Vended / Orlando, FL

Vended

Vended brings an unrelenting intensity and ferocity to the stage, making a bold mark in today’s modern metal scene. Their recent performance in Orlando on Monday, April 28,  was a visceral display of energy and raw emotion. Formed in 2018, Vended has quickly made a name for themselves with their unique blend of heavy music and captivating live performances, establishing themselves as one of the most exciting new acts in the scene. Before they took the stage, we had the opportunity to sit down with the band for an exclusive interview, where they opened up about their style, formation, and inspirations behind what makes them Vended. Here’s what they had to say.

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Your stage makeup is such a distinct part of your identity as a band! Have you always done makeup?  What inspired the designs, and how did you land on the specific style?

As far as live performances go, they have always done makeup. Simon’s first design, his face, was inspired by the music video for  “Angst” by Rammstein. The band’s makeup style has slightly evolved over the years, taking an artistic approach to their look. 

Griffin Taylor: I used to always change it and do polka dots and stuff like that and now, I figured out how to take my three fingers, put it into blue and flick it at my face.. a little Vincent Van Goh and splatter art inspired. I used to be bald and I would put it all over my head and now I just put it in my hair!

There’s a strong visual theme running through your color choices, especially with the blues, blacks and whites across your album art, performances and makeup. What’s the meaning or story behind that palette for you?

Cole Espeland: We definitely wanted to have our branding, as far as blue being the main color. Branding is very important to us..logos and the color scheme being that was the whole point of it. There’s really no meaning behind it, we just wanted a definitive brand.

Every band has their own story, how did the five of you come together and know this was the right lineup to create Vended?

Griffin Taylor: The way that this all really started was with Cole walking up to me in middle school and asking if I wanted to start a band together for the talent show that was going to happen and I said yeah! We did the talent show and were then practicing, looking for members, trying to find our sound and doing covers and stuff like that. We eventually got Simon in and Simon really pointed us in the direction of doing metal and started doing heavier stuff. Eventually we got JJ in and after that we got Grod and since then we had  just been working and writing. We did our first show at Vaudeville Mews in 2020  and then lockdown happened. But it was a double edged sword because it kept us from doing more but also gave us more time to keep writing, keep learning, stick to the drawing board and just keep perfecting. We were just hashing it out at a really young age and just kept doing what we could. Eventually we got a nice base for sound, performance and our image and since then we’ve just been touring and kicking ass and doing what we can where we can.

With almost two-hundred thousand monthly Spotify listeners and millions of streams you’ve been growing rapidly over the years! Were there any tracks that unexpectedly took off or connected with fans in ways you didn’t anticipate?

Anytime we write, we don't necessarily write to have a hit song. It's just writing what feels good. Anything that's come across and has had millions of streams is just natural writing. Our biggest streamed song “Asylum” we wrote when we were fourteen in a basement. We didn’t even have  a band name and weren’t even thinking that it would be the biggest one. We just wrote what felt good. 

Griffin Taylor: “Asylum”  was kind of a surprise with people just being super into it! We’ve kind of  made that the last song that we perform and every time I’m like “this next song is called..” before I even say it everyone is like “ASYLUM!” It always makes my day when people are excited about the music I truly, truly do care about. Seeing the joy and the amount of help that it’s done for others, it really makes my day. I heard people singing “Nihilism” during one of our shows and it was out in Ireland somewhere and I genuinely, literally teared up.

Looking ahead since we’re nearing the end of this tour, what’s next for Vended? Are there any upcoming projects, tours, or goals you’re excited about that you can share?

We’re always working on the next thing. Right now we’re still supporting our first record that just came out last fall. So the rest of this year we have Warped Tour in Orlando and Long Beach, a few other Festivals and really just mainly focused on supporting our record right now!

Gallery and interview by Sydney Sugrue