The Very are Jake Miller and Robin Von Blitz. Jake Miller is half-Canadian but was born in Scotland and lived there as a child. He spent most of his teenage years either skateboarding or playing the drums, an instrument his Folk-loving father suggested to him at the tender age of 11. “I would watch the drummers in the marching bands”, Jake remembers, “and just knew that’s what I wanted to be doing.”
Discography: The peak of his early folk career was a stadium gig in Canada with a pipe band on tour in North America. Jake then discovered rock’n’roll, joined a Jimi Hendrix covers band at school, went on to study drumming at a Music College and became a musician for hire in studios in Edinburgh and Glasgow. He also played in countless local bands, his obvious talent often sticking out like a sore (drummer’s) thumb.  In late 2004 Jake Miller met Robin Von Blitz (then still known as Robin Schlochtermeier) through an ad in a drumming shop Robin had placed there. Robin was born in Munich and lived in Germany until he was 19. He was subject to a musical education from an even earlier age than Jake. “My parents made me pick up the violin when I was 6,” he says. “I never really enjoyed it though, I was far too lazy to learn how to master an instrument like that.” His first guitar was a cardboard cut-out with washing line strings, at which point his mother took pity on him and bought him a proper electric guitar. Robin played in a few different bands as a teenager, not many of which went beyond the jamming-in-a-basement stage, then started a flirtation with Buddhism and sold his music collection, stereo and guitar and left to study philosophy at university. When Jake met him he had finished his degree and had, after wondering what to do with his life, decided to give music a shot again.
When Jake and Robin first played together, “there was a definite chemistry in the air”, Robin says. “We both knew that we clicked musically from the word go.” However, the start wasn’t easy. “In the beginning, Robin was very much the driving force of the band,” Jake admits. “Often we wouldn’t practice for weeks because I had other things on and it took about seven months for us to get a decent live set together.”
When they started playing live at The Forest café where the two now have their practice and recording studio, reactions were overwhelming. “We played our first few gigs and people, friends, were like, ‘oh my god! what the fuck was that!’ to us afterwards.”, says Robin. “People were dancing like crazy. One extremely happy punter kept on telling us to ‘get our fucking name out there’. So we thought, fair enough, let’s do that!”
After their live debut in July 2004, The Very made regular live appearances, mainly in Edinburgh but soon also in Glasgow. Early support came from Radio Scotland and Radio One DJ Vic Galloway who played a recording of “Dancefloor Hell” on his Radio One shows in November and December 2004. Around the same time they were finalists in Scotland-wide talent contest “East meets West” at the Glasgow Barrowlands.
In early 2005, the band supported the then-unknown Mystery Jets at Edinburgh Art College. More recognition from Vic Galloway followed with one live session for BBC Scotland and one pre-recorded session for Radio One. That year, they played several industry showcases including goNorth in Aberdeen, goHI in Inverness and In The City in Manchester. They were also among 12 bands to be selected from over 700 applicants to play the T-Break stage at T in the Park in July 2005. With their appearance at T in the Park, the press were falling over themselves to cover the band, leading to a piece in the Scottish Sun five times longer than K T Tunstall’s coverage, a raving review by local Edinburgh paper The Evening News which singled out The Very’s as the best performance at the festival and an appearance in Dazed and Confused.
In late November 2005, a promotional video of “Dancefloor Hell” filmed by BBC Scotland was shown on BBC2’s Music Show. Also in November, The Very were featured as Beatbreakers on Radio Beat 106 (now Xfm Scotland) DJ Jim Gellatly’s Beatscene.
While this was happening, they took off for their first international appearances in Oslo (Norway) and Athens (Greece), intimate memories of which Jake has started sharing on the band’s website. “Jake’s Diary is hilarious.” says Robin. “Jake clearly has a great talent for writing.”
In February 2006, Steve Lamacq (6Music) invited The Very to support Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at their gig in Edinburgh which he was hosting, playing extracts from their live set (including “Robot”) and an interview on his “In The City” radio show the next day.
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