A Q&A with Jorma Vik and Tamara Raye Vik, recently married musicians who are far more charming than Sid and Nancy.
Words by Staff
Photography by Heidi Zumbrun, Josh Kurpius and Buddy Wilinski
Music and Harley-Davidsons are a harmoniously intertwined match, with our motorcycles inspiring generations of musicians from every genre, and their songs becoming our beloved anthems on the open road.
For the introduction on the 2024 Tobacco Fade Enthusiast Collection, we rode with recently married rocker couple Jorma Vik, who played drums in Eagles of Death Metal, and Tamara Raye Vik, who plays bass in Wargirl.
Harley-Davidson: How did you find your way to the stage?
Jorma Vik: One fateful evening I was enjoying a cold beverage at a Los Angeles club when I had a chance conversation with a group of patrons who happened to be in the band Eagles of Death Metal. A fast friendship formed and by the end of the night I’d joined their band. One rehearsal later I found myself halfway across the world with a group of dudes I’d just met, performing in front of tens of thousands of people.
Tammi Raye Vik: In 2018, I worked on a motorcycle shoot with photographer Matt Wignall, who had just started the Wargirl project, which at the time was a collaboration between several artists, including members of Cold War Kids. Over the next year the band morphed into its permanent lineup of Long Beach-based misfits, and a beautiful musical partnership was forged.
“Motorcycles were the connective tissue that led us to discover that we are the exact same brand of weirdos that wanted to be weirdos together.”
Harley-Davidson: How did you start down a path into the music industry?
Jorma Vik: I knew early on in life that I wanted to pursue a career in music. I finished high school and moved to LA to go to music school. Three months later joined a band and started touring, and I’m wondering where the past 25 years went!
Tammi Raye Vik: From a very young age, I was a classically trained violinist, and from there I never put down a stringed instrument. I used to sneak into my older brother’s room and teach myself guitar, and ultimately picked up bass. Music was my first passion, before motorcycles, before anything else it was the one thing that I could connect and relate to.
Harley-Davidson: What is one of your favorite memories from being on tour?
Jorma Vik: I’d always tack a motorcycle trip onto an international tour. One time I flew into Australia a week prior to the start of a Bronx tour and did a life-changing solo trip thru the rainforests and national parks around Queensland and New South Wales.
Tammi Raye Vik: My favorite memory with Wargirl wasn’t from a tour, but rather a trip to Mal Pais, Costa Rica, where we recorded our first LP. There were torrential downpours for days, and we were stuck with limited supplies in a recording studio high up in the hills, and the power kept going out. We did take after take, and the emotional fire in the room helped us get through some of those early songs in a way that we would not have otherwise captured. When the storm broke, we immediately went out, rented motorcycles, and rode through the jungles and various small villages.
Harley-Davidson: How did you two find each other and decide to spend life together?
Jorma Vik: It may sound like bullshit but we in fact did find each other thru our love of motorcycles. We have mutual circles of friends who we both rode with and would eventually meet thru. After finding that we had so much in common, we became best friends, and the only logical thing left to do at that point was to get married.
Tammi Raye Vik: Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Motorcycles were the connective tissue that led us to discover that we are pretty much the exact same brand of weirdos that wanted to be weirdos together. There was a gravitational pull that brought us together, and, well, you can’t deny physics.
“Motorcycles and music, respectively, are a universal language— a Rosetta Stone that has the power to bring people together in ways that do not depend on background, nationality, location, or time.”
Harley-Davidson: How is music a muse in your life together?
Jorma Vik: There’s always music playing in our house. Our taste in music is very similar, but I like to think that we both fill in voids in each other’s respective record collections; if you’re ever thumbing through the vinyl at our house, the Zeppelin is mine, the weirdo 60’s French pop stuff is hers.
Tammi Raye Vik: Hey, if you need any bizarre French psyche-pop, I got you covered. Music is a constant. It can make you move, start a conversation, inspire a project, melt your mind, warm your heart. Music is the mood that you live your life surrounded by. It is the lifeblood of creativity, something that we simply cannot live without.
Harley-Davidson: And the sentiment is the same for motorcycles, yeah?
Tammi Raye Vik: Our bikes are like family members. We plan trips around them, weekend projects around them, major investments around them. They are always top of mind when we talk about our next adventures, goals, and dreams. They not only influence day-to-day life but are an integral part of each day.
Jorma Vik: We have a slew of temperamental old bikes that require a lot of affection and attention. If we’re not out riding them, we’re typically in the garage telling them how much we love them or swearing at them.
Harley-Davidson: Why do you think motorcycles and music go together so naturally?
Tammi Raye Vik: Motorcycles and music, respectively, are a universal language— a Rosetta Stone that has the power to bring people together in ways that do not depend on background, nationality, location, or time. In motorcycling, it doesn’t matter what you ride, just that you ride. In music, it doesn’t matter what you play, just that you play. Motorcycles and music are both visceral experiences that get under your skin, that you can feel in your bones, rumbling in your soul. That is the very essence of the human experience.
