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10 Questions with ... Tommy Vext
December 3, 2019
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BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
- Tommy Vext - lead vocals
- Doc Coyle - lead guitar, backing vocals
- Chris Cain - rhythm guitar, backing vocals
- Kyle Konkiel - bass, backing vocals
- John Boecklin - drums
1) Where does this interview find the band right now?
We're in North Carolina, on tour with Five Finger Death Punch, Three Days Grace and Fire From The Gods and we're at the Greensboro Coliseum complex in North Carolina today.
2) Let's start at the beginning. I know the band has only been around for a couple of years. Give us the scoop on where and how the band formed?
John - our drummer started the band after he left his last band - Devildriver. So he started recording and writing a few years before the band actually came together. John and Chris had been friends for a long time and they had planned to do this project and had written 10 songs or so. Simultaneously, in 2016, I was in another band that John was helping me manage. I got a request for a song for a car commercial - and I knew John had extra songs lying around and so I asked him for one. That song turned out to be "Learn to Live" and so in late 2016 - I went in the studio and recorded the song and sent it to him, and we never sent it in. John had been looking for a singer and we just kind of went into it and it happened really fast - and then all of a sudden we had 12 - 13 songs and then we were shooting a video, then Doc came into the band. Kyle came into the band at the very last minute - we were recording a music video and we didn't have a bass player. So Doc called Kyle to step in and he had just quit his band, and so that's how it happened and we became a band.
3) Who came up with the name Bad Wolves and what is the significance of the name?
John had a name called Eye of Tongues and I didn't like the name - and everyone had their own name ideas, and everyone agreed we needed a new name. So John and I went out for pizza to figure out this name situation and we were talking about a concept for a music video that was a mix between thriller and teen wolf which we haven't done yet, but are hoping to do one day. And this scene stuck out from a movie, called Interstellar with Matthew Mcconaughey. In the scene, he's telling his daughter a story about wolves - and says that in every person there's a good wolf and a bad wolf and his daughter asks, "Which one wins the fight" and he says "Whichever one you feed." That always stuck with me, and so we decided on Bad Wolves.
4) What bands have inspired you and you'd list as major influences?
For me, as a vocalist, it's been the Deftones. Everyone in the band is really influenced by Pantera and by bands like Metallica..a lot of the classic stuff. But we're all also influenced by more modern bands like Animals as Leaders and Periphery, Meshuggah and I think some of that comes out in our guitar tones and riff's. We all love WhiteChapel. So there is some influence from extreme metal, but also from other genres of music - like Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Guns & Roses, and Soundgarden. Even hip hop groups like Wu Tang Clan, Biggie Smalls, Busta Rhymes. They have all had an impact on our approach to songwriting. So we're a mish mosh of all these different artists that we love from different time capsules.
5) Before we talk about your latest single and album, tell us how the band came to record your highly successful cover of the Cranberries classic "Zombie" and how the passing of Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan affected you and the band?
When we were initially recording the first batch of songs, I was living in Venice and I remember I was at a coffee shop and "Zombie" came on the radio or the playlist, while I was writing lyrics to a song that John had already written the music for. I was like "oh my god, I remember this song." I was huge on the Cranberries when I was kid, when they first came out in the 90's, so I went back and listened to the song and I looked up the meaning and I never really realized what the song was about when I was a kid. So I read about the IRA bombings, and the factory where the two little boys were killed, and what this protest anthem was about and I felt like it directly correlated to a lot of the terrorist activity in Europe and the domestic terrorism like Vegas shootings and all the school shootings that were happening. So I went to the band and told them we need to record this, and so we went into the studio and worked with the producer - Philip Naslund and Joseph McQueen and we finished the song. This was in 2017. Once we were signed to Better Noise Music - I was not sure that the song was a good enough cover to put out. So when we were on tour with Five Finger Death Punch, we were at Wembley Arena and I ran into Dan Waite, who works for the label and was a family friend of Dolores O'Riordan and he really loved the track and he sent it to her for her approval. I flew home for the holidays and a few days later I got a message from Dan, saying that Dolores loved the track and wanted to sing on it. So obviously we were flattered and really excited. So she wound up flying to London to record on our version of Zombie, but as many people know, she tragically passed away the evening before she was scheduled to record. We woke up the next day and it was all over the news and it was really devastating. Our initial reaction was to shelve the song, and just move forward - but we talked to the label, and they felt it was important to release the song as a memorial to her, especially since it was the last piece of work she was supposed to be on. So we went a step further and donated all the proceeds from the track to her children. We released the track on YouTube and it just exploded. Then Howard Stern played it, and all these radio stations played it and then it was just everywhere. Then we did a music video for it with Wayne Isham who's worked with like Metallica, Michael Jackson..he's a legend. And then we just kept going from there. 2018 was an interesting process for us, because we had this record that we had worked so hard on and then we got charged with the task of carrying this track for Dolores, which was nerve-racking. We got to play this song every night for fans, and healed from it. We grieved the loss of this artist who had such an impact on us and the world and were able to give back to her family. It's just a very remarkable story and I don't really know of any music industry story that's like this. It was a very emotional rollercoaster of an experience - and at the end the takeaway I got was that the way that the music industry shows up is by going out of their way to make something tragic into a positive situation - and that speaks volumes to me about a genre of music that for all intents and purposes, the mainstream, doesn't exist anymore. And here we are in 2019 celebrating this woman's legacy with a platinum remake and that's what rock and roll is all about. It holds a lot of meaning and healing and it's never going to go anywhere, and I'm glad we got to be part of that proud moment.
6) Now let's talk about your latest album "N.A.T.I.O.N" which was released in October of this year. What can you tell us about this latest album?
In 2018, we played so many shows, that we only had a week or two off in between - but we had already started going back into the studio. In between tours, we were back in LA and we recorded four songs. After the Canadian tour with Three Days Grace - John went right back into the studio, when we were home for the holidays. The guys would have their laptops on tour and we would record riffs and we would go over the songs - these were the riffs that would turn into the new album. By the end of January - there was already 20 skeletons of songs. There's a lot of creative people in the band and a great work ethic - so it got finished way faster than anyone expected it to or realized. It dropped in October and we had some interesting numbers around the world. It was great to see us at #2 on iTunes - to see a rock or metal band be that high up, it's a big deal to us - it means that people love the band and they want to buy music so that's pretty remarkable.
7) Congrats on the success of your single "Killing Me Slowly" which is a Top 10 song at Rock Radio. What can you tell us about the meaning behind that song?
Killing Me Slowly is about a relationship where one person gets caught lying or cheating or dealing with their own personal inability to be honest and vulnerable with their partner and there's a lot of that in the world today. Because of social media, everyone's looking for the next best thing rather than people in relationships to work past their differences and make the relationship strong. I was writing from my experience of an ex of mine, who was living a double life. For me, I had to put myself in her shoes to forgive her. It's about the frustration of living with the inability to be vulnerable with the person you're with, due to childhood issues. Losing that person and having to watch them move and on and see their life be better without you, is what the story is about.
8) What's your take on Rock Radio here in the states? Do you have any favorite on-air radio moments you can share with us?
When the band first came out, Diamante was with us and we went to a bunch of radio stations performing in the morning. But we just had fun with it and it was a really good time. I'm pretty open about my recovery and experiences with addiction and there's been multiple occasions where people at stations have pulled me aside and spoken about their experience getting sober, the bands message, mental health awareness and how much it matters. Music is more than music, it's a message and we really strive to write good songs that have meaning and try to use the bands platform to address people's everyday problems. That's a really important component to what Bad Wolves is.
9) You are on tour right now with Five Finger Death Punch, Three Days Grace and Fire from The Gods. How is the tour going and what do you guys have in store for live dates in 2020?
The tour is going really great, but I tore my elbow two nights ago, Everyone's asking if I worked out too hard - I actually just tore my sweatshirt off too hard and hyper extended my elbow. So now I'm the gif of the tour. Zoltan has a broken toe and now I'm in a sling - so this is the handicapped metal tour. But everyone here knows each other, and we're all friends so it's like band camp again. Fire From The Gods are a new band that Zoltan is managing. FFTG are playing at some of our headline shows and they're really great, they're killing it. It's great to see how these bigger bands are bringing in these bands and are shuffling in the new generation of rock and metal bands and so I'm so happy for FFTG - they're really deserving of this opportunity. In 2020 we're going out on tour with FFDP and Megadeth and we're going to be doing a European tour from January to March. We'll be doing a co-headlining tour with Hollywood Undead, along with From Ashes To New and Fire From The Gods in the U.S. We're playing Epicenter in May. Metallica and Deftones are headlining Epicenter so that'll be very exciting. We also have Red Rocks with In This Moment also coming up.
10) Finally, I've asked this question many times to Rock artists. There's a definite difference between making a record and going out and playing it live in front of an audience. Many feel that the real work is making the record, and the fun part is playing it live. What's your take on both of these processes?
It Depends. The fun part is playing it live. But for me, I'm very open about my life struggles in our songs. Performing songs like Remember When and Sober can be very emotionally draining live, but it can be a cathartic process. The studio can be a safe place and a controlled environment. So the studio can be an easier environment than live performance where we're exposed. As artists we're so transparent and open about the places we come from when we write these songs - because that's what makes them good, they're real. When it comes from a real place of love, joy, pain, or anger - it makes for good art. So going up there and playing songs with that much meaning and intensity live - can be exhausting. I think that's what makes Bad Wolves special and what the audience connects to. When we're honest on stage, we give people the ability to be honest with themselves.
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