INTERVIEW: Vincent Bennett – The Acacia Strain

THE ACACIA STRAIN have been dominating the deathcore scene before the genre ever really came to fruition. Last year they released their eighth studio album Gravebloom and the Massachusetts outfit continue to evolve and become stronger than ever. On a rare outing to the UK headlining the Saturday of this year’s UK Tech-Fest we caught up with frontman, and sole remaining original member, Vincent Bennett to see what they have in store for the remainder of the year and to talk about the ten year anniversary of their historic Continent album.

Hey Vincent, thanks for talking to me, you’re looking well!

Vincent: Thanks man, I appreciate that.

It’s been a while since you guys have played over here in the UK, are you excited for tonight’s events?

Vincent: Of course! It’s one of my favourite places in the entire world!

Do you have any specific preparations for playing a festival slot? Do you like to check out other bands or do you prefer to keep to yourself?

Vincent: I love checking out other bands. We went over to the stages earlier to get the lay of the land, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on out there. It’s awesome.

Are there any band’s in particular you’re looking forward to seeing?

Vincent: I’d love to see INGESTED, it’s been a while and we’re actually borrowing their gear so I feel like I should watch them!

THE ACACIA STRAIN have been a band for almost 20 years, how do you feel you have developed as a vocalist/songwriter in this time?

Vincent: 17 years, don’t make older than I am! As a vocalist I feel lyrically I’ve developed something different. I used to be a one trick pony and sort of do the same thing and recently I’ve been expanding my horizons and writing about more about the stuff that happens in my life instead of this weird fictional world I made up for myself so it’s gotten more personal I think. Vocally I think it’s just stronger. I’ve lost a lot of weight and that helped but at the same time I’ve been doing warm ups and I never used to do that stuff. Getting older I thought I should probably work on my voice a little bit. Do warmups, drink a lot of tea and it really helps elevate you.

Gravebloom is your 8th studio album, what keeps you inspired/motivated?

Vincent: Living! Honestly, it’s just going through hardship and having life experience and that’s what powers me you know? Like I said I’ve been doing this for 17 years so I don’t know how to do anything else at this point in time. This is my life so I just do it.

Your Twitter posts to me are comedy gold and I love your humour, it keeps me very entertained!

Vincent: Thank you! I try.

Do you feel at this stage in your career that the fans have a certain expectation of what new material should sound like?

Vincent: I feel like at this point in any bands career that the fans are going to expect one thing and since they have expectations that they are going to be upset that their expectations aren’t met. Everybody always wants a new version of an old album and that’s too much pressure to put on a band. I mean we’ve already wrote Continent so why would we wanna do that again? We just wanna move forward and a lot of people are like we need more breakdowns or we need less breakdowns and no one ever agrees what they want. We write for ourselves and if people like it that’s great.

Where does the main source of creativity come from as obviously THE ACACIA STRAIN have had a lot of lineup changes in your career?

Vincent: I think the changes in lineup have been a blessing because people kinda get burnt out. Bringing in new people who are already fans of the band know what they want to hear and do and they have something to prove and it’s a fresh head in the mix. If it’s feeling kinda stale and if you get someone new they are like “well what if we do this?” and everybody’s in agreement. It’s a very democratic writing process, everyone has something to say and it’s really helped us to stay fresh.

Oh definitely. In any creative process you don’t want it be held captive by one individual as it can become too linear.

Vincent: Exactly.

You are about to embark on a tour celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Continent, do you have anything special in the works?

Vincent: We have a lot of throwback merchandise, we’re bringing out all the old stage banners. It’s all dusty and I had to shake them off in my driveway! It’s just gonna be a cool vibe. Ten years ago? I mean that’s crazy, I have been telling my friend’s we are doing a Continent anniversary tour as it’s been out a decade and they’re like “what? No way.” It’s a cool buzz. I think a lot of people who got into THE ACACIA STRAIN ten years ago might not have been to a show in a while are gonna be dusting themselves off and reliving the past which is cool and it’s cool for me. There’s a bunch of songs on Continent we’ve never played live. We’re doing Seaward, Baby Buster, Balboa Towers and they are the songs which people have wanted to hear since the album came out. It’s exciting for me and I hope it’ll be exciting for the fans.

Oh for sure. I got into THE ACACIA STRAIN around the Continent/Most Known Unknown era and that dvd just blew my mind!

Vincent: That’s awesome! We’ve got a videographer coming with us on this tour and we’re gonna hopefully compile enough footage to do another DVD.

Excellent. I’ll look forward to that. What do THE ACACIA STRAIN have in store for the remainder of 2018?

Vincent: We have the Continent tour in Canada then some other stuff planned but I can’t tell you as it hasn’t been announced. It’s gonna be pretty special! It involves us and maybe another band that is having a decade anniversary with one of their records. I can’t say much more but that’s gonna be the last thing we do for the year and actually we usually do a Christmas show in the areas that we live. We do Toys For Tots and you have to come with a toy and you donate it to charity so that the kids have something to open at Christmas.

That’s so cool! What a great idea. Thanks very much for your time Vincent, I’ll leave you with one final question. Is there anything you would like to say to the readers of Distorted Sound?

Vincent: If you come to a show, be open minded, just have a good time! We may not play the song you want to hear but we will be back again hopefully.

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