Vic and Gab go a new route

First, the bad news. Pop-rock trio Vic and Gab — arguably one of the city’s best bands and indisputably one of its most popular — is calling it quits following a Pabst Theater show Saturday.

But here’s the good news. The two sisters that lead the group, Victoriah Banuelos and Hannah Gabriela Banuelos, have a new band they hope to introduce by early next year — and incredibly enough, it has the potential to be even better.

When I met up with Victoriah, she let me have an early listen to the forthcoming first single, which the sisters wrote with some collaborators from New Zealand rounded up by their management at Saiko — the same firm that helped make Lorde a superstar. With the dancefriendly, synthesizerheavy track, the sisters have upped the ambition considerably. Victoriah uses the adjective “epic,” and it’s appropriate, but at the same time the personable vibe that made the sisters special in the first place is still intact.

“When we went to L.A. and started writing last September, we were like, this needs to be something else,” Victoriah explained. “It was a hard decision, because we love Vic and Gab. We wanted to keep it untouched.”

The band got off to a great start in 2011, when a song the sisters uploaded online scored a placement on the MTV drama “Skins.” It played for thousands at an Obama rally and was a favorite among WYMS-FM (88.9) listeners. The group was selected as one of the Journal Sentinel’s Wisconsin Bands to Watch and likely booked more gigs than any other local band last year.

So when Vic and Gab announced a farewell concert at the Cactus Club, the demand was so great that the show moved to the 1,300-capacity Pabst.

“I just know I’m going to cry,” Victoriah said of Saturday’s farewell. “It’s going to be so emotional because the songs are so special to us.”

And the sisters will also be parting ways with drummer Jesus Nanez after Saturday’s show.

“Jesus has his own ambitions and goals and music is not his number one priority,” Victoriah said. “He has a lot of business ventures going on. It’s what he likes to pursue, and we respect that.” (Los Angelesbased drummer Patrick Ridgen, whose toured with Halsey, will be in the new band, while the sisters will remain in Milwaukee.)

“There are moments where I feel sad,” Hannah said. “Everything we did with Vic and Gab was so great. There was never a moment where we didn’t feel like we were moving forward.

“But at the same time, we are so ready to move to the next phase. We’ve grown a lot in the last year as writers and singers and musicians, and I’m ready to show that off.”