Pierce The Veil Interview
2012 has been a massive year for San Diego’s Pierce The Veil. In past years they have found themselves on tours with some impressive names, like Bring Me The Horizon, A Day The Remember, Of Mice & Men and Thursday, but this year they landed on Main Stage Warped Tour. If that accomplishment isn’t enough, while on Warper, they are also promoting their brand new album that proves to be the most raw and soulful of their releases thus far.
July 17 marked the day “Collide With The Sky” was released and since then, the album has met an impressively warm welcome, leaving fans and critics singing nothing but praises. Even though the album was leaked online weeks before its release, vocalist Vic Fuentes never once doubted that their fans would remain supportive and do the right thing by the band. “Honestly in the long run leaks don’t really matter. People are going to get their hands on it one way or the other. We actually had a lot of fans who held out and promised us not to listen to the album until it was officially released, as well as a ton of fans who downloaded it and bought it the day it came out. We have the best fans in the fucking world, I love them so much.”
“Collide With The Sky” also marks the band’s first release through Fearless Records which has been more than accommodating during their writing and recording process. Fuentes goes on to elaborate that “Fearless has been very supportive and helpful in the creation of this new album since the beginning when we started writing it over a year ago. The owner Bob even let us use his cabin in Big Bear, California to write. Having a place like that to get away from distractions was really nice”. Eliminating distracting factors and deadline stressors can make all the difference in the end-result of a new album. Being completely comfortable during the creation process was one way that Fuentes felt this album had progressed the most as compared to prior releases. “I put a lot of focus on my vocals for this album. I did all of them with a hand held SM7 microphone, which allowed me to walk, run, jump, crawl on the ground, all around the room while I was singing. So what you are hearing is almost like a live performance. I did them all in a room by myself with no producer present. This left me totally free to do what I wanted and to not feel self-conscious or embarrassed by anything I sang”.
As raw and passionate as the album is, Fuentes still admits to exercising some censorship when it comes to writing because he personally pens every word his sings. “I write all of the lyrics. It needs to be personal to me in order to sing it with real emotion. I censor only when it involves the people that I care about. It’s very rare, but I have rewritten a few things that I thought might be too hurtful if the person ever realised it was about them”. This is an understandable consideration if you listen to any of the songs, both on their prior releases and the new album.
When asked about which song was the most meaningful, he opened up about one particular song that is still a very hurtful topic for him to relive. “”100 Sleepless Nights” is probably the most hard-hitting personally for me. It’s about this girl that I really cared about, we had dated on and off for years. She got pregnant by some other guy and moved away, just as we were getting back together. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault but it was, and still is a very difficult situation. The song describes the night that I found out”.
Aside from deeply personal lyrics, Pierce The Veil are known for creating technical yet enchanting and lively music with a bit of Spanish flair as an honour to their heritage. If you’ve ever listened to Pierce The Veil, then you know exactly how unique their music really is. Unfortunately, uniqueness is not something we see too often. “I don’t really know how to make music any other way. I think as long as you take risks and do everything with soul then you are going to get results that no one else in the world can recreate”. If only more artists held the confidence to follow these wise words. In true Pierce The Veil style, they don’t just stop their genius at composing music. They also spread their creativity into their merchandise, giving fans options to collect items most people would never think to offer. “Well one thing that we did is we tried to get as clever as possible with our pre-order bundles. You could buy custom Pierce The Veil rosaries, vinyl, a lyric book, hell…we even made hot sauce!”
While some songs many have very personal meaning, that doesn’t mean there is any lack of passion for the rest. “I love performing our new single “King For A Day” with Kellin Quinn from Sleeping With Sirens. We have been doing that song every day on Warped Tour and it gets a crazy response from the crowd and it’s so much fun to share the stage with a friend”. Indeed, Pierce The Veil are part of the main stage on this year’s Warped Tour in the USA. As if releasing a brilliant album wasn’t enough excitement for the four-piece, touring with some of their friends and idols certainly would be. “I think the most exciting part is being on tour with so many close friends and so many bands that we have looked up to since we were kids. Hanging out with one of my favorite bands, The Used is still very surreal to me. There are some days where we play in between Taking Back Sunday and New Found Glory, and those are the moments where you ask yourself, how did we get here?” Even in the mass of big names bands on main stage, Fuentes has made time to check out all of the bands on this year’s tour, quickly pinpointing Funeral Party to be his favorite, most underrated band that we should all keep our eyes on.
Even at the level of notoriety that Pierce The Veil have worked hard to gain since their start in 2006, they are not exempt from the typical tour stories and embarrassing moments. “We do a lot of dumb stuff in interviews. I guess the worst was when our friend asked us if we could help him with a photo workshop that he was doing. We were all hung over from playing a big hometown show the night before and the students ended up posting a bunch of horribly edited photos of us online, which are forever haunting our Tumblr page”.
As far as keeping himself healthy in less than ideal conditions, Fuentes offers some advice to other vocalists out on the road. “As a singer, there are a few things that I do. Sleep is very important for a singer, so I try to get as much sleep as possible, though it’s hard sometimes on tour. I have a strict warm up schedule that involves a vocal lesson, stretching, and even a little working out. This helps keep the body healthy by sticking to it every day.” When asked about their next visit to Australian shores, Fuentes tells us that they are trying hard to book into Soundwave. Everyone should go spam AJ now so we can all witness them first hand going mental on a festival stage!
With the momentum gained from “Collide With The Sky” and its incredible release, gracing the main stage of Warped, do not expect Pierce The Veil to slow down any time in the near future. These guys have battled their way to the top and that’s where they plan to stay. With constant progression and genuine devotion to their fan base, they will be ruling their world in no time at all.
Links:
https://www.facebook.com/PierceTheVeil
http://piercetheveil.net
http://twitter.com/piercetheveil
http://youtube.com/piercetheveilchannel
NEW ALBUM ‘COLLIDE WITH THE SKY’ IS OUT NOW:http://smarturl.it/CollideWithTheSky | CATCH US ON THE VANS WARPED TOUR ALL SUMMER!
