Vanity Draws Blood [Interview]
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Sometimes interviews don’t go quite the way you expected them to. Preparing to pepper horror metallers Vanity Draws Blood with the questions answered in fantastic detail below, I expected to come away with multiple references to Satanism and small animal sacrifices. Instead, the intelligence that permeates their new EP Perspective / / Dread also came to the fore here – as did Pokémon Go, just as I fully evolved my first Pidgeot…
Your new EP Perspective / / Dread is a mini horror concept release. What’s the underlying plot behind the music?
Perspective / / Dread, when listened to literally, is like a soundtrack lifted from a horror movie – but in reality, it is more of a metaphor for mental disorders such as anxiety. We used the powerfully visceral soundscapes to enforce the protagonist’s struggle battling internal demons, losing faith in God and a grip on reality.
The concept explores the idea that everyone has evil within them, dark thoughts that could consume you and paralyse your mind. Self-loathing and inner turmoil that could take over your life if you are too fragile to fight it. The EP is designed to be listened to from start to finish as a body of work, allowing our audience to be fully submerged in the story.
Which movies / books first inspired you to make a concept EP?
We have always been interested in creating a body of work that has more depth to it rather than individual tracks that don’t specifically link. I think it is far more challenging and exciting to create a seamless EP. The music scene is oversaturated and we are trying our best to create something more personal and appealing.
We set out to create an atmosphere in our EP that we carry through our merch and our live performances. So we see ourselves as part of the concept extended from the EP, making it more real and visceral.
We referenced films such as Insidious and Sinister to help influence a lot of the eerie and creepy atmospheric interludes and synths. Whilst watching the films we would take in how the music reflects the moods of certain situations and builds up suspense, then attempted to recreate those feelings in our own music.
Is there a spiritual aspect to what you do?
I wouldn’t say any of us are religious or have any particular faith, but the connection we have with our music and performing it is incredibly emotional for us. We invest so much into our music that our lives are planned around it. We definitely use our music as an emotional outlet and discover more about ourselves along the way.
How did Vanity Draws Blood come to be? What’s your origin story?
We (Luke and Kerrie) originally started writing music under the name Vanity Draws Blood back in 2010, but we don’t really count that because we had no idea what we were doing. Drinking and listening to music was the main source of inspiration back then when writing our own material.
After a long time of not really knowing what we were doing and making questionably terrible music, we set upon a course to create something more our own, more visceral, more real than trying to reproduce something metalcore bands had already done.
Due to lineup changes and the band’s progression, we became a full band in 2012 (Luke, Kerrie, Charles, Elliot.B, Ryan), but the most recent addition to complete the line up is our drummer Elliot.P, who joined in early 2015.
What was your creative process while writing and recording Perspective / / Dread?
We had a set goal and theme in mind and focused very hard on how we wanted to achieve this. With Anxiety, for example, we wanted to create something which likened the feeling of anxiousness by being quite overwhelming.
With our original demos, we worked with different synth sounds to make a very atmospheric vibe and then worked around these sounds and expanded to flesh out the song. Lyrics were then put in place to enhance and emphasise the overall feel of the song. During recording, we worked very closely with Dan Kerr of Avenue Studios, who helped give the songs more life and depth – and we couldn’t be happier with the results.
How would you like to see the world change?
Ideally, we would like to see more people finding happiness in creativeness rather than selfishness and greed.
What are your passions outside of music?
Stereotypically, we are nerds in one way or another as most of us spend our free time console gaming, and cannot get enough of Pokémon Go right now – it’s wasting our lives!
More importantly, we all try to meet up and chill outside of the band or going to gigs. Elliot. P has recently started a YouTube channel ‘J and E’ with a friend outside of the band; he has discovered a passion for videography through this and therefore contributes to a lot of our media content across social media. We are massively influenced by creativity and spend a vast amount of time coming up with new ways to expand and bring attention to our music. We reflect on poetry, films, and literature to expand our knowledge, enabling us to add fresh aspects to our sound that before we may not have considered. We spend long days brainstorming over artwork, social media expansion, as well as many other things.
Beyond the EP release, what do you have planned for the rest of the year?
Following the release, we plan to focus on touring and pushing the new material as much as possible with a brand new set where we play the EP Perspective / / Dread in its entirety. We now have a seamless gig set which embodies every aspect of the EP, including the interludes to keep the atmosphere consistent. We have purposely done this so that the EP is listened to as intended, from start to finish. Plans for material to follow have been confirmed, but we are not able to disclose any more information than that, unfortunately.
We cannot wait to get back on the road and see how people respond to the new music.
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Click here to read my full review of Perspective / / Dread.
Vanity Draws Blood official website.
Image © Jake Owens Photography.