Meet the band Venice

Today we’d like to introduce you to Venice’s Michael Lennon.

Let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Venice is a band of two sets of brothers who are cousins. Our musical family, Lennon, has been in Venice Beach, CA for over 100 years. Our fathers, the Lennon Brothers, went to Venice High and sang together on radio and made 79rpm LP’s in the 50’s. Following in that tradition, my cousins who are Kipp’s older sisters were American TV stars from the Lawrence Welk show, the Lennon Sisters. They were on TV and recorded albums through the 60’s and 70’s and still perform to this day. My cousin Kipp and I (Michael) started the band Venice in 1977, just out of high school. What started out as a cover band, playing other artist’s songs, slowly transitioned into an original band, writing and performing our own songs.  A few years after we formed the band we asked my brother Mark to join and then Kipp’s brother Pat joined shortly after that to make us a band of 4 Lennons. This is when our signature sound and 4 part harmonies developed, which set us apart from most bands.

In the early years we played Gazzarris on Sunset Strip where legendary rock band Van Halen was discovered but after years of playing sunset strip along with many weddings and parties we slowly added more cities and venues to our gig calendar. In the mid 80’s we started recording our songs in our home studio and now 40+ years later we’re soon to be releasing album number 22, “Jacaranda Street”, that we recorded in the living room of our family home in Venice, CA.

The members of Venice have toured or recorded with some of the biggest names in Rock history; Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Roger Waters (Pink Floyd), Stevie Nicks, Phil Collins & Cher, to name a few.

We have a Gold record in Holland and tour Europe twice a year in between our gigs in the states. We are big supporters of our community and our non-profit organization that puts on concerts to raise money for the Arts has raised over 1 million dollars for the Arts programs in local public schools.

There are over 400 Lennons that live in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. Its hard to go anywhere that we don’t meet someone that knows someone in the Lennon family. We are proud of our roots…and our city!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There were definitely some ups and downs over the years; Vocal chord issues from singing too much, horrible gigs in states far from home where 2 people showed up. Years in between record label deals when we considered quitting. We even lost musicians we had added to the line up of 4 Lennons to make a bigger sound. But being from a big family in LA, the four of us always seemed to pull through and stick out the hard times. Now were stronger than ever….thanks to the years of laughter…and not taking ourselves too seriously. The ability to laugh at the worst of situations is what saved us. Thank you parents!

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We are extremely excited about our upcoming release of our new album “Jacaranda Street” that hits the streets on April 12, 2019. We follow the release with a big Beach Life Festival in Redondo Beach, CA, and then in June we return to Europe for some outdoor or open air concerts. This new album is a world wide release so we’re hoping it will also take us to other parts of the world that we have not yet conquered!

Contact Info:

• Website: Venicetheband.com
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credit:
Lisa Franchot

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