Today’s interview comes with an up and coming band called The Vertebrae. They have some very interesting things to say about their upcoming EP and who they’d secretly love to share the stage with! Check them out and you’ll find out all about The Vertebrae!

EpicBull: Thanks for taking the time to chat with EpicBull! Please tell us who you are and about your band.

The Vertebrae: I’m Neal. I sing in a band called The Vertebrae from Buffalo, New York. I have the pleasure of playing with Jeff (Guitar), Louie (Bass), and Sean (Drums). All very talented fellas.

EB: I’ve heard that The Vertebrae have been together since 2004 but with different styles but the same band members? What style were you before?

TV: The band started out as something else entirely. We played a kind of generic metalcore sound that, obviously, didn’t last very long. Nor should it have. But from there, Jeff and I, who had met for the first time in that first version of the band, continued to play music together while adding and subtracting various members over time. Since it was just Jeff and I for awhile, the sound did a lot of morphing since we didn’t have anyone to entertain but ourselves. We toyed with electronica, stripped down acoustic numbers, even writing whole songs in midi format, basically whatever the equipment we had would allow us to do. Once we started taking it a little more seriously and began to entertain the idea of playing as a complete group, the style settled down, became less eclectic. The lineup finally solidified a couple of years ago when Sean started playing drums with us.

EB: How would you describe the sound of The Vertebrae now?

TV: It’s somewhere between really accessible rock music and few styles that are maybe a bit more bombastic or, dare I say, punk-sounding. It’s definitely a guitar player’s music. The guitar is the main event of every song. We still add some electronic noodling occasionally, or solos and clean tones, but I think we’ll always really love chunky, fast, technical guitar parts as the backbone of the songs. Lyrically, most of the material has to do with my general disdain for a variety of things, coupled with an interest in certain aspects of artistic/literary/world history.

EB: Currently you have a new release entitled “Nobody Prays” which is an EP you’ve recorded and was produced by Frank Vicario of Snapcase. Is this your first release?

TV: We released an EP sometime in… 2006 I believe, called OperaOmnia. That was also produced by Frank. It was and is a great pleasure to work on songs with him. We were all Snapcase fans, and even just sitting and talking with Frank in the studio is great. “Nobody Prays” is actually still in progress, but it should be out before the end of the summer.

EB: Recently you’ve played with the Star Fucking Hipsters, Sonic Boom 6, Smartbomb and Blitzkid. However who would be your dream band(s) to share the stage with?

TV: That’s a fun question. I would love to play a show with The World/Inferno Friendship Society. They seem like they genuinely enjoy entertaining kids every night. Propagandhi would be incredible. We’ve always really admired them, but I think they’d beat us up. There are a couple fallen vegetarians in our ranks. And I smoke like it’s my job. I’ve heard they don’t like smokers. It would also be a dream to play with a reunited Snapcase, but that’s pretty much completely unlikely.

EB: You mentioned to me previously that you have not accepted money for CDs, merch or tickets since 2007. Is there a reason behind this or are you just trying to get your name out there?

TV: We started out like any other band, trying to scrape what little cash we could out of playing at bars and that sort of thing, but I don’t think it’s entirely practical to expect to be making any sort of money off of playing music in small venues these days, even beer money. The online availability of music really changed the way a lot of people approach new material and new bands. Your average kid isn’t going to buy a CD from you after just hearing your music once in a seedy dive bar, even if he really liked it. Not when he can get any CD he wants online for next to nothing. He’s going to listen to your MySpace or what have you, then he’ll want the CD. Maybe. So, at a certain point we had to consider, ‘Hey, we all have jobs. We’re not exactly starving to death. What harm could it do to just give this stuff away and eat the cost?’ So we started handing out shirts and cds and doing shows for free. We actually put our CDs in Ziplock bags and taped them to streetlights in the city last year. It was a lot of fun to hear from people who found them and dug the music enough to contact us. We still have that annoying Snocap store on our MySpace. None of us know how to get rid of it. Readers! Do not pay for those songs! We will gladly send them to you.

We went into the studio this summer knowing fully that we’d never see any of the money we were putting into the process back. The EP is going to be available for free online in high-quality format first and foremost, and we’re only printing just enough copies to give away at shows after that. We just want people to listen to our music as easily as possible, as legally as possible.

EB: Well thanks for talking to us, do you have any final words for our readers?

TV: I’ll say the same thing that every small band has been saying for years. Go to local shows! You have no idea how much it means to all the bands at small shows when people choose, out of all the things they could be doing with their time, to watch some kids throw themselves around a stage for twenty minutes. Even if you don’t buy their stuff, even if you just get liquored up at the bar, having you there is more fun than no one showing at all. That’s not too preachy of me, right? Go have some fun with local musicians.

Also, I might as well throw the last plug in here. “Nobody Prays” comes out at the end of the summer, eager to jump across the vacuum of space into your computing machine. If you’re at all interested, contact us or add us on Facebook or MySpace for the website where the EP will be made available. If you like the music on our MySpace, email us at thevertebrae@gmail.com, and we’ll send you the files.

And if you would like to see if you do indeed like The Vertebrae, you can listen to a couple of their tunes streaming right here!

Amber Walls

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