VRSTY: No Lines Left To Cross
“You have to pay attention to the times,” Joey Varela, lead vocalist and lead songwriter of VRSTY emphasises this. And he’s right. The winds are shifting all around the heavy music community. Barriers, both political and musical, are breaking down at a rate not seen in years, and at long last, the mainstream pop world has begun to cast its eyes towards rock and metal and have started to stretch their hands. MILEY CYRUS, DOJA CAT, MGK, HALSEY, POST MALONE, BILLIE EILISH…the list of top 20 artists who see rock and metal not just as a loud spectacle but as a genre with deep and lasting value is growing by the day. And VRSTY is right there helping to create a sea change on the other end. The band, who can only be described as what it would sound like if THE WEEKND decided to front a djenty, dreamy pop-metal band. For Varela, that sounds about right to him.
“I grew up listening to MICHAEL JACKSON and USHER,” he says. “I was always a singer and one of my friends suddenly introduced me to Howard Jones and KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and that’s what sparked my love of heavy music. From there, I went to see SILVERSTEIN, THRICE, and FROM FIRST TO LAST when Sonny Moore was in it.”
From that day seeing Sonny Moore, Varela was so taken with his ability as a frontman that he decided to start his own project. VRSTY, according to Varela, was never meant to be a band, but after writing some songs, his friends jumped in so they could play shows together. But VRSTY is unlike even the most comparable of bands, like ISSUES.
On the band’s new EP, Cloud City, every track is unexpected and exciting. Veering from hyper poppy vocals over djenty, stuttering guitars to tracks that are just full on pop music with lush, swirling synths with Varela‘s ultra smooth vocals, the band has no fear of boundaries and yet it never feels out of place. It feels like the next step to where heavy music is headed.
“When I first got into heavy music, it was the nu-metal era,” explains Varela. “It was LINKIN PARK and bands like them and we were teased with the fact that we could have rap in metal. I was waiting for one band to just change the whole game. I grew up wanting pop artists to do stuff with metal artists.”
It’s that way of thinking, hook, melody, and groove first mentality, that is the guiding force of VRSTY. Writing and recording songs from his own how, Varela went on to explain his background as a freestyle singer and how it affected his writing process, and directly impacted the sound and devil may care attitude towards sound and genre that he feels.
“I start off instrumentally and write something soft or heavy, and once I get that down, I’ll do vocals,” he explains. “But I’m a freestyle vocalist and I can’t really go about creating melodies until i hear the whole song, and I’ll just freestyle random things over the riffs and melodies until I figure out how I want to tell the story. In that way I always try to think about how to get people excited about the song and wanting to hear it again.”
The current era of metal truly feels like the most exciting its been since the late nu-metal and early metalcore dates, because of everything affecting the genre. The pop stars extending a hand, the revival of nu-metal, it feels more open, inclusive, and less rigid than it’s ever been. And VRSTY stand on the front lines with some damn soulful pop music that top 40 would be proud to hear that just happens to also have some truly heavy riffs mixed in. And that is what makes this band absolutely worth remembering. They stand on the frontlines of the battle to make metal relevant and widespread again, only with different tactics this time. Blurring the lines between what makes up a heavy release and a pop record is taken to the nth degree with them, and that is truly exciting.
“I’m surprised we are where we are at the present moment,” laughs Varela. “But I will say this. I don’t think the lines will be blurred in heavy music. I think the lines won’t exist. I honestly think the way metal is going now, there will eventually be no line between anything. It’ll just be music and you get to do it to the best of your ability. I’m always looking ahead to what we can do and what doors we can open to get ourselves out there to more people but people are now stuck at home listening to Spotify, and bands are saying ‘let’s just do what we want.’ And that’s what those listeners are hearing every day.”
Laughing again, Varela simply repeats. “You have to pay attention to the times.” Cliche? Possibly, but VRSTY are just brave and innovative enough to one day help usher in an era where metal bands can once again shake hands with Hollywood glitterati.
Cloud City is out now via Spinefarm Records.
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