The Vans Warped Tour 2018 Interviews: Collin Walsh of Grayscale
The Vans Warped Tour 2018 Interviews: Collin Walsh of Grayscale
The Vans Warped Tour 2018 Interviews: Collin Walsh of GrayscaleThe Vans Warped Tour commenced its final cross country run at the Pomona Fairplex, officially starting off the summer of 2018 with a blast. One of the bands on the entire tour is Grayscale, making their first trek on the iconic festival. Performing songs from their recently issued Adornment album on Fearless Records, Grayscale won over the crowd with their superbly infectious pop pop entreaties. Highwire Daze Online caught up with vocalist Collin Walsh in the press area to discuss their participation on this year’s edition of Warped, the lyrics from a few selections from Adornment, the massive appreciation they feel for their fans, and a whole lot more. Read on…
What were your first impressions when you heard that the Vans Warped Tour was coming to an end?
It was a very bittersweet feeling. Obviously at the point, we knew we were playing it. We’ve never done it before, but we know from all of our friends that are on the tour that it’s amazing. So we’re very stoked to be here – very thankful.
So you just played your first show here at Warped Pomona. How did it go and did you enjoy the heat?
It was awesome! The heat’s okay. It’s tough, but if you just stay hydrated – it is what it is. I enjoy it. It’s fun.
How close is Grayscale to writing and recording all new material?
We’re not in a rush. We’re on our first album cycle, so we’re just touring, touring, touring. Hitting the road hard. We’re not worried about writing. We always write, but we’re not hitting the studio anytime soon.
Have you thought about maybe doing an acoustic recording, or anything like that?
We’ve thought about it, but honestly, we still have songs that we haven’t even played off the record live. We still want to grind and get those songs down and play them live. We want to play the whole record before we move on.
Do you and Patty Walters from As It Is plan to do Come Undone together at Warped Tour?
We will not be doing Come Undone unfortunately. We did it in the UK for their headliner, but we’re not going to be doing it on Warped unfortunately. We kind of just want to cycle in new songs – different ones. We’re going to be playing a song called Echoes all on Warped – it’s one that we’ve never played before.
Tell me about Echoes and what inspired the lyrics.
Echoes is a song about just kind of dealing with a problem and moving on from it. Dealing with it internally. It’s kind of written in a poem sense. It’s about accepting the person that it’s about – like accepting their human flaws. Like growing up and realizing that this person the song is about is a flawed person, and you just kind of have to deal with it. There’s a lot of poetry. There’s a lot of Adam and Eve biblical references in it – it has the “original sin” type of subject to it – that’s kind of the motif to it.
You have a song and new video out called Forever Yours. What is inspiration for the song and video?
That song and that video is about someone in my life that I care about deeply. The song and the video is basically about the beginning, middle and end of a relationship. And the video is like a theatrical version of the life and death of a relationship. So it kind of takes the metaphorical end of relationship and brings it to life with the death that occurs in the video.
What are some of the more memorable reactions you’d had to your song Beautiful Things?
I’ve had amazing things, man. I’ve had so many kids wearing tattoos from that song – lyrics and stuff. It’s amazing. Seeing how closely that song touched a lot of people – it’s great.
Did you see people crowd surfing to that song today? It seemed like the least likely Grayscale song to crowd surf to…
Yeah, it’s kind of a ballad – it’s kind of slow. People like it man.
Has Justin Bieber heard or commented your cover of Love Yourself?
I don’t think so. We tweeted at him, but he didn’t respond. I would love to hear his feedback. I love that guy, dude. I love him as a musician. I do.
What could one expect from a live Grayscale show at Warped Tour this year?
Energy – we love to really rock out. That’s always a lot of fun. We give it everything we’ve got. I like to play every show we play like it’s my last. That’s kind of my mentality with it – I want to put on a great show and I want to connect with everybody in the audience all at once together.
Do you have any messages for Grayscale fans who are reading this now?
We love you. We’d be nowhere without you. We know that every day. We thank you guys every day. I wake up every day in our van wagon and I think – we’re here at Vans Warped Tour, and we’re only able to do this because of the fans. That’s the most important thing – it’s for them. Everything that we do is for them. I write lyrics to help myself, but when it comes down to our band, we want everybody to feel what we feel, and to really feel good when they listen to our music.
(Interview and Candid Photo by Ken Morton – Live Photo by Jack Lue)
