PLAGUE VENDOR// Always Stoked, Never Satisfied

About a month ago someone told me about Epitaph’s new band Plague Vendor. I admired the atypical combo of words, like Cellar Door. The debut record Free To Eat is quintessential punk, a forced boot to the teeth. After the 11^th repeat I was ready to mainline this aural fiasco, this frenetic punk paradigm that mirrors a rubber band bound tight across a razor blade. Plague Vendor’s shadowed introspection and raw screams belong to Brandon Blaine, a doe-eyed division of Nick Cave not yet broken by the world. I chain-smoke, he drinks beers. Keith Moon is mentioned.

How have you dealt with or diffused some of the hype since being signed to Epitaph?
I’m extremely humbled. I’ve been doing my thing with a microphone since I was 16 years old. It wasn’t a dream; it was a goal, something I had to do. We are all so humbled. There was yelling and crying and we were so STOKED that it happened. I’m not gonna flip my lid and go buy a Bentley or anything, I’m gonna stay true and drink beer and eat barbeque!  Always stoked, but never satisfied.

My Tongue Is So Treacherous has these ‘50s surf guitar riffs. Why do think they pair so well against spat-out lyrics, these organic drones?
It’s so natural. I know it segues into another groovier part and its more dance-y and I don’t think we ever fucking talked about transferring it into … Wait, it still boggles my mind that we play Treacherous into Goddamn. I’m more stoked for people to hear the fucking scream that I did. Goddamn, I want Dave Grohl to hear that scream. I think he would be proud.

There are short pithy quotes that rhyme on Breakdance. Does balancing words against each other stem from listening to hip-hop?
Yep. Totally. Hip-hop was the first music I ever listened to. My first two friends in elementary school were Daryl and Tyrone and they listened to Westside Connection and NWA. They told that this is the shit that you need to listen to.

Westside Connection. Holy shit. How good.
So good. That and Death Row. We actually had our principal come into our classroom and say there’s going to be no East Coast/West Coast fights after school. All that bullshit. But hip-hop was my first love and everybody that knows me personally, knows that.

There is a counterpoint between punk and hip-hop, whether political or just from the frustrations from the street.
Exactly, and I hear that all the time. I hear it all the time, like, “This is hip-hop.” When I hear Bad Brains or even Dead Kennedy’s — which are rhythmic in their sound — I know. For me, it’s not even fucking hip-hop, its rhythm, it’s bitchin’. If you’re singing some shit, you have to be groovy. I love when I hear vocal melodies and I’m like, “FUCK, why didn’t I think of that?”

Yeah, but yours ranges from that disgusting low growl to screeching.
Well, thank you. Free To Eat is a compilation of four friends finding their way. Finding what clicks and what ticks. With that came a lot of different styles and a lot of different genres and lot of different rhythms. There’s tracks where I was gonna scream my fucking ass off to the very end and there are tracks where when we were recording, they were like, “Calm down.” I’m still finding my voice. I may never find it. I’m learning and I’m stoked.

Are you comfortable being a vocalist?
I was never comfortable singing, ever. I mean, I heard Imperial Teen and wanted to do it like that. I love writing, I love rhyming. But with our genre, I try to be respectful to my voice and I try not to smoke cigarettes but at the end of the day we have the freedom to do whatever the fuck we want. I’m learning as I go and do what I feel. And when the music comes, I just do it. I’m learning and I love that.

“My spirit animal is Animal from the Muppets.”
[Brandon Blaine]

In that case, who are you channelling? Who or what is your spirit animal?
My spirit animal is Animal from the Muppets. He reminds me of my fucking drummer, he’s the guy that the Muppets just let in [laughs]. Everybody knows he’s fucked up, everybody knows he’s partying, everybody knows he’s doing his thing. Dude. have you seen him play? He’s like, Keith Moon, it’s fucking nuts.

Keith Moon fucking does that, all shaking around!
[laughs] It’s crazy! He’s Keith incarnate! //