The NAMM Show 2017 Interviews – Vital Noise

The NAMM Show 2017 Interviews – Vital Noise

The NAMM Jam 2017 extravaganza, presented by Delve Texas, made its way to The Anaheim Gardenwalk, featuring a headlining performance from Buckcherry as well as sets from Like A Storm, Hillbilly Herald, Doll Skin – and an appearance from an amazing up-and-coming band from Los Angeles known as Vital Noise.  Outside it may have been a cold and rainy affair, but inside The NAMM Jam 2017 tent, Vital Noise heated up The Anaheim Gardenwalk with a short yet stunning collection of songs that thoroughly impressed the early arrivals.  Just right after their exhilarating show, Highwire Daze caught up with Vital Noise backstage to find out more about the makings of a massively talented power trio well on their way into the big leagues.  Read on…

Introduce yourself and tell me what you do in Vital Noise.
Andrew: I’m Andrew. I’m the singer and guitar player.
Preston: I’m Preston. I’m the bassist.
Isaac: I’m Isaac. I’m the drummer.

How did you guys wind up on Namm Jamm 2017?
Isaac: It was a program with the House Of Blues Music Forward Foundation. It’s called Bringing Down The House and it was just 6-7 musical acts that got together and just learned a lot from panelists. Music industry panelists. At the end of it a lot people got to perform at The Wiltern. So when the program was who to play, they picked us which was really, really nice.

How did you become involved with the program, and what was it like playing The Wiltern?
Andrew: My mom just found the program online and signed us up. Our mom is our manager, and playing The Wiltern was amazing. We had actually just seen our favorite bands play there two weeks before that, so when we found out we were playing there, it was amazing. The crowd was amazing, it couldn’t have been more energetic. The stage was huge, the sound was awesome. It was a great experience.

Do you get nervous when you go on a stage that big?
Andrew: No.
Preston: Not really. More excited than anything. Obviously right before we go on there’s a tiny bit of nerves going on but nothing too bad.
Andrew: I don’t get nervous at all when I play.  I don’t get nervous about actually playing. I get nervous about my equipment messing up, like if there’s technical issues – that kind of stuff. Playing is a piece of cake, it’s what I love to do. It’s what I practice doing every single day, it’s my thing, so I love being up on stage.
Isaac: My nerves really aren’t nervous just anxiety towards it. Not anxiety like nervousness, but just anxious to get up there and start doing it because I just want it so badly. But yeah, I do get nervous about my drums breaking down or something falling off. That’s happened plenty of times with drums. My double pedal just kind of breaking or something falling off and I can’t use it. That gives me the nerves, but other than that, the playing aspect I don’t have any nerves – just like these guys don’t.

Select two songs you played tonight, what inspired the lyrics?
Andrew: The song we opened with is called “Miss Pretty Little Something.” It’s about a girl that kind of screwed me over and it’s kind of about just people in general that think they’re all that and they think that they’re hot and they’re not. It’s basically me just shutting them down and saying stop being so arrogant. Everybody needs to be cool and everybody needs to take things with a grain of salt.
And then “Vices” is a song about addiction. I have a few family members that have fought addiction and it’s a really horrible thing. The words are “these vices are killing me.” So it’s about addiction, but you can also take that in any sort of aspect of your life. Whether a relationship is killing out, whether you’re having a hard time financially. Just if you’re down, basically. The song is kind of an homage to that.

If your band could open for anyone either now or from the past, who and why?
Isaac: Either The Word Alive or Slipknot, because Slipknot is one of my favorites. Or Avenged Sevenfold. There’s a lot of bands that I would like to open up for. Probably Slipknot, though. Not that our sound really mixes that well with theirs. It’s a little different but just to be able to share a stage with that band would be absolutely incredible for me, and I’m sure for everyone else.
Preston: Bring Me The Horizon. They’re such a big influence for us and they’re one of my favorite bands, I’d love to open up for Slipknot but BMTH probably has to be my biggest writing influence. Just an awesome opportunity if we could do that.
Andrew: I’m gonna say Asking Alexandria because – well, number one, they’re one of my favorite bands. All of our favorite bands. We got to meet two of the members last year standing outside of their tour bus when we saw them at The Wiltern and they were the coolest guys. They just seem like a band we would love to hang with and just open for. Ben Bruce, their guitar player, he made a joke. “Maybe we’ll share the stage one day, mate.” If that could be a reality, I would love that.

What’s up next for you guys now that NAMM JAM is over?
Andrew: We have a few shows coming up around Los Angeles. We’re going to start writing new music. Probably over the summer we’ll go record some more music. I don’t know how many songs we’re going to write yet, but we typically try to get at least 2-3 songs in over the summer. Just gigging and writing a lot.

If people want to get ahold of you?
Andrew: Yeah, you can check us out on our website www.vitalnoise.com – that’s where we have all of our music. You can check us out on Facebook.com/vitalnoise – Instagram @vitalnoise and Twitter @vitalnoise.

Vital Noise is:
Andrew Wilmot – Vocals and Lead Guitar
Preston Wilmot – Bass and Background vocals
Izak Athanas- Drums

(Interview and Band Photos by Ken Morton)

Vital Noise on Facebook