Jackie Popovec can’t wait to open the “Trap Door.”
“Trap Door” is the new album by The Vindys, a record that’s been at least two years in the making and comes nearly five years after the group’s last studio album, 2021’s “Bugs.” It will debut on streaming services on April 10, followed by CDs and vinyl.
Popovec, the band’s lead singer and principal songwriter, said the record reflects a different approach compared to its past releases.
“This band has always primarily been very much a live band that has tried to recreate that in the studio,” she said. “This time around, I feel like these songs were created in the studio, and now the live band is having to figure out what works in a live setting from these songs. It’s really fun. We’re definitely talented enough to figure it out, but it is a little bit of a head scratcher to see some of the production on this last record and say, ‘OK, what can we do that would be cool in a different way in a live setting?’ What works in the studio sometimes doesn’t work live. We’re still working that out, and we’re excited about all the new stuff we’re doing now.”
The title track was one of the first songs Popovec penned for the album, written during the pandemic while dealing with “COVID brain,” she said. “Production wise, I think that it set the tone for the rest of the album. I said, ‘Let’s experiment. Let’s do something different with this.’ There are a lot more key parts, synth parts to this album, as opposed to the more heavy guitar-leaning stuff that we have done in the past.”
“Same Stars,” which was released as a single last week, is another song where piano, rather than the twin-guitar sound of John Anthony and Rick Deak, dominates the arrangement.
The melody came quickly, Popovec said, but she struggled with the lyrics until she and Deak took a trip to Joshua Tree National Park in California.
“When I came back from Joshua Tree, the lyrics just fell out of me. I love the duality of that fear of the vastness and something unknown … The lyrics kind of came out of that experience, and I liked the melodies because they profiled my lower (vocal) registers. I love my lower registers (but) I think in a live setting they don’t always translate. I think I had a Fiona Apple-esque vibe with that vocal.”
The band did the basic tracks with Michael Estok at his Court Street Recording Studio in Canfield. The mixing engineer on “Trap Door” is Ryan Nasci, a Liberty native now based in Los Angeles. He has worked as a mixer and/or engineer on recordings by a diverse range of major artists, including Harry Styles, Janelle Monae, Katie Perry, The Head and the Heart, Young the Giant, Kristone “Kingfish” Ingram, FKA Twigs and Childish Gambino.
“I just love his style, and I was so glad he wanted to work on our record,” Popovec said. “We just threw it out to him, and he was like, ‘Yeah, this stuff is good and I definitely want to be a part of it.’ Ryan had a lot to do with how the mix went.”
The mastering engineer was Dan Millice, who has worked on one Grammy-winning and 17-Grammy nominated releases, and his resume includes projects with Dolly Parton, A$AP Rocky, Bela Fleck and the Blind Boys of Alabama. Popovec described Estok, Nasci and Millis as the album’s “Holy Trinity.”
Not all of the songs on “Trap Door” will be new to fans of The Vindys. Five of the 10 tracks can be heard now via streaming, and “Elton Glasses Baby” has been available since July 2024. Some of that is driven by the growth of streaming. Users tend to focus on songs rather than albums, and releasing a series of singles makes them stand out in the marketplace more than dropping 10 or 12 tracks all at once.
But the singles started so early because of the opportunity The Vindys got in 2024 to tour as an opening act for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo. That first tour went so well that the band was invited out for a second run of dates in the spring of 2025.
“We wanted to make sure that we had something to talk about while we were on the road, something to promote,” Popovec said. “So ‘Elton Glasses Baby’ came out just ahead of the first tour with Pat Benatar. ‘Electric’ was the next single that we released ahead of the second tour with Pat Benatar.”
“Elton Glasses” became a fan favorite, and Popovec regularly sees concertgoers sporting their own flamboyant eyewear when she sings it. No one was more surprised than Popovec.
“I thought it was fun, but I really didn’t think that people would gravitate to it the way that they did. It’s a song I don’t particularly like to sing as much as the other songs, but people love that song, so I’m down for it. It’s percussive in the way that I sing it, so that’s kind of fun to navigate, but it’s not a big vocal song.”
However, she believes Anthony’s melodic wink to Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” in his guitar lead is one of the best things he’s ever done.
Those tours with Benatar and Giraldo will have a big impact on how the band promotes “Trap Door.” Only a few dates have been officially announced — concerts in Columbus and Indianapolis on Memorial Day weekend, one of a few West Coast dates in July — but many others have been booked or are in the works.
“We have a little bit of freedom this year to go to some of the places that Pat Benatar has taken us to,” Popovec said. “We plan to have our first show in Buffalo in June. We’re going to hit some of the places that we hit with Pat Benatar and see what sticks. Our merch is selling online all over the country now after these couple tours, and it really seems that people are starting to know The Vindys a little bit more. People have heard of us around the country, not just in Northeast Ohio, and we’re trying to make sure that we don’t lose that momentum.”
The Vindys will make an appearance at Record Connection on April 18 for Record Store Day. CD copies of “Trap Door” definitely will be available that day, and Popovec is hoping the vinyl will be finished as well. In mid-March, she was convinced the LPs wouldn’t arrive until late April. She was somewhat more optimistic this week.
“It looks like they’re trying to get it done (in time),” she said. “I’m really hoping that a miracle happens. If I remember, with the last album, we got the album on Record Store Day. It was like last minute, so we shall see.”
And each record will be one-of-a-kind by using the leftover vinyl from other color pressings at the factory.
“It’s more eco-friendly because they’re using scraps of other colors,” Popovec said. “Everyone’s gonna get a different-colored vinyl, just like, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates.’”
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