Exclusive Inteview: Vanitas look back at the past year part #1!

It may sound like a cliché but rising like a phoenix from the ashes of Verb The Noun and Aramantus with a mutual love of vast spanning JRPG soundtracks Vanitas coined their own genre with their sound when they appeared on the scene in 2022. After releasing their self titled debut EP the Birmingham based Cinematic DJent pioneers haven’t taken a second to look back and have instead continued their exponential growth releasing no less than four very well received singles in the past year. They gave us the honour of giving us some of their precious time so we put together an interview pairing that looks back over 2023…

You’ve been sharing some bigger stages with the likes of Monuments, Destrage and Galactic Empire, playing Metal 2 The Masses and Remission Festival, not to mention four big singles. What has been your highlight of the past year and why?

Jade: “2023 has been a busy one for us! Monuments from way back in the verb the noun days will always be a special moment for me, however if I was to pick a highlight from this year, for me personally it would be the Metal 2 the Masses final. All of my favourite people, friends and family came down to support and we had a crowd of people singing our lyrics back at us and waving glow sticks around and it was just a performance full of love”

Mitch: “Fully on board with Jade’s answer, that was also the last time we played our debut EP in full all in order, so it’ll have a special place in my heart from just witnessing people know and loved it before we sunsetted it as a set list for awhile!”

Elijah: “Galactic Empire was a big one for me in terms of adrenaline and the experience! It felt so good and heart-warming to see fans both old and new right at the front supporting us all the way through our performance.”

Jackson: “I’ve enjoyed every single gig we’ve played in 2023, Galactic Empire was a big highlight just purely because we got to play the main Asylum, but my number one has to be the M2TM Finals, the atmosphere was 10/10!”

“Eventum” was the first single of the year; an anthem for the anti-hero that ended up getting 16k of YouTube streams alone for the music video. When you see statistics like that do you find them inspiring?

Jade: “Oh for sure. I’m the main ‘social media/promo’ person in the band and I’ve been working hard to educate myself and up our promo game this year so to see that hard work pay off shows me that people are really resonating with our songs AND that We’re doing well to get them in the right places too! I couldn’t do it without our manager Canty too, he’s been a massive asset to the band this year and I love working with him.”

Mitch: “I loved seeing the stats for it go up, but truthfully I’m just happy if one person listens to anything we do! It’s a cliché at this point, but I truly write this music for myself as something I wanna hear, expecting no one else to enjoy it, so it’s always a bit mind blowing to see that kinda reaction!”

Elijah: “Seeing the stats for Eventum was mind-blowing, I think this definitely gave us all the push we needed to keep on developing and progressing our art”Jackson: “Eventum blowing up was surreal, and it was a sort of turning point for the band, not to mention Canty/DarkNorth Media doing a top job on the video and helping us out as our manager”

The September single “Between Lune And Eden“ was something a little different for you; moving away from the personal tales to a fantasy realm for an epic love story. How did the concept for the tale come about?

Jade: “I’m prone to writing big existential or angry lyrics a lot so with this song it was nice to write about something happier for once and I felt it worked perfectly with the instrumental of this song. I feel like most people are aware of this but me and Mitch are a couple, so this was a love song dedicated to him and our relationship”

Mitch: “Jade pretty much covered most basis here, but I’m also a massive fantasy nerd and power metal nerd, so really wanted to channel that kinda energy and do something insanely cheese. The pre-chorus especially is basically 90s boy band pop if you take the guitars away”

2023 feels like it has been a phenomenal year of growth for Vanitas, pushing the boundaries of your sound; what made you choose to dabble with unclean vocals on “Secrets“?

Jade: “I’ve been working on developing my harsh vocals all year and Secrets being a more angry song felt like the perfect time to try and push what I could do a bit! I’m really happy with the outcome and there’s definitely more to come on future releases.”

Mitch: “A lot of our previous work I’ve written purely with clean vocals in mind – as Jade had been working on her uncleans, I really wanted to write something that fully demanded entire unclean sections to push her into exploring that territory, worked out fantastically I think!”

If you like what you hear from Vanitas you can find them over at bandcamp.