On his first day of rest and recovery after seven weeks on the road as part of the Van’s Warped Tour, I thoroughly prepared myself to speak to an artist most likely cranky, stressed and deprived of sleep beyond all belief, and not quite ready to make a long distance call to Australia from Sacramento, California. To my surprise, I found Vic Fuentes, the majestic vocalist of four-piece PIERCE THE VEIL, cheerful, awake and an absolute pleasure to talk to.
The born and bred San Diego band willingly throw themselves under the genre of progressive post-hardcore, which quite frankly does not do them justice. Pierce the Veil possess a sound that should account for a genre in itself, what with their uniquely textured vocals acting as their signature, and their literally indescribable musical concoction produced simply by bass, drums, guitar, screams and clean vocals.
Their newest 14 track album, Selfish Machines, was released in June of this year, and acts as the culmination of four years of progression and self discovery for the band. According to Fuentes, “[the album is] a good representation of how far we’ve gotten.”
The foursome recorded the album in Los Angeles with sound engineer Mike Green, whose extensive experience helped craft what is now the band’s most spectacular record yet. “I’ve never worked with anyone like him before. I could kind of describe him as being everything I’m not.” Fuentes goes on, “he’s very smart about music and he knows a lot about musical theory, all the hard shit; the maths and all the weird shit that I don’t know anything about. I do everything by ear and by feeling and the soul in the music. Everything else I don’t really know much about, so he was cool to have around for all those moments where I needed somebody like that.”
It seems that since its recent release, the album has produced nothing but praise from critics and fans alike, and to my enjoyment, it sounds as though there are many more musical successes to come from the band. “I definitely want to keep progressing with each record, I want it to get better and better,” Fuentes assures. “I’m a big fan of bands that are always progressing and trying new things and staying excited about what they do. I feel sorry for the band that can only scream or play breakdowns or something because I just feel like there’s not a whole lot of places you can go after that.”
To accompany the album’s great success the boys are making their first ever visit to Australia to take part in the 16th annual Take Action Tour. “Australia’s going to be like a vacation for us.” Fuentes says excitedly. “We just want to keep taking the steps and keep expanding and going to new places. I’d love to keep coming to Australia and build a real following there.”
The Take Action Tour will be stopping into Canberra on Tuesday September 14 at the Tuggeranong Youth Centre. It’s all ages and tickets are available through Moshtix, Landspeed and The Music Shop.
