red glare that should ebb past the cover circuit given time and (someone elses) money, because their original material is maturing and their radiance is infectious.
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