VAULT HILL // Family & Friends

Vault Hill is a small pioneer burial plot in Picton, southwest of Sydney. How is that so relevant to the members of a metal band from regional Victoria they chose that for their name?

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What was the inspiration behind the unusual title of their EP and its unique art? We asked all these things of guitarist Adrian O’Brien when we caught up recently to discuss Vault Hill’s Amber Falls.

Adrian, you must be very pleased that you’ve been able to get this EP out to everyone now. How was it affected by lockdowns?

Lockdown actually gave us a really good chance to revisit the EP and really analyse it. We’ve actually recorded it once before with a different session drummer, so it really gave us time to revisit the riffs and the lyrics and we really matched with this drummer, Frankie Demaru. He helped us really take the songs to the next level, and he introduced us to Chris at Parliament Studios and it was incredible working with him. He had some incredible ideas for guitar harmonies and vocals. Frankie also teed us up with his friend Albi from Cut Fire in Italy, and he did an amazing job mixing and mastering the tracks. When we got in back we were really glad that we did have a second crack at it.

For a debut release for a band that is still building a profile, it both sounds and looks amazing, so you obviously got in touch with the right people very soon. That’s a huge benefit to any band when they’re starting out.

We were just really lucky with the people we know, and every aspect we tried to do it as best we could: artwork, logos, everyone we worked with from recording to mixing and mastering – even writing. That’s helped to make it what is is and we’re really proud of it.

The name Vault Hill has a familial connection and the title is dedicated to a friend, but the songs here touch on very real and topical issues for all of us.

All of those issues are very close to our heart. We’re very influenced by political bands like Lamb of God and Rage Against the Machine, so when Morgan is writing our lyrics, he tries to write about topics that are close to him, but also topics that we want to spread awareness (of) and explore.

There’s only four songs on Amber Falls, but they are all quite varied and yet still recognisable as being from the same band. That’s something that can sometimes be hard to achieve.

Our musical influences are a big melting pot, really. Thrash metal is our heart and soul, but there might also be some Slipknot and some of the deathcore stuff and even some classic grunge like Soundgarden. We’ll be listening to these things individual and come up with ideas that work with this riff or that, add vibe or style to it and hopefully come up with something people enjoy and is a little bit different from everything else.

What are the origins of some of the songs?

Significant Figures is one of the first songs … I wrote with my best mate about 12 years ago. Then Killing Fields is, out of all those tracks, the most recent one. That was probably out together from the first riffs three or four years ago. But every time we revisit a song, we like to go over the riffs and the vocals and try different ideas and sometimes the most out-there ideas gives the song a bit of a different feel and give them a sound that’s similar enough to be the same band, but also a bit different.

We’re very influenced by political bands like Lamb of God and Rage Against the Machine, so when Morgan is writing our lyrics, he tries to write about topics that are close to him, but also topics that we want to spread awareness (of) and explore.
[ Adrian O’Brien – Vault Hill ]

Killing Fields certainly sounds like a more recent song than some of the others.

I went to see Make Them Suffer and one of their riffs became an inspiration for one of the riffs, it’s a variation of it. Their guitarist was playing this bendy-chordy thing and I was like, That could be really cool! We all have different roles in the band. Our bassist Deano, he’s the Devil’s advocate when it comes to putting more riffs in a song, more variations… we bonded our friendship over the Parkway Drive song Horizons, how the riffs evolve and grow into each other. Then we’ve got my brother as the vocalist. We call him The Butcher. The song might be eight minutes long, and he comes along and says, You’ve got to get rid of that, and that. So that’s helped a lot.

It sounds like quite an effective songwriting dynamic. Let’s talk about the origins of the name of the band now because it’s quite a fascinating story.

In the early days of the band we were a high school cover band doing Metallica, Pantera, Slipknot, a bit of Lamb of God stuff, and we were actually on a family holiday and we were going through Picton. On this hill, we were trying to come up with a band name, something metal! Coming up with a band name is one of the hardest things to do because you don’t want something lame. It was actually our mum who suggested it, while we were sitting there surrounded by the family vault of one of our great-grandfathers – “What about Vault Hill.” After high school we all moved to Melbourne one by one and we thought about renaming the band, but we could never come up with something that fit. So we’ve stuck with it, and it’s become part of the story.

The artwork is also something very different from the typical metal release too.

When we first recorded the EP, we needed something to call it and Deano suggested we dedicate it to our friend Nathan Johnston, who had passed away a couple of years earlier. We thought about doing it in a metaphorical way and came up with the title Amber Falls. The artist is actually our mum, and we probably get a lot of our political influences from her and there’s a lot of human rights issues in her work. We gave her the idea of the name and that we wanted to dedicate it to Nathan, and he’s there in the corner with the four cups.

Nathan was the original drummer for Dr Colossus, correct?

Yes. We were jamming with Nathan about 2012 – 2013. He was playing in a band called Kashmere Club at the time with Jono Colliver, who is the singer with Dr Colossus. Jono got picked up by Vance Joy to tour with him so he had to leave Kashmere Club and we started jamming with Nathan. We started hearing stories about this Simpsons-themed doom band he was doing with Jono and we thought it great, and then they just took off! It was actually at an early Dr Colossus show that we met Deano. We were asking about each other’s bands and our bassist had just quit. We were both pretty drunk and I asked him if he’d play bass and he pretty much joined the band that night!

So what are the plans for Vault Hill going forward from the release?

We want to be able to play as many shows as possible. We’re also putting the finishing touches on a couple of tracks. We want to release a two-track maybe early next year. Then do some more singles and maybe an album. We want to continue with this momentum we have right now and get on as many stages as possible.