VENDED Are Set To Conquer Knotfest…

‘Welcome to Vended, motherfucker!’ Griffin Taylor, vocalist of said band greets Australians who are to be witness the band up close at this years Knotfest and subsequent sideshows. With a storming debut album under their arms, a wealth of touring legs under them across the globe with bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Slipknot, it’s down under that is next on their list of lands to conquer.

‘I’ve actually never been to Australia. I actually had to ask my dad, ‘have I ever been to Australia with you guys?’ Dad straight up said, no, I don’t think so. So, I just treat it the same way that I treat any other country or state. I mind my P’s and Q’s, act with respect, and as long as everybody else does the same, I have no qualms or issues with anybody else. The one thing that I did not factor in until last minute was the wildlife!’ Griffin explains.

Ah yes, ‘dad’. This band has dads in the industry however when I advised both the lads we would do this interview not talking about the obvious, Griffin greeted me with a ‘fuck yeah!’ a sign that such conversations are tiresome, boring and quite frankly disrespectful to a band honing their craft for seven years. Griffin again takes the lead.

‘We were really just in the workshop just trying to find our noise, trying to find our sound, gather ourselves and get ourselves prepared. We did our first show out in Iowa and then lockdown hit and all that shit. It gave us more time to be in the workplace and find ourselves and what we actually wanted to stand for, what we actually wanted to do with our branding, our music, and our voice. Over time, we just started doing more tours. We started getting more international tours and it really gave us more of an inkling towards our work ethic. Not only in terms of touring at home where we don’t have the issues of different types of currency or knowing when the next bathroom break was going to be, but also touring out in Europe where we were going to have to be taking more flights and more initiative into what we’re spending our money on and the different cultures that we’re going to be introduced to.’

With a successful work ethic reaping rewards on the road and in the studio, are the band feeling pressure to follow up with a second album already? JJ takes this one.

‘Not really. We’re better than we’ve ever been, and we’re not the most stressed about writing anything really new right now at all since we just dropped our record five months ago. We’re just planning on touring really hard and putting our heads down and working.’

Griffin continues ‘It was released midway through a tour and then it was the end of the year. So right now, we’re really just locking in on touring this album and really fucking putting ourselves out there with music that we’re really fucking proud of. That we worked our fucking asses off, putting our blood, sweat and tears into. In the background amongst ourselves, we do have plans on writing new music, but all in due time.’

Arguably, no one in Australia may have seen the band, so the question is put to them to describe their own shows, JJ goes first.

‘Very visceral, gross, big pits, lots of energy,’

And Griffins take?

‘Sweat, fucking, fucking screaming, thick riffs, sick beats, and a lot of anger and love.’

In all world of headlines, lazy journalism and online trolls, unfortunately nepotism is always floating around the corner. The lads take it the way their music is, without a fuck what you think, as JJ eloquently explains.

‘I don’t give a fuck. I stopped caring like three years ago. I could not give a rat’s ass motherfucker. We’ve all got to pay rent. We’ve all got to work hard for it.’

Griffins continues on the theme.

‘At the the day, it’s going to be the first question on a bunch of people’s minds. It’s going to be something that people are going to inquire into. We’ve all heard those questions and we’ve all had our own takes on it. For me, at the end of the fucking day, I stopped giving a shit. I think that we all have proven ourselves to be capable of doing shit all on our own, by ourselves, with writing our first album. We had zero fucking help touring with all of those fucking bands like Gloom In The Corner and Bloodywood. We had zero fucking help. All we did was just fucking get up on stage and rock that shit. We’ve definitely put in our work, we’ve put in our time, we’ve put in our effort, and we’ve got some fucking leg room!’
Having successfully gotten through without actually stating the obvious, let’s finish with Griffins take on our wildlife he started earlier.

‘We’re all freaking out, having a great time when literally the moment we got off the plane, seeing fucking kangaroos! Kangaroos! While we were on a drive, a fucking cockatoo, swooped our guitarist. What else was it? Bin Chickens just chilling out. I still have yet to see any of them because it’s just my luck and how my attention span is, I’m usually always looking in the wrong direction at the wrong time. I’m really, really hoping that I’m able to see what everyone else is seeing. But for now, it’s just my luck!’

Luck, or anything else, is not the reason the band are here looking for Bin Chickens. It’s hard work, a driven focus, a dollop of talent and big middle finger that has got them here. I also don’t have the heart to tell them what a Bin Chicken is.

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch VENDED at Knofest on the following dates, tickets from Destroy All Lines…

On tour with Slipknot for the Knotfest sideshow in Adelaide and Auckland, tickets from Destroy All Lines…