ION INDIE MAGAZINE November 2016, Volume 30 | Page 79

Eric: As you started your set on August 5th at THE DAWG HOUSE, I stood there watching and listening and thinking, “Oh, shit!”
especially since I had never seen you live and only listened to you via the internet.
David: Is that a good “Oh, shit!”? That’s it now a days…you mentioned the internet…that’s how you get yourself or push
yourself around. But the live aspect of it is the shaking of someone’s hand that’s the greatest feeling. You can push your
product as much as you want, but if you don’t get that live aspect down, you can’t back up what you’re saying.
Jeff: We pride ourselves on being a live band. We don’t take anything back from recording, but live is where it’s at and where
our hearts are.
Cody: We try to live up to the idea of what you hear on the CD or internet is what you get when you see us live. We don’t want
someone to come to one of our shows and say, “I just heard ‘Carry On’ on YouTube, but they didn’t sound anything like the
record.”…it having that WOW factor coming to a show sounding just like you do on a CD as you do live.
Eric: So I listened to the self-titled CD on the way to “The Lair” tonight. How great was that to record?
Jeff: With producing our self-titled CD, we wanted to take our time, not rush anything or make the same mistakes that might
have been made before--pushing our limits individually and together as a band. We took our time with it, and we think it shows
in the overall product.
Eric: You made or produced an album that you would want to buy if you were a music fan or a fan of Violence In Vanity. Who is
Violence In Vanity?
David: Well, it’s all 4 of us: Jamey on bass, Jeff on guitar, Cody on drums and myself on guitar and vocals.
Jamey: I’m actually pretty new--joined in February. And I joined because I had seen them live and thought this would be a band
I wouldn’t mind being in or jamming with.
Cody: I just started jamming with the guys and just never left--kind of like that stray cat that you just can’t get rid of.
Jeff: Well, just coming out of a band that had ended, I was friends with Dave and we just started hanging out and playing and
thought, “Why not? Let’s put something together.”
Eric: When you write or wrote the songs for the self-titled CD, was it a collaborative concept in the writing?
David: Not every song we write is the same. It is a collaborative effort of all 4 of us and the different backgrounds of music we
bring. One of us may come up with a riff or Cody came up with a drum beat and the rest of us build off it. Every song is written
by everyone in the band. We are all different musicians and we compromise.
Cody: It was a great experience because honestly, I’ve never been in a more collaborative band…where we build off one
another.
Jeff: We are all head strong, but it’s that strength and that vision that makes the music a seamless collaboration by all of us.
It’s that “give and take”.
Eric: I know this is a question you’ve been asked before, but influences?
Jamey: This is cool for me because I feel like all four of us have the completely polar opposites of influences. I come from a
very serious grunge raw sound.
Jeff: I came from a metal, more aggressive style.
David: Its probably one of the hardest questions for me to answer. The way I think about it, is I like watching MMA. MMA is
entertaining…it’s awesome, it’s bad ass--I enjoy viewing it, don’t want to get in the ring. At some point I think everybody listens
to everything. Your influences, a lot of times, can be based on the music that you listen to. My influence have been other
musicians I have jammed with.