VANNA
Interview Part One of Two
With Davey Muise (Vocals) by Nathaniel Lay
Photography by Dan Bassini
For the Honest Hearts EP, I personally felt like the sound resembled the debut EP from VANNA. However, the new album is quite separate from all your previous efforts. How would you compare the new work to older releases?
It’s kind of a venture for VANNA. It’s sort of a new direction, but at the same time it’s not. It’s still VANNA. It’s still everything we’ve done. It’s got a lot of singing on it, but the singing is done a little differently. It’s really heavy and really aggressive, which I think is reminiscent of old VANNA; the older days, Search Party days, Curses days. But it still has that driving hardcore found on A New Hope and The Honest Hearts. I just think that this record is the realest and most raw VANNA record that you’ll get. Not to say the other records weren’t real or full of energy. I just think that this release, this record, is our hard- hitting, raw, passionate record.
Back when I reviewed the Honest Hearts EP, I thought the vocals sounded pretty close to Chris’s, but now on the new record you show a lot more range in styles than you did on that EP. Is this a matter of your level of involvement in writing this record or something else?
I’ve always been able to do vocals like that. I feel the way I do vocals on this record just reflects me as a vocalist. If I had to choose something to represent me as a vocalist from anything I’ve done in my whole career, I think this record is the one I’d want to represent with. If you go back and listen to the EP after this record comes out, you’ll hear little subtleties that were similar to this new full-length. But I wanted to ease everybody into it. I want them to come out and see us live, and see how you like it live. And the full-length is kind of where I didn’t hold back and I just went for it wholeheartedly. And with writing a good portion of this, I felt a real connection to the lyrics, which I feel is a real big help with vocalists. I feel like this record is the one that really represents me completely and vocally.
When did you enter the studio, where did you record, and with whom?
In January, we went to Matt Goldman at Glow In The Dark Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. [Matt is] a personal producer hero of all of ours, and a person we really, really wanted to work with. We wanted to go with a full-length with Matt. It happened and worked out. We talked to him on the phone and he heard the band and he was into it, so he took us on, which we are really grateful for.
So how was the overall studio experience?
It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had- working with such a great producer and just living in the studio, which is the best part. These guys have done two records where they had gone away and lived in the studio for a month or whatever. This was my first opportunity to do that. It was amazing just living, breathing, eating and sleeping the record. That’s all your doing. When you’re working with a bunch of dudes you love and a producer you look up to so much, that combination of everything is unbelievable. The whole experience was unreal to me. Matt brought the best out of every member in the band. It couldn’t have been a better time.
So you guys didn’t have any complications along the way?
The only complication we had was we had our trailer stolen while we were recording the record. We came out one morning to get something out of the trailer and it wasn’t there. Within three minutes of figuring everything out, we realized it had gotten stolen. It wasn’t really so much a complication. We kind of laughed about it when it happened. We were like “this WOULD happen to us.” This is something that happens to bands that work hard. I think all it did was fuel us to work harder on the record and to fuel us further in our careers. It was definitely a bummer. We bought some beers and wallowed in our self pity for a minute, but then we picked ourselves back up. Other than that, no problems recordings, no problems jamming, no problems at all.
Why is the album title And They Came Baring Bones?
The title is sort of a long story. Basically, And They Came Baring Bones basically means “and they came showing themselves.” It’s kind of what our record is about. It’s a concept record, but the concept is about us and our band and our personal lives rolled into one human being. It’s about the struggles we’ve gone through in life and in this band and with the music industry. It’s sort of about giving up and then not giving up, if that makes any sense. It’s like giving in to the way things are and then saying “wait a second, fuck that.” The fans are too important. Kids that love the music are too important to give up on. I’ve met a lot of bands over the last few months touring that are in similar situations with us. They hate the way the music scene is and hate fake, cookie cutter bands getting put together and getting tons of money and backing. It’s really an outcry for kids to wake up and really start questioning the music in front of them. Is this real? Are these people real? What are these people really about? And that’s what And They Came Baring Bones is about. It’s just us being 100% honest with you, not holding anything back.
With the new album nearing release, what kind of preparation are you guys up to?
Well we’re doing that big Lupo show. We’re doing a CD release show in Manchester, New Hampshire on the 25th. We have a Tumblr, which I don’t know if everyone knows about. I would love for everyone to check it out. It’s www.andtheycamebaringbones.tumblr.com. We’ve been releasing artwork little by little, and little blurbs from the record. We just put up our first song, “I The Remover”. There’s a lot that goes into it. I know I’ve been doing e-mails and sending tons of things out. We’re getting special edition posters made and pre-sales are up now. I’m constantly busy with that and doing great interviews like this, so that’s kind of what we’re doing right now.
So what’s your touring schedule right now for the next few months? Going overseas at all?
Yeah, we will be doing a couple home shows. We’re home for a couple months. Then we kick off the summer and we do an Artery tour with IN FEAR AND FAITH and A LOSS FOR WORDS and CLOSE TO HOME and a couple other bands. We do that from July through August. We’re going to be doing a small Canadian run. There is a plan to go over seas, but I don’t think I can talk about it. But we will be going to Europe and the UK early fall on a really, really awesome tour. I can’t talk about it yet, but it’s fucking awesome.
