Intoxicating sounds
Cutting-edge a cappella group makes sweet, strange music
By Karen Rivers
 Published: September 9, 2007
 

INTERMISSION

When it comes to musical inspiration, René Ruiz looks to the best.

He likes to study the bass skills of American virtuoso Jaco Pastorius, for instance. He listens closely to the drumming of the late, great Buddy Rich.

When Ruiz takes the stage at the University of Notre Dame's DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, it'll be interesting to see if either of those influences shines through. It'll be particularly interesting because Ruiz doesn't actually play the bass or the drums.

Confused?

Ruiz is a member of the a cappella quintet Toxic Audio, and their performances, he confesses slyly, are "a little bit of a magic show."

With the help of a sound man and nothing else (no backing tracks, no band), Toxic Audio tackles everything from The Beatles to jazz standards, from show tunes to Britney Spears, and they sound like an instrumental ensemble when they do it. (Ruiz is often the man behind the drum and bass parts). The five singers wow audiences with their vocal tricks and acrobatics, combining harmonies, sound effects, comedy and theatrics into something interactive and unique.

No one in the group actually speaks to the audience during the show, but characters do emerge through other means. Toxic Audio's performance is more of a theatrical experience than a concert.

"The bottom line is, every song that we do, we try to perform in a way that the audience has never heard before," Ruiz says by telephone from Las Vegas, where the group has a gig.

He and his fellow singers always are listening to popular music, searching for ways to take familiar songs, tweak them and make them into something new.

Because no sheet music exists for how to make five voices sound like a full-out rendition of an Elvis song, the group has to work everything out on their own.

"To travel with us as a band is to be amazed and appalled at the things we experiment with and all the sounds effects we come up with," Ruiz says, laughing.

They make the magic happen through a process called "woodshedding."

"We all start to sing, and our ears will tell us where the holes are, what parts need to be filled in and added until it sounds seamless, sounds full," Ruiz says.

As for Ruiz, he may have to figure out how to sound like any number of percussion elements -- a cymbal, a high hat, a wood block. And yes, listening closely to all those bass and drum greats does help.

"It's fascinating," he says. "You're not studying their techniques. ... You're studying the sounds they're creating."

It's hard to say exactly what songs Toxic Audio will perform at DeBartolo because the group doesn't like to plan too far in advance. In fact, when Toxic Audio performed at DeBartolo in 2005, they first made a stop by one of Notre Dame's campus dining spots (Ruiz wasn't sure which one) to give a mini-performance. That helped them decide exactly what to include that evening.

"Each time the audience goes to (one of our shows), it's going to be different," Ruiz says.

The group formed in Orlando in 1998, when all the members were working at Walt Disney World, so it's not surprising they know how to entertain. More than that, though, Ruiz likes to the think that Toxic Audio is re-imagining popular songs into a new theatrical experience, much the way "Stomp" re-imagined percussion as a new theatrical experience.

Their performance leaves the audience pondering the human voice and all its possibilities. The crowd really listens. Silences become powerful, Ruiz says, and so do the little noises that break them.

"To hear the audience react to the smallest little noise that we can make with our voices -- it's an inspiring thing."

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