INTRODUCING: Vultures
All good things tend to come out of bad situations. There’s not one story that doesn’t endure some hardship, or struggle, and often that is the binding of people to bring some harmony back into the world. The explosive sound of four piece VULTURES comes from a desire to express a distaste for specific social injustices around the use, abuse and consequences of drugs in their area. The band themselves are a bunch of guys, with a passion and energy to make themselves heard and to bring some high octane hardcore metal in the process.
In terms of exactly what the band look to create when putting together their sound, it seems that the way VULTURES approach making their particular brand of music is pretty fluid. “I think of VULTURES as being a weird amalgamation of different kinds of hardcore, metalcore, mathcore, and anything else I can drudge up from music I’ve been inspired by,” Graham Scanlon the band’s drummer, muses. “I don’t think of us as super innovative or ground breaking, but I think what we’re doing is fun and interesting, for sure.” In not trying to be one thing, it allows for the creativity and spark to be the most apparent thing about the band.
“I think our music reflects on each of our own influences which are quite different across the board, creating something pretty wicked,” Alex [Pearce, vocals], goes on to say. “Personally, I never really think about creating anything specific. Just one version of the many ways to do things. We’re just trying to have fun and get people excited.”
While the band themselves are representative of some great issues over in the west coast, the four guys themselves have a very human and natural coming-together story. “We are VULTURES, from beautiful Vancouver Island,” Graham tells us. “VULTURES is the product of circumstance more than anything else; Cole [Lamb, guitars] made a post on a local social forum looking for likeminded musicians to play with, and I (drums) having just recently moved to island, responded in the hopes of meeting some new people and building up a musical network. We ended up sharing a lot of musical influences, and Alex, who was sharing a house at the time with Cole, was also present and involved in the early foundational jams that lead to the establishment of an official group. The ‘VULTURES‘ name itself came from the first song that Cole and I played together, Eagles Become Vultures by CONVERGE.”
The frenzy that VULTURES devise in their music is one that keeps the extreme side of hardcore, while spicing things up with some intense technical playing. Overall, however, the personal drives to come up with something that embraces the bands personal interests as well as creating something that works with all of their styles is essentially what results in such a visceral sound. “I consider myself motivated by freedom of personal expression, as far as the music goes,” Graham puts nicely, “I’ve never been inhibited during the writing process in terms of what I want to play or how I want to play it, and everyone has always been super supportive whenever I want to try something unusual or unexpected. I have a long list of bands that I’ve been inspired by, including but not limited to DILLINGER, CONVERGE, UNDEROATH, and THE NUMBER 12 LOOKS LIKE YOU. On the more personal side, I’m really inspired by the work and success of other musicians I’ve crossed paths with – Guys like Blair Hansen, Kane Enders, and Adam Alfano. All incredible musicians and people.”
“I mostly draw influence from musicians I respect and value,” adds Alex, “We’ve all looked up to certain bands and musicians and I’m sure were all aspiring to be something like them in one way or another, musically that is.”
The bands debut EP Hunger is a volatile, furious sounding eruption on to the scene, there’s no doubt about that. For a set of songs to have such a clear movement and direction, it seems the work of producer and engineer Tim Creviston has had some influence on that. “Recording was great,” Graham expresses, “We got to work with our good friend Tim Creviston, who I think was absolutely instrumental in achieving a great sound on Hunger. Tim was really open about offering insights, suggestions and criticisms with what he heard, and as an extremely competent musician in his own regard, practically everything he had to say was impactful and productive. Hunger is a really interesting album for me – I’ve been straight edge my whole life, and given that the content of the album by and large predicates on the topic of substance abuse, involving myself in story has been humbling and educational.”
“We’ve all dumped out our hearts into this album, both with writing the parts and relatable lyrical content,” Cole notes honestly. “I have a lot of friends and family who have dealt with addiction and it’s a hard topic to bring up. A lot of people on the streets here and struggling. Our album is about that, and our anger towards it is translated through our fast-paced music.”
“The recording process was fun. Working with our close friend Tim Creviston was a blast,” Alex remarks, highlighting further on the social awareness that forms the basis for the record. “I think this record to me reflects the issues we are dealing with on the west coast with dirty drugs. Something that has affected our whole band in one way or another. Shedding light on the different routes of destruction it can take, while trying to get people riled up and grooving a little bit.”
It’s often hard to be transparent about the content and context in which songs are written, but in the same way that the music doesn’t hold back, the band are clear about their inspirations and themes within their work. “We essentially wrote from the different perspectives of people effected by drugs in different ways,” Alex opens up. “I personally try my best tell a story when writing lyrics. Some stuff is fabricated, some comes from personal experience. Once we had scratch tracks for the instrumentals, we would write vocal patterns and match lyrics written previously.”
In terms of streamlining the process from writing ideas to producing a deathly heavy tune, Graham enlightens what that process is like. “The songs we write are somewhat formulaic in nature,” he explains. “Pretty much everything starts with a riff or a set of riffs that Cole loops for me until I can start to understand the “feel” of what he’s playing. From there it comes down to determining things like tempo, what subdivision I want to play in, and how long we want to play it for. After the tone and mood is developed, we start to progress into new riffs and establish specific sections based on what feels appropriate.”
Hunger also has a notable appearance from VENOM PRISON’s frontwoman Larissa Stupar. “I met Larissa briefly at a show in Vancouver BC when they were touring with ABORTED,” Cole tells us. “When we were thinking about having a feature, I brought up the idea to the guys and then immediately reached out to her. It was just a bit of back and forth over social media and then she was tracked!”
“The advent of social media has made working with influential musicians more accessible than ever, though on the flip side the experience is somewhat more dry,” Graham explains poignantly. “We’re fans of VENOM PRISON and WOLF DOWN so choosing Larissa was really a no-brainer, and honestly it was as easy as shooting her a message with an idea and hoping for the best. She went above and beyond giving us some cool material to work with and we’re all super pleased with the result.”
As well as such a notable new name working directly on their music, VULTURES have also been touring with some long time, big names in the business, CANCER BATS and DESPISED ICON. “I appreciate the weight that CANCER BATS has held in the heavy music scene for years, however DESPISED ICON is definitely the fanboy experience for me,” Graham expels. “Their album The Ills Of Modern Man was the very first deathcore album I ever listened to and was practically the album that made me want to learn blast beats. Super ecstatic to share the stage with them.”
“I’ve been listening to both bands since I was a kid, but also still do regularly,” says Cole, “CANCER BATS most recent album is my favourite of theirs 100%, so lately they’ve been pretty influential on me.”
“CANCER BATS and DESPISED ICON were two bands that I loved when I was a kid,” notes Alex, “I actually saw CANCER BATES in Kingston on my 19th birthday, they were doing BAT SABBATH at the time and it was crazy. I can’t explain how fortunate I feel to be sharing the stage with bands that shaped my own musical interests. Gonna be the start of a wild ride.”
“These are my very first shows with VULTURES since joining a couple months ago,” says Brad Seabrook, the band’s bassist. “I kind of feel like I’m being thrown right into the fire but I’m excited to be along for the ride with these guys on the biggest stages they’ve gotten onto. Hopefully I don’t boof it.”
The record itself speaks volumes about the band’s passion and resentment to the issues of addiction and the problems it causes, but never more so is it more tangible than at a live show. “The most rewarding part for me would have to be when there’s a strong connection between the stage and the crowd,” Cole notes positively. “It’s not always a thing, sometimes weekday shows everyone’s tired from work or school and are stoked but not quite tearing the roof off the venue but when that intimacy happens, there’s no better feeling than everyone just going ape shit to the music we’ve written.”
“[I enjoy] putting on a show for people,” Alex states. “watching people get fired up on something you’ve created is the greatest sight in the world. Trying to show them something different, something exciting, something they’ll remember.”
“Performing for me is very therapeutic,” Brad puts out honestly. “I deal with a lot of anxiety in my everyday life, but I feel like I can step outside of that and become a different person when I’m on stage. Getting into that energy is so important for me, and every time I go to a live show I feed off of it.” In the same vain, while the aggression is a pivotal part of the music, the role of playing that music is often mentally removed from the sound itself.
As VULTURES move from strength to strength, each member of the band already have the itch to develop the music, themselves and the collective community around the band. “I really enjoy developing as a musician, learning new things and finding creative ways to integrate them,” Graham comments, “I find that process to be super fulfilling and this band facilitates that more than anything else.” Brad adds, “In the short time I’ve been in VULTURES I’ve improved so much as a bassist, and I’m excited to get to work on writing my own material for future releases!”
“The most important part for me is maintaining the friendships that started this band, while pushing it as far as we can,” Alex says humbly, “Really givin’ it a go, having fun, and making people feel some crazy shit.”
“I definitely agree with Alex on that one,” says Cole, “We’ve had a couple member changes in the past and I cherish my friendship with these guys a ton. I’m personally very tour driven so that’s my focus, I try my best to get us on bills and tours that will be worth it.”
Hunger is out now via self-release.
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