Vessio: FSSA’s Resident Rock Stars

As a student at an arts school, do you ever look around and wonder which of your friends are going to get famous? Well, Dante Vessio and his sister Misia, a graduate of the class of 2014, are those kids. They make up the band Vessio, which just released their self-titled debut album.

Their music is classic rock with a blues twist, some of their influences being Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The White Stripes, and Radiohead. In their song “Ricochet Blues” there is a catchy hard rock riff that at points quickly shifts over to a slightly more laid back blues portion, until the song picks up again. It sounds like something you would have heard on the radio in the ’70s, reminiscent of Led Zeppelin. They used to play gigs in Astoria bars, until a music producer named Carmine Gonzalez found them. Gonzalez signed them to his own independent record label Loss4Words Production.

Misia and Dante started playing drums at a very young age, and both picked up guitar before they decided to form their band when he was just 12 and she was 15. Dante described their beginning as: “We always wanted to make a band, y’know brother-sister, like The White Stripes. It started off with me on drums, but then Misia got a little bored up front so she went back to playing drums, and we just played a bunch of shows.”

Although Dante is a rock star he’s still in high school here at FSSA, and plays in our jazz band.

“Jazz band every ninth period is awesome! It’s the only band in this school that you don’t need to read off the paper for. You can be free and play what you want to play, and if you have input on something Mr. Stevens is open to it. We get to play the music our way.”

In addition to the Jazz band and Vessio, Dante also plays in a third band named Birds In The Bone Yard. All of this musical talent doesn’t just come from nowhere, it takes practice.

“I used to practice guitar a lot, but for the last month I’ve been practicing drums, cause I just got in this new band that I’m the drummer for. So I’ve been practicing about an hour a night probably, and writing for like an hour and a half,” he adds.

When asked whether he liked guitar or drums more he said that they were both equal to him because, “On the guitar you can write and create songs, but with the drums you hold the whole band down with the rhythm, you can’t have music without rhythm,” says Dante.

His favorite subject in school is gym because he gets to run around and not sit in a chair, and believes that he can do better in school but it’s not really his thing.

“There’s people who become doctors and rocket scientists, but that’s just not me,” he added.

This past summer Vessio’s performance in Flushing Meadows Park was featured in The Daily News. They’ve also appeared on various television shows, such as “The Groove Masters Show” and “The Next Great Family Band.” Misia also did a GAP TV commercial with Tony Bennett that won an award, and was also in a VEVO online serious named “You Play Like a Girl.”

“A big thing that we go by is that we don’t want to be the common rock stars with the nice cars and the nice bling bling,” says Dante. “So we decided that if we ever do a major tour or something and get that lucky, every city we play in, a major portion of the money would go to charity in that city. Who needs that much money?”

This is the guiding principal behind Vessio. You can check them out on their website www.vessiomusic.com where you can buy their album or check out their music on YouTube.

– by Winston Klapper ’15