Vended: Painting Their Skin
Despite only releasing one EP, and now their self-titled debut album, VENDED have been on the lips of many a nu metal aficionado for a few years now. Brandishing grooving riffs, fearsome roars and bags of attitude – their stated goal as a band is nothing short of world domination – they’ve certainly got the confidence and the pit-starting songs. When we catch up with frontman Griffin Taylor to lift the lid on all things VENDED, the band are currently on a US headline jaunt and they’re driving through a storm “in the middle of fucking nowhere,” as he laughingly puts it.
First things first, we ask how it feels to finally have their debut album out in the world, when it feels like there’s been so much scrutiny on them. “It feels really good,” he grins. “We’ve worked really hard on this, and to have it out, in the hands of a bunch of fans, it really makes us feel quite validated.” That album, Vended, was released independently – a bold move, but one Griffin is adamant was right for them to avoid label interference with their creative vision. “We wanted our music to be from us, not somebody else like a corporation who did fuck all to make it other than tell us how to sound.”
How they wanted to sound is a big question – VENDED aren’t actually that big on the nu metal tag, for starters, at least not in terms of how they describe themselves. “I don’t specifically see us like that. We see ourselves as a heavy metal band, or just a metal band,” he begins, “we don’t like labelling something as a specific thing, or categorising it. It waters it down to just that thing.” That said, there’s a very clear nu-metal influence to their sound, particularly on the EP.
It’s one they fleshed out and went in new directions with for the album, throwing in blast beats and more melodic passages. Griffin explains of their evolution that they “wanted to write music that would blow the EP out of the water.” With the band being in their mid to late teens when some of it was written, it’s to be expected that they’ve matured and evolved since then, something he’s very conscious of wanting to showcase through their writing. “There’s a saying, a song isn’t finished til it’s recorded, so we spent time really perfecting what we wanted to put on the album.”
Another part of their maturation is personal; Griffin is up front that he’s been through a lot since then, as have his bandmates. “I started therapy,” he explains, “that really helped me to sit down with a clear mind and write.” The aim was to write something about his experiences, but not without making fans be able to see themselves in those lyrics; “I always write with the intent of having almost a blank page for someone to put their story into,” he explains. “It mostly helped me to sit and write loads, even if it didn’t rhyme or get used.”
Creativity as an outlet is nothing new, of course, nor is wanting fans to feel seen in their music, but it’s still something Griffin feels strongly about and feels rewarded by as almost a secondary result of utilising his writing as a way of “not going insane.” Even so early into their career, he’s had fans approach him in unlikely places – including Disneyland – to express their thanks. “It feels great that our music helped them,” he smiles, “but it’s also about helping myself,” and that latter point is something they’re keen on continuing.
When it comes to writing not just about those experiences, but lyrics generally, there’s some unlikely points of inspiration that VENDED draws from. Two that Griffin has named directly are Ani DiFranco and Amanda Palmer; worlds away musically, but their influence is nevertheless part of their DNA. “They helped me in regards to poetry,” he explains, “because whenever I write, I try to write it as poetry first, rather than just ‘I am angry’”. There is, of course, plenty of anger and fire in VENDED’s tank, both lyrically and musically, with other vocal influences drawn from the likes of KING 810’s David Gunn.
With a strong musical identity, they also made sure to tie in visuals, including face paint to make sure they stood out even further. “We wanted to do it, we wanted to have fun,” Griffin says, “the face paint is us being ourselves. We like that our look is just us being from the Midwest, but also like we could rip your fucking face off tooth and nail.” It’s also self-expression, to an extent. “I’m putting on what I see in the mirror, what I want other people to see me as, it’s not just that I want to look cool.” He grins, “but I do think it looks cool.”
The core of VENDED is simple; it’s predicated on just doing what they want. Their independent streak is something they cultivate, certainly, from refusing genre classification to turning down label deals to do it on their own terms, all for themselves. “All we want to do is create. We wanted to start a band, be the best we can, and that’s it. We don’t want to hold up some sort of banner. We just wanted to be us.”
Vended is out now via self-release. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS114 here:
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