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GREAT PERFORMANCES: Your childhood friend Rod Dixon has been spilling all kinds of secrets about you.
VICTOR TRENT COOK: Yeah, we were in choir school together. I met him about, I think I was nine, he was 10, and we attended Brooklyn Boys Chorus under James McCarthy, who's in Los Angeles at this time, and that's where we got our musical training.
GP: You've remained friends, but when you were children, did you ever have a sense of competition between the two of you?
VTC: I think we intrigued each other rather than trying to compete with each other. It was interesting for us to explore each other['s] talents and to make good music. And both of us are preacher's kids, what they call PKs.
GP: I didn't know there was a name for it.
VTC: Yeah, preacher's kids [are called] PKs. His father's a pastor and my father's a pastor. We both played B3 Hammond organ, piano, and he used to play for his church. Actually, that's how we really met, because he started playing a song called "Soon and Very Soon I'm Going to Meet the King," and I heard him. We started singing together, and we did a duet, and then our teacher saw us and he said he wanted us to do a duet in choir school. It's so ironic because on our next album [VOLUME ONE] we're doing a duet.
GP: You don't usually do duets in concert?
VTC: Well, not really. Last time, me and Thomas Young did a duet. We did "I'm Not Around" and "Nothing's Gonna Harm You." But me and Rodrick, we're doing "Home" and "Bring Him Home." It's just funny how you learn stuff and you go right back to it.
GP: When you guys go to the malls, do you buy things, or is it just exploration? What's your greatest indulgence?
VTC: Thomas, he's like a black Japanese. He loves technology, so he will buy computers ... and iPods. Rod is going to buy books, and I'm going to buy clothing. ... And where I'm not advanced in technology, Thomas will tell me, "This is what you need," or Rodrick will tell me, "Read this book." We just complement each other. I say, "Well, you need to try on this shirt."
GP: You wear the flashier clothes in the performance. In your offstage moments do you pay a lot of attention to your dress?
VTC: I've been experiencing so many different types of clothing, I mean, European designers and all that stuff. I love clothing. I do have a knack for [it].
GP: Can we talk a little about being a countertenor? Did you know you were a countertenor when your voice began to change?
VTC: Well, actually that's a good question. When my voice changed, I didn't sing for about a year and a half, because I was so petrified. ... I was, like, beyond first soprano, my voice was so high. People couldn't believe it. I had those Minnie Riperton notes, or when Mariah has those high-high, I had all of that. And when my voice changed, I was so devastated ... so depressed at that moment, I could not sing anything. ... My voice changed early, about like 10, 11, and all of a sudden this [new] voice came out of nowhere, and this upper register came, and I don't know how to describe it. When I graduated from high school, I tried to go to college; three colleges told me to come back when [my] voice settles. And I said, "Well, this is my voice," and they turned me down. ... At the time, I didn't know that there was a school for countertenors.
GP: So there's a special place to go for this type of voice?
VTC: It's not a special school, but they['re] what you call a preparatory school, and it's for countertenors. You have to sing tenor, but you learn countertenor repertoire. But ... after this voice came, I just began to sing and sing and ... it's gotten stronger and stronger. Some people like it, some people don't, but you know, I have to be me. ... [It] has been an advantage and it's been a disadvantage.
Interview by writer Jaan Uhelszki for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online.
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