Gainesville, FL’s You Vandal are back with their next LP Pretend I Don’t Exist, which is due out 11 Feb 2022 via Jump Start Records. TGEFM recently got in touch with Eric Cannon, guitarist and vocalist of the band, for our Roll of the Dice interview series where we ask about their album titles, writing a new album during the pandemic, and just WHAT IS IT about Gainesville. We rolled a FIVE.
1) Hey there You Vandal! Just to let you, and the readers know, I rolled a 4 and a 1, so we’ve got 5 questions. It seems my attempts to subvert the generic “5?s” interview format failed here… (laughter). So, hey… you’ve got a new album coming out, Pretend I Don’t Exist and, I did a little bit of digging, this looks like your first LP since 2017’s I Just Want to Go Back to Hell. It seems that your album titles have a tendency for Debbie Downer or, maybe, self-deprecating vibes (Leave the Frowning to Us is a personal fave of mine). What’s up with that?
Hey! Yes, I think your description of our vibe-tendencies is fair. You can definitely find some bummer references in a lot of our titles and lyrics, but we usually try to counterbalance that by making the music more upbeat. Our guitarist Gooch likes to use a Sing Street reference in describing it as “happy-sad.” Part of the issue is that I mostly use lyric-writing as an exercise in venting… like melodic journaling or something.
Some of the downers, though, are meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Maybe that’s a byproduct of listening to too much Reel Big Fish growing up. You mentioned Leave the Frowning to Us, and that’s a quote from the TV show Party Down. Our old song title “Please God Kill Me” is spoken by Meatwad in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force pilot. Or there’s a lyric on the new album, “cut me open groin to sternum,” which is derived from a line in the first Scream movie. So while plenty of the melancholy moments are sincere, some are just incredibly stupid and obscure pop culture references.
2) Your output between 2010-2017 is pretty strong (even prolific, one might say), with six releases including several LPs and collection of EPs. Then you have a bit of a break until last Autumn when you started ramping up for the new album. What are the factors leading to that bit of slow-down and, if I may double-dip on this question, did the pandemic exacerbate that or was this just the time-table for your process this go around?
We could dump all the blame on COVID and no one would be the wiser, but it was partly our own fault as well. After the last LP came out, our focus was on hitting the road as much as we could, going to new places, and really pushing that album (I Just Want to Go Back to Hell). It took us longer than it probably should have to re-prioritize working on new material. The album was completely written by the start of 2020, but recording and mixing was done in bits and pieces throughout the year; squeezed in around everyone’s jobs, personal lives, and all the virus craziness. There were some pandemic-related delays in 2021 getting it pressed, but it’s done! Finally! And I think it’s objectively our best album to date, so hopefully people will find it worth the wait.
3) Gainesville isn’t that big of a city, so what the hell is up with your music scene. I mean: you guys, Hot Water Music, Less Than Jake, Against Me!… looking outside of our genre there’s also Tom Petty and Heartbreakers… to name some of the most popular. That town has way too much talent for such a little place. What’s YOUR explanation for this? (I’m guessing it is the water, but I’m probably way off base)
I’m not sure what the experience was like for any of those bands that came before us, but thanks for even including us in the same sentence! Maybe having the university here brings in an eclectic mix of bright people from all over the place. Or maybe The FEST and all those bands you mentioned have made it a Punk Rock Mecca now. We’ve got a dynamic rotating variety of people, a heavy punk lean, and a small-town scene where it’s easy for everyone to get to know and support one another. Are there trace levels of arsenic in the water? I hope not. Fingers crossed! Regardless, Gainesville is a special place.
4) I know this is like choosing between your children, but what is your favorite song on the new album, and why?
My personal favorite is “Sink Back to Me” for a veritable laundry list of reasons. Not only does it include many of my favorite musical and lyrical moments on the new album, but the dual singer-songwriter dynamics here hit the sweet spot for me personally. I’ve wanted to play in a band with two singers since I was a kid, and having Gooch in the band for the past few years has made that a reality. This is the first album to feature his contributions, and it’s been tremendously gratifying to write and arrange with him in a way that wasn’t possible before. Every song on the new album is uniquely rad and one of our best, but the sentimental cheese factor at play on “Sink Back to Me” makes this an easy choice.
5) What is next for You Vandal?
Pretend I Don’t Exist will be out February 11th and we can’t wait for people to hear it. The pandemic has limited our performance schedule for two years now, but we’re really excited for people to experience these new songs in a live setting. We’re doing shows all around Florida and up in Georgia in the immediate future, but we’re working on national dates in the coming months as well. You can also look out for another music video or two in that time-frame. From there, we’ve got another two LPs worth of song ideas at the moment, so the wait for a follow-up should be much shorter this time around. I’ll workshop a more uplifting title for the next one, but for now I’m thinking something like “The Only Absolute Knowledge Attainable By Man Is That Life Is Meaningless.”
You can pre-order Pretend I Don’t Exist at You Vandal’s Bandcamp page or the Jump Start Records webstore.
Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed.
the white drew carey (aka – Jeff Sorley) is the founder and head editor of TGEFM. He’s lived (outside of) Chicago, Madison WI, (ugh) Penn State, Lyon FR, Oxford UK, central New Jersey, and now within earshot of SFO in the Bay Area. When not scouring the web for more great bands and labels to post about, he also spends time drawing (mostly) silly sci-fi and anime stuff under the name Asplenia Studios.
