With sixteen groups based in New England – and even one in Portland, Oregon – Rock Voices is on a mission to heal its members and others through song.
Tony Lechner founded the adult, no-audition community choir in 2012, and since the group has helped members discover the joy of singing their favorite rock music as a collective.
Rock Voices members Julie Smith and Kate Pawul, along with Lechner, joined Zydalis Bauer to share how this group has impacted their lives.
This interview originally aired on February 24, 2022.
Read the full transcript:
Zydalis Bauer, Connecting Point: With 16 groups throughout New England — and even one in Portland, Oregon — the mission of rock voices is to heal its members and others through song.
This adult, no audition community choir was founded in 2012 by director Tony Lechner and has helped members discover the joy of singing their favorite rock music as a collective.
Lechner and members Julie Smith and Kate Powell join me to share how this group has impacted their lives.
Tony Lechner, Rock Voices: We took out an ad in the paper saying “who wants to sing rock and roll?” And around 50 people showed up, none of whom I had ever met before, except maybe one of them I knew.
Why? Is because I had spent my life in music, studying it and teaching it, and have always thought that there was a…there was something about choral music that kept everyone from being able to do it. It feels a little bit out of reach to people because it’s often in other languages, you often need to read music to participate. It’s a barrier for people. Which is ironic because singing is probably — it’s the oldest instrument in existence and all humans have been able to sing since the beginning of time. And we’ve evolved to this careful setting aside of singing for only certain kinds of people.
So my wife, Sarah and I were thinking one night, you know, “What if there was just a choir for singing whatever people want to sing nowadays, popular music?” And we just did it on a whim.
Zydalis Bauer: You mentioned that 50 people showed up after that first ad was put in the newspaper.
Did that response surprise you? And how has the community responded throughout the years?
Tony Lechner: Yeah, it surprised me. I think it surprised them, too. Because I got there late and there was a line out the door, 50 people waiting to get in for me to unlock the door of the building we were renting. I think we were all surprised because none of us knew — me included — what was going to happen. I thought maybe five people would show up. Maybe, maybe a hundred. I had no idea.
Zydalis Bauer: So Kate and Julie, as one of those original people that responded to the ad, what made you want to go check out what Rock Voices was and were you also surprised to see how many people showed up as well?
Julie Smith, Rock Voices: It was a really small ad, and it just said, “Do you like to sing?” I think it might have said, “Do you like to sing in the shower?” And and I and I thought, “Well, yeah, I love to sing!”
And I had been looking for a choir I could join that wasn’t…I didn’t want to do women’s music and I didn’t want to do international music. I wanted to sing exactly what Tony said. The songs I grew up singing, the songs I sang in my car all the time. You know, I wanted to sing rock and roll, and there — there just wasn’t a choir doing that.
So it was really, I mean, and he delivered that first night. We were, you know, he was — he was, you know, handing out sheet music for songs that that I loved and knew pretty well. Or at least I thought I did! So yeah, it was really..it was just it was magic. It really was.
Kate Pawul, Rock Voices: I, unlike Julie, didn’t know I was looking. It just it — just found me. I, you know, I’ve been going to concerts all my life. That’s one of my absolute favorite things to do. And I’ve always sung to myself! Or to anybody who’s in the car with me.
I don’t read music. I still don’t really read music. Don’t listen. Because you don’t have to! And I felt like Julie did just giddy, giddy with glee that we got to sing along with people with songs that we knew, songs that we’ve grown up with, songs that we’ve loved in a way that nobody was going to make fun of us or or say,”You’re singing the wrong part” or or anything.
Zydalis Bauer: Tony, at one point you were juggling being a teacher, directing both a jazz choir and Rock Voices, on top of being a dad to two very young children. You decided to take the risky and difficult decision to quit the other commitments and focus full time on Rock Voices.
Why did you believe in this group so much?
Tony Lechner: If you listen to what the two of them just said, multiply that by, you know, 10, 20 other people and picture them all in a room before our first concert. Everyone’s super excited. We’ve only been singing for three months. We’re all about to go out and do this concert with a live band, that most of them had never done before. And everyone — the power, the energy, the positive — everything about it was overwhelming. And I looked around and I had been thinking about this for weeks.
But I knew at that moment after our soundcheck that I had to quit my job. And it just felt like the right thing to do. It was…it’s rare to meet with that much amazing, positive creative energy so soon after starting something.
Zydalis Bauer: Yeah, and Nate Altomare, who helped take up the charge to expand rock voices throughout New England, in an article, he said that “the community rivals the musicality of this group.”
And in a time like we are in right now where it’s difficult to be together as we once were, how do you maintain the community within the group?
Tony Lechner: It’s hard because we can’t..we haven’t been meeting in person for two years now. We’ve continued on Zoom, which is…has limitations. You can’t sing in real time together and hear each other. We’ve kept rehearsals going as best we could.
It’s funny with people, so many people isolated and shut in or self-quarantining, this is one of the few things they get to do where they can see other people. It’s a social out for them — outlet once a week, one night a week. And…it provides something for them that they’re missing for the past two years. So even with the quarantine and the pandemic we’re still, ironically still able to provide something social and musical in nature for people.
But it definitely has been a strain to — to — to do it because singing should be about being together and making music together.
Zydalis Bauer: And you still are making music together because you’ll be making a CD if I’m correct?
Tony Lechner: Yeah!
Zydalis Bauer: Yeah.
Tony Lechner: Two CDs!
Zydalis Bauer: So tell me more about that.
Tony Lechner: We have too many songs for one CD, so now it’s going to be two CDs. And we’ve been putting out virtual choir videos, which is all the rage now that the pandemic started.
We’ve got four or five of them out already and a bunch more in the works. We found ways to make it interesting and fun for people.
Zydalis Bauer: Well, and I know that there is a lot of community within the group because, as I mentioned earlier before we started recording, back in 2013 Rock Voices was featured on our choral competition series Together in Song. I worked on that show and I witnessed firsthand the camaraderie that existed within the group.
So, Kate and Julie and even Tony, tell me about the community that you have built and how it’s helped heal yourselves and others during difficult times in your lives, or even even during the good times?
Julie Smith: I think it when it began, it was really understanding for me that I had met my people. You know, it was that experience of somebody would make a silly joke and someone else would inevitably find a song lyric that matched up perfectly with that silly joke, that that type of thing. And Tony was the master of all of that.
And so, you know, we were in the room with this guy who played piano amazingly well and was so gifted and could could just, you know, in this sort of Robin Williams style, just riff off of the whole thing that we threw at him. So, he was immensely entertaining, but it was also for each of us, we were engaged with one another in this way.
Zydalis Bauer: Tell me about some moments, you know, personally, how the group has helped you heal or just build community? Like what have you found within the group?
Julie Smith: You know, I’m going to share a very personal story. I was…I was with my brother in — in — in his hospital room, he was dying. And it was…I can’t remember how many years ago it was now, I’m going to say it was at least six or seven years ago. And I was singing to him, because my brother liked the sound of my voice and always said to me, “I love to listen to you sing.” And I was singing to him and I stopped…I stopped singing at some point and I stepped out of the room to kind of just, you know, take a breather and my phone dinged.
And I looked down and it was a text photo from Kate of six or seven of my very closest friends in choir, all smiling at me, you know, on this day when I was so I was, I was…I felt so broken. And it was it was as though people just reached out and I mean, Kate thought of it, and it’s why we’re the closest of friends forever now, it feels like. But you know, the fact that people took that moment in the middle of a rehearsal to kind of, you know, huddle over to one side and send this to Julie? It meant the world to me. It really did.
And I see that picture comes up every year and my Facebook feed, right? And I, every time I see it, I just get so choked up. There’s just an enormous amount of support and acceptance and kindness, and all of it wrapped in this love of music. It’s really it’s really amazing.
Kate Pawul: You don’t know that you’ve met your best friends, you know? You don’t you don’t like, go into a place thinking, “This is where I’m going to meet my favorite people.” You know?
And maybe even somewhat, you think you might be past that point in your life. You know, I mean, it’s an adult choir, right? So, when you think of your best friends in your life, you generally think of, I don’t know, grade school, high school, college, and then that’s it, you know? And then you have your quote unquote work friends, which aren’t always the same in your head, and they don’t maybe give you the same amount of fun that you associate with with your early childhood, right? B
ut now there is this whole other world that opened up with associations and a commonality and love and support. And like Julie said, there…there’s all these people that are our people. And Tony’s definitely providing the stage for — the literal stage — for all of this to happen.
And to do it in a way which we are not just being friendly together, but we’re also making this production of a beautiful stage performance and — and beautiful CDs. And, you know, the talent of the people that are involved is just astounding in every which way.
Zydalis Bauer: If somebody out there is hesitant to join a singing group or thinks maybe my voice isn’t good enough to join, what would you say to them to help change their minds?
Julie Smith: If there’s even even an inkling that you want to sing, this is a group that will give you all the support you need to do it. You can blend in and not really hear your voice among all the other voices. Just hear the blend. Or you can decide, “Wow, I want to go for a solo!” And the solos are audition based.
And so — so you really get to choose how much exposure you’re going to have and how much you’re going to push yourself. And and. I can’t think of a better format for someone who isn’t quite sure than a choir — than Rock Voices, I really can’t.
