This feature is a part of Ocean State Sessions.
Have you ever seen your favorite band, or a video of theirs, and the lead singer just forgets the lyrics? Now imagine the singer has to remember songs in over 10 languages. That’s the story of Gained In Translation. The band’s lead singer, Victoria Richter, had to learn five languages en route to her PhD, but she says this was never the band’s goal. “I fluently speak maybe around five (languages),” she told us. “This was not the goal of this band; it just happened organically.”
Some of the language choices for the band come from necessity. “We play at an adult daycare yearly, and the owners and a lot of the customers there are Armenian,” Ricther explained. “So they asked us to learn an Armenian song, so we did. And now we have this Armenian song.
Gained In Translation featured 4 other members alongside Victoria Ricther for their Ocean State Sessions performance - Chris Brooks (guitar), John Debossu (bass), Maria Mendico (flute) and Victoria’s husband, Maurice “Mo” Methot (guitar/vocals). “I don’t know if I would call myself a linguist,” Mo joked. “I struggled with English and I speak a smattering of French.”
For Mo, the band is another experimental outlet for his musical creativity. “I went through my punk phase, and I’m still in my experimental phase. And so, I’ve always thought it’s interesting to take music and songs that many people go ‘oh, my God, I can’t believe you’re going to do that!’”
While Victoria and Mo both seem to get something different out of the music they make together, their musical alliance remains strong as ever after over 30 years. “In the vows, he said that we’re going to make beautiful children and beautiful music together.” Those vows were announced in front of over 200,000 people on stage at Woodstock 1994, where Mo and Victoria were married. “My friend who I asked to be the best man is a producer for MTV,” Mo recalled. “He was producing MTV’s broadcast from Woodstock (1994) and he said ‘Mo, I’m sorry, I’m not going to be able to be at your wedding.’” Victoria, ever the adventurous type, found a quick solution. “We’ll just go there,” she decided. What ensued could be considered one of the most famous first kisses in modern times. “That became an Adobe stock photo for a while,” Mo told us. “It was between different shows, MTV used that kiss as a bumper, as an interstitial thing, for a long time.”
Whether they’re at the Providence Wine Bar on a busy Friday night or at the International House of Rhode Island, Gained In Translation continues to be an important part of life for all it’s members. “The cool thing about it is that we both have day jobs,” Mo said of himself and his wife. “So I think we’re doing it for the love of the music.”
