Laundromat patrons, men contemplating their own demise, junkies, lost souls and broken young men: These are the characters that populate the songs of Viva Le Vox, and these are the lives they lead. These glimpses into unseen worlds are set against a backdrop of sleazy Dixieland jazz. In between chopping wood at his brother’s Pennsylvania home, Viva Le Vox songwriter/guitarist/singer Tony Bones tells Buzzbin that early jazz singers, gypsy jazz and old New Orleans funeral marches, along with ’70s punk rock like The Clash, inform the band’s sound. Bones says that when he’s writing songs he usually starts with the music and then sees what lyrics come out of it. “I don’t really try and write any songs, I just kind of let the guitar show itself,” he said. “Someone once told me that playing guitar is like sculpting: You start with a block and then just start chipping away. It’s always more fun that way. Something new always pops up.” When the band first formed, it played at 24-hour laundromats on the Friday nights when it wasn’t booked anywhere else. As word spread, more people began to show up to the laundry gigs. The band members also infiltrated usually acoustic open-mics “guerilla-style,” with all their gear. Performances like these helped them build their original fan base. Over the years the band has gone through a number of member changes with as many as five members at a time, though a four-piece was the longest incarnation. Currently, Viva Le Vox is a two-piece, with just a drummer backing up Bones, though they will be playing some dates this year with former Hank III bassist Joe Buck, who produced Viva Le Vox’s most recent record. The stripped-down number of members have elicited the band’s tightest sound, said Bones. “Me and the drummer have always been sorta the backbone of the music,” he said. “We definitely play the songs a little bit different now, a little bit more rocking now. When we started, we were more of an acoustic act.” While Via Le Vox may come off as a band with a sound unlike anything else, its native Lake Worth and Southern Florida has a strong scene of bands bending the rock and roots genres. “It’s definitely a scene for this folk-punk kind of stuff,” Bones said. “It seems like the whole roots music thing has really been blossoming down there.” The blending of roots music and punk is a natural extension for musicians who have started playing more aggressive styles of rock. “Playing power chords all day only gets you so far when you’re really trying to play,” Bones said. “I’ve seen a lot of folks get into rockabilly and psychobilly, and that kind of lends itself to listening to old country like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams — all that excellence. “You keep digging further back because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good music coming out, at least commercially. It’s like how punk rock started in the ’70s. People were sick of hearing seven-minute rock songs, 10-minute rock songs. They wanted to play something else, and now we call it punk.” Viva Le Vox will be bringing its jazzy punk sounds to Buzzbin’s winter soiree Froth Fest in downtown Canton on January 6. Bones is excited to play again in NEO, especially with acts he’s shared bills with before, like Dolly Rocker Ragdoll and the Misery Jackals. “I saw that both those guys are on the festival, both those artists are doing some pretty cool stuff, along with a lot of the other bands we’ve met in that area,” he said. “People are really appreciative of the music, that’s for sure. It’s a really cool scene going on up there.”