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Percussion, Backing Vocals
Victor
DeLorenzo was born on Oct. 25, 1954 and hails from Racine,
Wisconsin. He came to Milwaukee in 1976 to attend the University
of Wisconsin. He later joined a local experimental theater
group, Theatre X. In 1978 he appeared in the company's Obie
Award-winning New York production of "A Fierce Longing,"
a drama about Japanese poet and novelist Yukio Mishima. A
few years later, he and Brian Ritchie played together in the
bands the Ruthless Acoustics and the Rhomboids before hooking
up with Gordon Gano to form the Violent Femmes.
On most of the V.F.'s albums, Victor played
a minimalist drum kit consisting of only a snare, a kick drum,
and an invention of his own called the "tranceaphone",
which was basically a steel washtub turned upside down over
a floor tom! He generally played with brushes rather than
sticks. His musical influences include a lot of jazz, the
Beatles and the Beach Boys.
Victor left the band in 1993, citing "musical differences".
Gordon has said that he simply grew bored after so many years
with the band. He was replaced by Guy Hoffman. Victor has
gone on to record several solo albums at his studio, jOeS',
in Milwaukee. The first was entitled "Peter Corey Sent
Me", on Dali/Chameleon, 1990; the second, "Pancake
Day" (named for an annual event in his hometown of Racine,
WI), was released by Almo
Sounds, a division of Geffen Records, in 1996. Most recently
he has self-produced "The Blessed Faustina", which
can be purchased through his website at http://www.victordelorenzo.com
. He has also performed and recorded with the band Sublime
Nation.
He has remained active in theater. Since
leaving the Femmes, he has played the lead role of Berenger
in Theatre X's production of Eugene Ionesco's classic play
"Rhinoceros," played the part of Oscar Wilde in
a staging of "Lord Alfred's Lover," by Eric Bentley,
and won the sheriff's role in the cult horror film "The
Unearthing," which was screened at the Sundance Film
Festival. He still lives and works in Milwaukee.
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