On November 24th, I had a chance to chat with Vanna front-man Davey Muise before their show with Being As An Ocean at The Oobleck and talked about their tour so far, the band’s new album Void, and transatlantic differences.
So you just started this tour a few days ago. How’s it been going so far?
Really, really good. We never have gotten the chance to tour with Being As An Ocean—we’ve been friends with them for over a year and a half now, but we never actually got that chance to tour with them. So as soon as the opportunity came up, Tyler had texted me before we got any emails saying, ‘We’re going to try and go on tour with you guys in Europe and the UK’ and I was like, ‘Yes, I’d love that.’ And the shows have been incredible. They’ve taken us to some cities we’ve been to already and I feel like there’s a whole new turn out of kids here for these shows. There’s a whole lot of people who know us, but then there’s like double or triple the people that don’t know us that like Being As An Ocean a whole lot that have just showed us nothing but love. All the shows have been really cool. Very excited to be on this tour.
That’s exciting. So you have a new album out—your fifth album called Void, earlier this summer. How has that been received so far?
Really great to the point where we played like three tracks from it, off of Void, on Warped Tour and kid reacted so well to that, that we released a couple of music videos and then on our tour with Beartooth we played like six songs off the record and now on this tour we’re playing seven songs off that record. We just feel like kids are reacting more to this record than any other record we’ve ever done and that’s great because we love it, of course, it’s our new record. We feel like we’ve tried new things on this record and kinda put ourselves out there: me, vocally, lyrically and the other guys, with their instruments and it was definitely a risk.
Yeah, the sound is a bit different on the new album, but I think it worked out really well.
Yeah, I think so. And it’s still us; it’s still who we are. But, in saying that, within taking a little bit a step with your music you run the risk of people rejecting it, and we just had to make the record we had to make, whether people were going to like it or not, and they have, more than any other record we’ve ever done. So, to us, that means a lot. To put yourself out there is so hard and then to get such an overwhelming acceptance—that feels really great.
So what do you like to do during your downtime on tour?
Well, today is the first venue that has really solid WIFI so, as you know, American bands always rely on WIFI, but I got some emails done today…But normally we like to walk around. We walked around Paris all day yesterday—went to the Eiffel Tower. A couple of our guys had never been there before, because they are newer to the band, so we brought them there. My Iron Lung has never seen anything in Europe so we brought them to a bunch of places yesterday. We like to generally walk around the cities that we’re in. In the States we more or less know our way around pretty well, and here it’s more of we’ve got to ask people for help or rely on a map before we leave the venue. But today has been all about WIFI and taking little catnaps because we took the ferry over and no one really slept. I actually just watched the Chariot documentary—the farewell documentary. It just came out today. So I just watched that and it was pretty emotional and then someone told me ‘You gotta do an interview!’ and I was like, ‘Okay, good, I’m ready, I’m ready.’ But yeah, usually it’s just either just trying to relax and catch up on sleep as we’re all on U.S. time, which I’m sure that messed with you a little when you first got over here.
Yeah, I’m well familiar with that.
Yeah. Or just kind of walk around and burn off all our energy, walk around and look at all the sights, because you never know when you’re gonna come back so.
How do you think playing for European audiences is different than playing for American audiences back home?
It’s very different. I mean, I’m sure you have gone to shows in America and you’ve gone to shows over here so. I feel like, not to badmouth the U.S. in any way, shape, or form, but kids over here, because they don’t get to have these bands all the time, they’re a lot more hungry for it, they’ll travel further distances for it, they’ll make sure that they don’t have any work or anything on the day that you’re gonna be here, which means a lot, because we spend a lot of money and we fly around the world to come here and just hope that everyone’s schedules, you know everyone has work and they don’t have money and we get that. It’s just cool to see kids, like we’ve had so many kids say that they’ve called out of work and say that they wouldn’t miss these shows for the world. Again, not to badmouth the U.S. or anything, but we’re spoiled with the bands. Even I’m guilty of it—I have venues down the street from my house and sometimes I’m like, ‘Ah, this band’s in town, but I’m really just watching Netflix right now.’ So I really think that the European and UK culture, they don’t get it as much as Americans get all these bands, so when bands come over, they’re (fans) are just lining up at the door, hanging out.
Especially hardcore.
Yeah! We only get over here once a year, maybe twice if we’re lucky. So it’s cool—we feel very appreciated and it’s even cool when kids don’t even know us, but they don’t leave the room, they don’t go and smoke a cigarette, they just watch and they come up to us and talk to us afterwards. I always say that Europe and the UK are hungry for music.
So, what are you most looking forward to doing while you’re here in the UK, besides playing the shows?
I already had English breakfast on the ferry, which was awesome. That’s the first time I’d had English breakfast, was on the ferry.
Really?
Well, not today, like four years ago, I had English breakfast. Everyone at home says food in the UK sucks.
That’s so untrue.
I know, such a lie. It’s literally my favorite food. So I can’t wait to eat—that’s my favorite thing to do in the UK. Go to Primark and get some really cheap khakis, cheap gloves, because it’s really cold over here right now. I love UK culture a whole lot. I love UK slang; we’re on tour with Crooks and they say stuff and I’m like, ‘What did you just say? Oh I like that, I’m gonna use that.’ But I just love UK culture, UK fashion, everything about over here. I come over here and I steal a bunch of stuff from you guys and then I take it home and people think I’m original.
