Vandal Hearts are a female fronted hard rock/metal band from Lancaster in the UK. Our band interests include drinking and feeding the pony. We like massive catchy choruses, heavy riffs, guitar harmonies, solos, counterpoint basslines and thoughtful drumming. By happy coincidence, these are the components of pretty much all our songs.
Pleased to meet you Vandal Hearts..............................Hang on a min did you say feed the pony????
Wow, ok guys welcome to SMF2013, Ive been looking to check these guys out for a while and I'm loving the EP which is available FREE via bandcamp
http://vandalhearts.bandcamp.com/
Here's a few questions for you....
WHATS THE NAME OF YOUR BAND, AND WHAT ARE YOUR NAMES AND JOBS IN THE BAND?
Vandal Hearts!
Steph - Vox, Kyle - Guitar, Harry - Guitar, Craig - Bass, - Allan - Drums
HOW LONG
HAVE YOU BEEN TOGETHER, AND HOW DID YOU START?
Just over a year! Craig and Kyle were playing in something we'd loosely describe as a band, Steph was in a pop-punk band, both bands ended so we decided to start a more musically serious project. Allan was added later, having already slayed the local scene in The Shipman Project and Promethium. Harry was (is) sleeping with Steph but turned out to be a pretty sound guitarist anyway, which was lucky.
WHAT SETS YOU APART FROM THE REST?
Mixing a lot of disparate influences into fairly standard song structures. Harmonised riffs, solos, breakdowns, clean passages, catchy melodies, thrash riffs, groove riffs, proggy moments, guitar harmonies, soaring female clean vocals, harsh vocals.... We like to do a bit of everything, but still keep it coherent.
WHO ARE YOUR MAIN INFLUENCES MUSICALLY?
Pretty much everything. From Clutch to Killswitch Engage, Coheed and Cambria, In Flames, CKY, Bring Me The Horizon, Dir En Grey, Faith No More.... Anything with good riffs and big vocal hooks is pretty much an influence. I think the only band all five of us actually like is Thrice.
WHAT ARE YOUR SONGS MOSTLY ABOUT?
Mostly just abstract stuff we think is interesting or funny, which we then write about in metaphor from unusual perspectives. We don't really have anything political or personal to say, we just like playing music.
WHATS YOUR FAVOURITE SONG THAT YOU HAVE WRITTEN?
We have a song with the working title of 'The Boner Police' that the bass player wrote, which we all love. I think the real name is 'Hell and Back'. We write the music first under working titles then add lyrics and change the titles. Except we tend to forget the actual titles. This is largely why we have a song called 'Hell Monkeys'.
IF YOU COULD DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN ONE WORD, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Surprousing. (To be 'surproused'; to find oneself surprised by feeling arousal towards something one previously did not know existed or had never really thought about.)
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BEST MOMENT/GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT AS A BAND SO FAR?
Winning a Battle of the Bands as our fifth gig was pretty good achievement. Best moments would be meeting and playing with a lot of amazing bands like The Sun Explodes, Fighting Bears, Fort Worth, and many many others I'm missing off here. The best part of being in a band for us is by far playing shows with awesome bands we get along with, having a laugh and just enjoying an awesome show atmosphere. We're not the cool, collected, reserved band, we're here to have a blast and make sure the audience do too. When we meet other people like that and get to put on a show with them, it's the greatest thing in the world.
WHATS NEXT FOR YOU GUYS?
Got a new EP coming out April, after that, write a bunch more songs and record another EP. Get some more shows further afield, hopefully break into the Manchester scene. Try and do a photoshoot where more than five of the two hundred or so photos taken are actually usable, rather than laughing hysterically and ruining them all. We need to work on our serious metal faces.
WHERE CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU TO HEAR MORE? FACEBOOK YOUTUBE WEBSITE ETC.
Facebook! Just search 'Vandal Hearts', get distracted by all the pages for the videogame we stole the name off, then eventually find us and check it out! There should be a pretty sweet EP up on there as of April '13....
HOW DO YOU RATE YOUR LOCAL SCENE AT THE MOMENT?
It's actually gotten really really good recently! Seems like around the time we formed a number of really good bands were either getting together or starting to find their sound, now there's an excellent scene in Lancaster that's got pretty much everything from death metal to post-hardcore covered.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO CHANGE/ IMPROVE IT?
Just keep building on it. There are new bands coming through who are maybe a little sketchy or unoriginal, but the fact that they've now got a decent scene to play in means a lot of them really have a chance to find their sound and what they're about, and that's what all scenes need. Leading by example, we were pretty terrible when we started, we're almost listenable now.
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON EVENTS LIKE THESE - WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE MORE?
Unsigned festivals are excellent, there needs to be way more of these things all over the country! With stuff like Kickstarter funded bands and social media, labels are much less of a necessity, it's great that some really good bands that labels might not have taken a shot on have a chance to really get themselves out there and get the backing they need.
DO YOU THINK THAT THERE IS A LACK OF ORIGINALITY OR A WILLINGNESS TO PUSH BOUNDARIES IN METAL AS A GENRE?
Oh christ yes. You can walk into a metalcore gig and know everything the band will do before they even tune up the guitars. Thrash, power metal, death metal... Bands are picking up these genres and regurgitating and rewriting songs that are already genre defining. Bands like Dir En Grey who take influence from pretty much every area of metal, fuse it all, and then push it forward, are way too few and far between. There are a few amazing unsigned bands like The Sun Explodes doing this kind of genre blurring, but not nearly enough!
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST WORRY YOU GUYS FACE AS A BAND?
I don't think we have any massive worries. We do what we do for fun, first and foremost. As long as we enjoy it, we're not massively worried about audiences getting it. We'll keep doing it for as long as it's fun.
IF YOU COULD SUPPORT ANY BAND, WHO WOULD IT BE?
Every member of the band would give you a different answer. In general, probably Killswitch Engage, because they seem like a pretty hilarious bunch of guys. Coheed and Cambria would also be legenary.
WHO WOULD WIN - GANDALF OR DARTH VADER?
Gandalf. That's not a beard you can beat.
FINALLY - WHY SHOULD PEOPLE COME AND SEE YOU PLAY?
Because we're energetic as balls, musically tight, and there to have a fun. What more do you want in a live show?
Check out the Vandal Hearts on Sat 25th May - at SMF2013
