The room right next to Jackie Popovec’s kitchen is supposed to be the dining room. But with guitars on the wall, other instruments and amps scattered about and freshly arrived merch nearby, the singer of The Vindys just laughs off the room’s transition.
“Loading our stuff in and out of the trailer, we needed a space,” Popovec said Monday after wiping off her web cam with a new tour T-shirt. “So now this is like everything. You don’t even see all this (stuff). It’s a mess. It’s a mess.”
The room may be a little chaotic, but that’s because the band based out of Youngstown, Ohio, is prepping for what Popovec views as a potentially career-altering slot opening for Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo this summer.
Asked if the nationwide tour is one of the biggest things to happen to The Vindys, Popovec was quick to emphasize where it stood:
“The. The biggest thing,” she said. “The band has been together for 10 years, and we’ve had these tiny little wins here and there: getting a license with ESPN; getting some cool shows with ZZ Top or Hunter Hayes or Marty Stuart, the list goes on. This tour will be our first national tour, so this is what we’ve always wanted and here we are 10 years in, and this was just such a surprise to us and now we’re ready, we are so ready for this, so excited.”
The request to join the tour came while Popovec and her boyfriend, The Vindys’ rhythm guitarist Rick Deak, were vacationing in Italy.
“It was over dinner and we’re like, eh, that’s Beverly Hills. Should we answer it?” she recalled. “And we answered it, and for the next 20 minutes — which we would never be like phone people at a nice dinner restaurant — the next 20 minutes we’re like, ‘Can you do the tour? Can you do the tour? Who’s able to do this tour?’ And thank God we were able to figure out getting out of our other projects and working.”
The Vindys had twice opened for Benatar in 2019, but this will be their first full tour together.
“Pat requested my information after that. She gifted me a bottle of champagne, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, Pat Benatar likes me,’” she said. “And I’m the kind of person, when I open up for a national act like that, I hide. I don’t want to be in their way, I don’t want to ask them for anything, I just want to make sure that they’re happy and we’re just staying out of the way. Get in, get out, that’s our motto.”
Popovec made enough of an impression to earn an audition for a Broadway show featuring the music of Benatar and Giraldo set to a modern version of “Romeo and Juliet.”
“I didn’t make it, but it was really cool to see them plus 10 producers for the show on a Zoom call, and me trying to fumble through lines. I had no idea what I was doing. But I was like, I’ll never see her again,” she said with a laugh. “And here we are getting the coolest opportunity ever.”
The Vindys have “family-sized” their band up to nine members in recent years with a horn section, but this tour will only feature a slimmed-down six-piece version of the band: Popovec, Deak, lead guitarist John Anthony, bassist Brendan Burke, drummer Owen Davis and keyboardist Nathan Anthony. The other band members have fulltime jobs — including several who are teachers — with the exception of Popovec, who quit her side hustles and day jobs last February to focus on The Vindys.
“Since then, I feel like my focus and the opportunities have come even more regularly because of our work behind the scenes. We all have our own jobs, and it really takes a village of people in this area, not just the band, but beyond that to put this band on the road, to get our singles out there, our music out there as well.
“So that’s my goal is to make sure that everyone quits their job,” she said with a laugh, “eventually.”
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The Vindys have made a name for themselves in Pittsburgh, whether it’s been opening Donnie Iris’ last two shows at the UPMC Events Center, playing with Heart at the Women Who Rock benefit at Stage AE, taking the stage at the WonderWorks Festival or appearing on the Pittsburgh Pirates’ “Friday Night Rocks.”
With all those big-name events noted, Popovec is looking forward to — and actually a little nervous — about the band’s headlining show June 22 at Thunderbird Music Hall in Lawrenceville.
“The market in Pittsburgh confuses me because it’s all so much of everything. I feel like it’s like a town of small towns everywhere,” she said. “We’ve done Club Cafe, we’ve done Jergel’s. We just haven’t had a good home base where we can kinda grow from.
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“While Club Cafe is great, I hate parking over there (on the South Side). I mean, we’re the band playing at Club Cafe; meanwhile I loaded my stuff and then our Jeep gets towed.
“I just can’t win,” she added with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Is it OK if I park here for 20 minutes?’ No, it’s not.”
The parking situation, unfortunately, might not be much better in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood.
“Youngstown people, they don’t go anywhere if it’s not like an open parking lot,” she said with a laugh. “I feel like the older I get, the more I’m like, the city? Are you sure? You want to go in?”
No matter the venue, Popovec and her soulful, powerhouse voice will be on display.
“For me personally, I’m a little bit of a chameleon and I kind of own that even though some people don’t think that’s a great thing, that they can’t put me in a box,” she said. “But if I’m playing a supper club, you’re gonna get supper club Jackie. And if I’m playing an arena, you’re getting arena Jackie.”
The upcoming tour actually delayed plans for a new album, but The Vindys are slated to release a new single, “Elton Glasses Baby,” on July 12.
“It’s a little bit different, so I’m curious to see what people think about it,” she said. “A little bit dance-ier, and that kind of coincides with our latest music festival stuff that we’ve been doing and noticing that all of our songs are kind of dark and rocky. I was like, we gotta lighten it up a little bit for some of these summer-y things that we do, and and so that kind of came out of that. So it’s fun.”
Mike Palm is a TribLive digital producer who also writes music reviews and features. A Westmoreland County native, he joined the Trib in 2001, where he spent years on the sports copy desk, including serving as night sports editor. He has been with the multimedia staff since 2013. He can be reached at mpalm@triblive.com.