Thursday, April 11, 2013

Interview With Vatican Assassins

Critical Mass: Thanks for taking the time to talk with Critical Mass gang. For anyone new
to Vatican Assassins, can you give us a little history on the band and how you
got your start?

Joe: I started as a drummer back in Chicago where I’ve played in a handful of
bands since I was a teenager. After having little success with those bands I
decided to pick up guitar and start my own band and write my own songs. Vatican
Assassins is rooted in a band I started in Chicago called Spazz Attack. I moved
to Los Angeles in 2002 with Susie and after about a couple years forced her to
learn the bass so that we could start another band. In 2006 we recruited our
very close friend Scott to play drums for us and we started Pitch Black Murder.
Sadly, Scott passed away in 2008 and we were forced to reevaluate our situation.

Our good friends Sandy and Jason from Las Vegas volunteered to help us get back
on our feet and that is where Vatican Assassins were born. We played with Sandy
on drums and Jason on lead guitar up until 2011 but due to the long distance
relationship we found it best to part ways. In 2012 we found our current drummer
Armando and that is where we are today.

Susie: Well I don’t know if I was “forced” to play bass necessarily, haha! It is
true that I had never played bass before but had some experience on guitar and
piano. It was pretty interesting in the beginning, but I really fell in love
with playing it.

Joe: Susie really has become a solid bass player.

CM: How would you describe the band’s sound as far as musically and lyrically?

Joe: Musically I'd say we have an old school punk sound. It’s pretty simple rock
and roll. Nothing too flashy. Lyrically there is a lot of reference to politics,
life, all the things that piss us off or that we are passionate about.

Susie: I have a hard time coming up with a description of our songs and style
for people. I usually just tell them to have a listen. Joe usually writes about
some pretty serious stuff, I try to squeeze in some silly things sometimes when
I can get away with it.

CM: Who are some your personal musical influences and do you think those
influences come out in the bands songwriting?

Joe: We're influenced by punk rock pre-1990 mostly. Especially bands like Husker
Du, Naked Raygun, The Misfits, The Clash, The Jam, The Buzzcocks... I could go
on but it starts to get complicated. I think you can definitely hear those
influences in our music.

Susie: Well I like a lot of different music it is really hard to make a list.
Some of my favorites are the same as Joe’s and I also love the Subhumans, The
Damned, PIL, Rudimentary Peni, The Smiths, The Briefs, and a million others. I
am sure that what people listen to always influences what they produce.

Armando: Some of my personal influences would have to be such bands as Swingin’
Utters, One Man Army, The Clash and a lot of 77’ punk rock. These bands have
influenced my drumming style greatly.

CM: Speaking of songwriting, when it comes to writing and arranging the songs,
is it a group effort or is there a primary songwriter?

Joe: I'll usually bring a partially worked out song to the band and we will play
around with it as a group for a few weeks at least and work out the structure. I
pretty much handle the lyric writing myself but there's been some solid input
lyrically from the others on various songs.

Susie: I would say Joe always starts things out, I would say he is definitely
not taking enough credit for his input. We contribute, but I think that Joe is
usually the one with the song ideas, then we do our parts. We do all give each
other feedback and discuss the arrangement for sure.

Armando: Joe primarily writes all the songs. As a new member of the band I look
forward to having input in some future song writing.

CM: The bands new self-titled EP is coming out soon on Infested Records. Is this
the band’s first release or is there more material out there?

Joe: Officially this will be our first release but we practically recorded a
whole album with Sandy and Jason that never saw the light of day. Some of those
songs were re-recorded with Armando and some went to the song graveyard. There's
also an abundance of recordings from the Pitch Black Murder days and from my
Spazz Attack days that relate to Vatican Assassins but I doubt any of that will
ever see any form of release. I'm going to keep those to myself and maybe create
a mystique or something.

CM: The name Vatican Assassins is in itself cool. How did you come up with this
name?

Joe: Jason and I were brainstorming on some band names. I wanted to tie in my
Catholic school upbringing, which is where the Vatican part came from and the
Assassins part was pulled out of the dictionary. It just sort of hand a magical
ring to it as far as I was concerned. We also found it intriguing that while
searching the internet to make sure there were no other bands using the name, we
found a conspiratorial book by the same name. Considering Jason and I were
conspiracy nerds, we found the name quite fitting. Then, years later, Charlie
Sheen went crazy and called himself a Vatican Assassin and before you know it we
are getting hits on our Facebook page from people all over the globe. It’s
actually really funny, we've been friended by a monk and someone from Morocco or
something who's a Muslim. The name seems to attract all sorts.

Susie: That was all Jason & Joe.

Joe: Yes, Susie wants to have nothing to do with being credited for our band
name. She dreams of being in a local SoCal band called “Codename Hardhat”.
Hahaha!

CM: Outside of local shows, do you get out and tour much? And are there any
plans for a mini tour in the near future?

Joe: We haven't really played outside the L.A. area except for some trips to Las
Vegas but we would love to start venturing out to nearby states. We've talked
about maybe trying to pull off a mini west coast tour and maybe some weekend
jaunts up to Northern California or something but our families and jobs don't
make it very easy. It’s a goal of mine to head out east and play in Chicago in
front of my family and friends. I've never really performed for any of them and
it would really seem like an accomplishment to me. Maybe we could open up for
Naked Raygun or someone (wink wink)

Armando: I really want to schedule a mini tour in Texas. I don’t know why I just
do.

Joe: Maybe because you secretly want to be a cowboy.

CM: Is there a website you guys would like to plug where fans can get up to date
news on the new EP, get show dates and pick up some merch?

Joe: We have our Facebook site which is where we do most of our interaction
 but we also have a website that we are trying to keep updated. We are pretty diligent
about posting upcoming shows and we will be posting soon about the availability of
the EP and some stickers, t-shirts and other merch.

CM: Thanks again for talking with Critical Mass. I'm really stoked to get the
new EP out there for the world to hear. All the best to you 3 in the future!
Thanks again guys!

Joe: Thanks Chris. We appreciate you taking interest in our band.

Susie: Thanks Chris! Take care.

Armando: Thank you.

13 comments:

  1. Valuable infο. Lucky me I disсovered
    your sitе by аccident, and I'm shocked why this twist of fate did not came about earlier! I bookmarked it.

    Check out my webpage; авиабилеты стоимость

    ReplyDelete
  2. To start with, enable me personally to say that your webpage
    is definitely awesome. we love the theme that you have. It had been very straight forward regarding the
    eye. Appreciate your own write-up furthermore. Just subscribed to your very own supply to guaranteed we won't be lacking out on any kind of the newest. Great job! Cheers to an effective enterprise

    Also visit my web blog :: adult acne

    ReplyDelete
  3. Why viewers still make use of to read news papers when in this technological
    world all is presented on web?

    Review my web blog - http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/somanabolic-muscle-maximizer-review-important-information-factors-in-nutrition-to-build-lean-muscles-247681.htm

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's genuinely very complicated in this busy life to listen news on TV, so I just use world wide web for that reason, and take the most up-to-date information.

    Also visit my web blog ... best herbs for women libido

    ReplyDelete
  5. Howdy! This post couldn't be written any better! Looking at this post reminds me of my previous roommate! He always kept preaching about this. I'll send this information
    to him. Fairly certain he'll have a very good read. Thank you for sharing!

    Here is my blog post ... male enhancement

    ReplyDelete
  6. You've asked a few of big questions there. It's perhaps a
    lot more than I can fix below without going into a
    long speech.

    Also visit my blog ... http://www.bks-campus.ch/author/Lynette86

    ReplyDelete
  7. What's up to every body, it's my first go to see of this
    web site; this web site consists of remarkable and truly good
    stuff in support of visitors.

    Feel free to surf to my web page eyelasticity

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm extremely satisfied to discover this article. I would like to say thanks a ton for starting this very good post!! we definitely loved every part of it and I have your site stored to my favs so I can confirm out brand-new stuff.

    my site make money online today

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for finally writing about > "Interview With Vatican Assassins" < Loved it!

    Also visit my blog :: skinception demefface

    ReplyDelete
  10. Asking questions are actually good thing if you are not understanding anything totally,
    however this post presents fastidious understanding even.


    Look into my site dr drum beat maker

    ReplyDelete
  11. Somebody necessarily help to make critically articles I'd state. That is the very first time I frequented your website page and up to now? I amazed with the research you made to create this particular put up amazing. Excellent activity!

    my page; food lovers fat loss

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi! Someone in my Myspace group shared this website with us so I came to check it out.
    I'm definitely loving the information. I'm book-marking and will be tweeting this
    to my followers! Excellent blog and superb design and
    style.

    Also visit my blog: http://bobbiekohl.bravesites.com/entries/general/watch-saw-5-movie-internet

    ReplyDelete
  13. I know this web site provides quality based content
    and other stuff, is there any other website which offers these stuff in quality?


    Here is my web page: skinception rosacea (www.Scs-ptc.com)

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.