Interview by Tiana Speter
Questions answered by Jaime Preciado
HEAVY: Pierce The Veil will release your fifth studio album The Jaws Of Life on February 10. Tell us about the album musically and what you were going for with it.
J.P: With any album we do, the mindset’s always: “let’s not do the same thing twice. Let’s try to push ourselves, try to be just a little bit smarter about things this next time around”. And I think with this album, we kind of wanted an album that was a little bit more stripped-back. Pierce The Veil’s songs are
normally a little technical across the board, and this was a fun challenge to try to do almost the opposite
of that and make ’em a little bit more simplified, but still powerful, impactful. That was kind of the goal.
Also, we were just listening to a lot of that style of music, that’s always the culprit when we start making albums, whatever we’re listening to at the time. For this one it was a lot of Deftones and Rage Against The Machine influences for sure.
The press release says The Jaws Of Life “is Pierce the Veil at their most raw – cracking with urgency and immediacy.” Do you agree?
Wow, those are nice fun words that I probably couldn’t spell on a first try! I think with this record we really were trying to peel stuff back, go with that kind of “raw” sound and just feel like a band again. I think we want the listeners to be like: “oh wow, they’re like an actual band”, you know? A lot of modern recordings these days are very polished and pristine, and I think we kind of went with the opposite of that, making things a little raw and dirty. And it was just a lot of fun doing it that way, it was just kind of the style that we were going for – not super intentionally, but kind of intentionally. It’s like accidentally rock’n’roll but also on purpose.
It also calls it your most diverse album so far. Is that right? (added by Tiana: and was this something intentional if so?)
Yes on both parts. There were a lot of songs that we were not sure what to do with when we were making them. And I think this album kind of made a nice home for all those songs in a cool way. For any album we do, we never try to chase a genre or chase anything, we kind of let the song guide us, you know? I say this all the time: not every song needs singing. Not every song needs screaming. Not every song needs real drums. Whatever the song is – it kind of tells you what it needs, and that’s kind of how we decide a lot of things. There were a lot of songs on this album that were very different, they wouldn’t have been able to go on any other records, only on this one. So yes, that diversity is something that we worked really hard to try to achieve. And it turned out really cool, I think it’s a cool journey. Each song is very different from the one preceding it.
To date you have released the singles Pass The Nirvana, Emergency Contact and Even When I’m Not With You. Would you say they are a good sonic representation of the album as a whole?
That was kind of the intention, those songs all are so drastically different from each other. Yeah, I would say that’s a good representation, but it’s also hard to say because every song on the album is so different. But I guess what we were trying to do is give you a little taste of every spectrum, you know? Pass The Nirvana is so different than Emergency Contact, and then those two songs are drastically different than Even When I’m Not With You. So, I guess if none of ’em really match – that’s kind of how the whole album is! And that makes it kind of cohesive (laughs).
Your first single Pass The Nirvana has clocked up over 13 million streams. How does that even happen?
Wow…seriously, that’s so much, that is wild! Well…how did it happen…just wait over half a decade before you put music out (laughs). I guess that’s what you gotta do. But seriously, I don’t know, that’s incredible. That’s just the loyalty from our fans, I think. We’ve built such an amazing fanbase since day one, really. I mean, they were kids, now everyone’s all growing up. And we get to grow up with all our fans, it’s just really special. There’s just something about this band and the connection we’ve made with fans over the years, I think that has a lot to do with it. It’s just good people helping people, it’s awesome.
I can’t say thank you enough to all the fans and people who have streamed the song. We’re just very lucky to be in the position that we’re at, and we feel like a brand new band, honestly. We feel like we just started up again and there’s this new hunger that we have to be the best band we can be.
The album starts with the track Death Of An Executioner which has a creepy intro with a kind of air raid sounding siren in the background before the drums kick in and away we go. Why did you choose that song to open the album.
That song was the last one we finished, and that one was the trickiest one! That probably took a year off everyone’s life trying to finish that song. At one point, I’m pretty sure it was like eight minutes long, I think we would have 40 different versions of the song. It was crazy! I don’t know what it was about the song, we just couldn’t crack the code – until we finally did. And once the song turned out the way you hear it now, there was only one place to put it – and that was the top of the album. It was never intentional, it just didn’t really feel right anywhere else, and it kind of just turned into the opening track, you know? And I love the journey we went on to get to that spot. And now I can laugh and enjoy the moment. During it, I wasn’t so much laughing and enjoying. But it’s a great opener that definitely sets the vibe.
Underneath the music you tackle some pretty serious subject matter lyrically. Tell us about some of the topics and why the band felt the need to bring them to life through song.
This may be more of a Vic question, but I can say that on this album, each song obviously has its own really deep topic and stuff like that. But for example, for Pass The Nirvana, that one kind of dealt with the state of the world and all of the negativity that was going on and how we wanted to bring a little bit of light in that crazy dark time. And of course we did it, and we yelled it at you the whole time (laughs).
But that’s kind of how we felt, you know, we were pretty upset with the situations that the world was in. I think lyrically that kind of stuff goes across the whole album, sprinkled throughout it, that was kind of the mindset we had going into it.
Your last two albums Misadventures and Collide With The Sky both debuted atop Billboard’s Music charts. Did that put any extra pressure on you going into The Jaws Of Life?
I think any time you go into a studio making a new album, there’s pressure. And this is just me speaking from my experience, but there’s always pressure, there’s always a little bit of doubt, just because you never know with stuff like this. But, to me, that’s the best part about it, you know, the nervousness – I love that feeling! It makes me feel like we’re doing something important. If you don’t feel anything while making your album, you’re doing something wrong. And it was very special to be having that pressure.
We always put 100% into every album, we don’t half-ass anything. And I kind of like feeling that weight on my shoulders. Now – this is the fun part, we do all that work to do what we do now, and to be able to play the shows. For us, that’s like eating our dessert, this is the fun time!
The band had your first and only line-up change between Misadventures and The Jaws Of Life with drummer Mike Fuentes leaving. Who played drums on the album and what was it like working with a different band member after so long?
This is how wild the world is, through a friend we knew the drummer for Third Eye Blind, Brad Hargeaves. And we’ve known him for a really long time just as a friend, he’s helped us work on other tunes in the past before; but he’d never played drums on any of our stuff before. We kind of were just like: “what’s the worst thing that can happen? He says, no?”. So, we asked him, and he jumped at the chance, and we were so just unbelievably floored. He flew to New Orleans, tracked the record in like three days, like a machine.
It was an honour playing bass to him, me and him tracked the rhythm section. It was an unforgettable moment to have an insane legend like himself be on our album, it’s such an awesome thing. I can’t even explain it, the world is a crazy, it’s a wild place sometimes. And we’re really thankful that he said yes, and he helped us out a ton. People say this album has a lot of 90s nostalgic vibes. I mean, talk about nineties nostalgic vibes, Third Eye Blind – come on! If anything it was just an honour to play music with him.
Pierce The Veil has undergone subtle, but noticeable musical changes over each of your albums. Is that something you discuss as a band on each cycle or is it more natural?
I think it’s a more natural progression and obviously as a fan you would see it in albums. For us, it’s years of our lives. It’s not necessarily a quick change, like: “hey, we’re gonna try this on this album or that album, or do this or do that”. It’s like: “hey guys, this is what I’ve been listening to, and these are the kind of riffs I’ve been working on”, and we just share all our stuff all the time. And that’s kinda what we were leaning towards. Not to say there’s not other things that we could change, but I think, like I said, going back to following what the song needs…that’s ind of what we were going through . With each album, we always try to be different than the last, but we never really know what type of genre we’re gonna go into, or what style necessarily. But sometimes, a little bit!
What’s next for Pierce The Veil after the album drops?
We just announced our South America and Mexico tour, so that’s exciting to be getting back down there and see some familiar faces, some fans that we haven’t seen in a long time. I think it’s been almost 10 years since we’ve played in South America and Mexico – sorry, Mexico and South America, we’re trying to make it right by you guys! There’s a lot of new announcements coming up, and have Europe and the UK already announced next year, tickets are already on sale for that one. But for now, there’s a lot of new announcements coming soon, we’re trying to travel the world, trying to play as many places as possible and as many shows as possible. So hopefully we’ll be in a city near you!
The Jaws Of Life will be released on February 10 through Fearless Records
