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 Wretched and Divine: An Exclusive Interview with Andy Biersack Of BLACK VEIL BRIDES By Wendy Jasper, Black Metal Aficionado Friday, September 6, 2013 @ 10:26 AM
The band has spent the better part of 2013 on tour, including two months on the road headlining Vans Warped 2013 to support their latest offering, Wretched and Divine: The Story of the Wild Ones. They are also in the running for Best New Artist by Fuse TV.
“Vans is a fantastic tour, but it can be exhausting,” Andy Biersack, vocalist, said during the band’s stop in Dallas. “It’s a long tour and we have had a great time, but we are ready to go home for a while. We have done Warped before and it was a great opportunity to headline. I am grateful to the tour and all of the exposure it has given us. We are going to be able to have some time off and then go out with BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE for about two months. After that we go to Europe and we will likely go out again in the U.S. starting in 2014.”
“Wretched and Divine is our first radio friendly album and has gotten a lot of airplay,” Biersack said. “It was never our intention to go make a crossover record, we just wanted to make a good album. It is the most successful thing we’ve done and has already surpassed our previous efforts. We are really proud of it and the fans have reacted so positively. I really think that it has brought us a lot of new fans that we didn’t have before and everyone seems to like it.”
The lead single from the album, “In The End” was awarded the Revolver Golden God Award for Song of the Year and Beirsack says that the song has a personal story behind it that means a lot to him.
“It is a song that was literally based on my grandfather’s death and he was very close to me,” he said. “I was in my hometown while on tour and I got to play a video for my grandmother of me singing the song to an audience of more than ten thousand people. It was really very touching, and for the hard rock community to vote it song of the year is fantastic and means so much to me.”
Social media has been integral in getting the band started. Biersack started the social media site for the band while on MySpace. He uploaded his music to the site and it later became an online sensation. The video for “Knives And Pens” set the band up for notice from Hot Topic’s Chief Music Officer, John Kirkpatrick. The band had self-produced their videos and merchandise to such an amazing effect that the retail chain began to carry their T-shirts and the sales were the second largest in the country for the store.
Another personal project for Biersack has been to support the Bully Project, an extension of the release of the film BULLY, which documents the story of an aspiring musician who was constantly bullied in school. The band created a shirt for the project that was sold online to raise money for the project.
“We have always been a band that has a strong connection with our audience and there is a message to be heard with this campaign,” he said. “When I was young, I was a short chubby kid and was bullied in school. I had long hair and girls didn’t want to talk to me and people thought I was the weird kid. I dealt with bullying so much that I had to become tough and learn to fight. As I got older I lost the weight but I still remember having to fight for the things I liked and I can identify with the kids that are being picked on. Because of that, I wanted to show that if I can be a success they can too, and I wanted to be part of an opportunity to show kids that you can do more. I think that it’s not easy for kids who may be like I was and who like different things beyond the norm. It’s important to give these kids a voice.”
The band’s music has been featured in Hollywood movies like The Avengers and Transformers: Dark of the Moon and the band continues to be viewed as one of the fastest rising groups in the world. Commonly mis-classified as Emo, the band can truly be considered straight forward hard rock/heavy metal with technical guitar riffs and a diverse vocal style.
The video for “In The End” can be seen HERE.
More info about the tour and the band can be seen via the following websites.
http://www.ticketmaster.com/Black-Veil-Brides-tickets/artist/1469883
All Photos by Wendy Jasper-Martinez
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Riding the success of the new album has been exciting for the band. For the first time, the band has had the backing of radio and multiple media outlets supporting the release. While their first two releases, We Stitch These Wounds and Set the World on Fire were highly regarded and created a dominant fan base, Wretched and Divine debuted at #7 on the Billboard chart and shot to #1 on iTunes sale’s chart.
“I was kind of a loner when I was a kid and I didn’t have a lot of friends so social media was a good outlet for me. You could literally connect with anyone, anywhere, so over time I started a band and just built an audience from there. I never knew it would turn into what it has. It gave the opportunity to spread the word about what I wanted to do so I owe a great debt to it. When we did our first tour overseas so many of the people were there to see us based solely off of the internet views and we were outdrawing the headliners because of what social media had done to help promote us.”
The rest of the band consists of guitarists Jake Pitts and Jinxx, bassist Ashley Purdy and drummer Christian “CC” Coma. BLACK VEIL BRIDES can be seen on the road this fall with BULLET OFR MY VALENTINE.
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