Indy In-Tune

Show #116: Vessel

Battle season at Birdy's (not to sell short the battles at Rock House or 8 Seconds Saloon, which I also enjoy), is one of my favorite times of the year.  It's a chance to hang out and party with people you only see once a year, meet new friends, and get a surprise or two along the way.  So, really, it's like the holidays, only with better music and less family drama.  One such surprise I came across this year is the band Vessel.  Like all good good hardcore and hip hop acts at the battle, Vessel took the closing spot in the wee hours of the morning on a long night of excellent music, playing to a few of their friends and supportive musicians who stuck around to hear the evening's results.  This was a little different though.  I often have fun trying to predict what type of band I'm going to be listening to judging by the instruments, dress, warm-up habits, etc.  These guys, however, don't exactly fit the typical mold ... for anything.

It's easy to write Vessel off as just another hardcore/scream-core metal band, but closer inspection reveals hints of sophisticated composition and technical prowess that, especially when you consider that the average age of this band is somewhere between 20 and 21, bear closer scrutiny.  In the interview, we get a feel for the diverse personalities at play in this band, as well as the struggles of getting gigs, getting noticed, and getting taken seriously as musicians given a greater degree of training, but lesser degree of practical experience to many of their peers.

Links referenced in the show:  

• Vessel can be found here Facebook | Reverb Nation | Soundcloud
• Several members of the band were formerly together in Barbados Slim.
• Their new single "Brother" as well as their previously released tracks from "Nebuchadnezzar" are currently available for free on the sites above.
• They adopted a dual 8-string guitar attack after hearing the band Animals as Leaders.   
• The monologue at the opening of "False Body" is a sermon by Billy Graham.
• They are managed by Levar Johnson from The Music Mob.

Currently Listening To:
	Vessel: Brother (Single) Click Image for Details Click Here for More Essential Listening

Darrin Snider is the OCD music nerd responsible for creating Indy In-Tune. By day he's a cloud engineer and business analyst, but he still hopes to someday be an overnight freeform disc jockey married to the local weathergirl who happens to be a former eastern-European supermodel.