A few years ago, I tweeted, “If I don’t see Pierce The Veil on Saturday, I don’t know what the point of living really is.” If that doesn’t explain what a huge fan I am of Pierce The Veil, and with good reason, I don’t know what will. I did, in fact, end up going to the concert mentioned in that tweet, by the way. It was The Spring Fever Tour and it, until this day, remains one of my top three favorite concerts I’ve ever been to, with the best production for PTV I have ever seen.
The post-hardcore quartet comes from San Diego, California, and has existed as Pierce The Veil for 10 years. The band consists of brothers, Vic and Mike Fuentes, Jaime Preciado, and Tony Perry. They have had a crazy and successful career thus far, and are going stronger now more than ever with one of the most dedicated and supportive fanbases I have ever seen. The group has released four studio albums with the latest being Misadventures, which released May 13—the first album since Collide With The Sky which released back in 2012. Both of those albums were recorded and produced right here in New Jersey.
Misadventures shows growth in the band’s collective sound and the lyrics bring new meaning and depth to what PTV is known for. They put out “The Divine Zero” in 2015 before they went out on the Vans Warped Tour that summer, and that ended up making it onto the album. Then, they released “Texas Is Forever” and “Circles” as singles in 2016. “Circles” rung in over 500,000 streams on YouTube and Facebook within its first week of release—and that doesn’t even include iTunes and Spotify streams. The hype for their new music was at an all-time high for PTV leading up to the release of Misadventures, and what they have been working so long and hard on has definitely lived up to said hype with their fiery and fierce instrumentals and passionate, as always, lyrics.
Although there was such a large gap of time between releasing albums, Pierce The Veil has been non-stop when it comes to touring. They have not had a significant amount of time off from touring until recently while they finished up Misadventures. Right before the album release and gearing up to go back on the road, Vic Fuentes was able to dedicate some time to filling me in on writing and recording specific songs, the Misadventures Tour, where PTV will be performing the album in its entirety, and more. Check it out below.
Congratulations on the new album, Misadventures. It comes out in exactly one week and you’re having release show in Mexico City, which I am sure you are especially excited for. Are you doing anything else in anticipation for the album release?
Thank you! Yes, practicing a lot. That’s pretty much it. We’ve done a lot of prep work for the record. We’ve been working a lot on booking tours and getting all new merch lines ready. We actually just got back from a week in London. We did a week of press there to promote the new album and that was really fun. So yeah, I think everyone is pretty much ready for it to come out. It’s just waiting now.
On your official website, you’re having different things be unlocked each day until the release. I thought it was a really creative way to promote the album and keep fans engaged leading up to May 13.
Thanks! Yeah, we like to draw as much attention as we can to our website. We do put a lot of effort into it and it has a lot of different stuff than our Instagram and our Facebook.
I know you were originally working on the album and then you guys went and did the world tour and Warped Tour 2015. Did you stop working on the album completely during those tours?
Sort of. I took a break from being in the studio and kind of focused more on just playing shows again and being around our fans and being around the band. I think that’s another form of inspiration that we get—just being around all of that. It was nice to experience that for a little bit and get out of the studio and get some fresh air.
There are 11 songs on the album and you already have three out as singles. Were there any specific reasons you chose these songs “The Divine Zero,” “Texas Is Forever,” and “Circles” to be the first ones that fans heard after four years?
Yeah, I mean, “The Divine Zero” was the first one that we really felt was completely finished and we knew we needed a song to come out swinging on Warped Tour. That felt like a good song to come out live with and then we had similar thinking with “Texas Is Forever.” It’s actually been a long time since we put out “The Divine Zero,” so putting out “Texas” was a song we knew we would love to play right away. It was sort of a greedy decision because we just really wanted to play it live because it’s so fast and fun.
“Circles” was more of a song that I think as we showed people the new record, they started enjoying that song and thinking that could be the next single. We kind of just went with the feedback for that one. That’s usually how we like to choose singles. Usually we like to tour a little bit and see what people gravitate towards and let the fans pick the singles.
Right off the bat, “Dive In” packs a mean punch for the album to start off with. I think that a lot of people will be able to resonate with the lyrics. I really like the lyrics, “And just because you’re screaming for my attention does not mean I will waste my time.” Can you talk a little bit more about this song?
When I finished that song, I was writing up in Seattle. I think I was diving pretty deep into the whole idea of the Seattle sound and the history of music and how it’s all so DIY and all about the Sub Pop Records and localization of music and how it can all come from underground. I just love that concept still. I’m still trying to hang onto that and I have a bit of that anger towards the people in music who were around who have kind of forgotten that and forgotten the art and why we do what we do. I think that being around all of that up in Seattle is where I found the inspiration to finish that song.
Oh, I love it! I think it may be my favorite on the album!
Awesome! Thank you! That song is a good one. If anybody ever asks what Pierce The Veil sounds like, you could show them that song and I think it’s a good example of what the band is capable of doing and all the different inspirations that we have.
On the other hand, the album ends with another powerful one, “Song For Isabelle.” I think it’s another really relatable one, especially the end when it talks about wanting to be a kid again. What were your thoughts while writing this song?
Well, I think…One thing that was cool about that song is that we wrote it in the studio and we’ve never tried to do anything like that before. We spent a couple weeks just literally sitting in a circle trying to make noises and make a song together. It was a big experiment to try to do something like that because it was never attempted to write something on the spot in the studio. It was nice to really collaborate fully as a band on that one.
And, that ending, I’ve been saying a lot lately that I feel like we’re all starting a new life because it feels like the whole time of my life making this record has been so crazy and dramatic and intense and now that it’s all wrapped up in a fancy package, it feels like we’re ready to start a new life with touring and putting this thing out. That ending kind of represents that.
Are there any other songs you want to specifically talk about that stuck out most to you during the writing or recording process?
Yeah, “Circles” was an important one for me. I wrote it also while I was up in Seattle and it was after the Paris attacks. I ended up writing it in a matter of four hours or something like that. It was such a crazy time when that happened and I compared it to when Eddie Vedder [of Pearl Jam] wrote “Jeremy” about that boy in the classroom and how it really hit him heavy, and that’s how it that for me with the Paris thing. I think it hit musicians in a different way because that’s what we do and at the end of the day I wrote the song about two friends who are trying to help each other out. It was just inspired by that whole crazy thing that happened.
Did you have any songs that didn’t make it to the album that we may still hear in the future?
Yeah, possibly. There were a couple songs. One was a full piano song that I really loved but it didn’t seem to fit anywhere on the record so we kind of hopped off of it for now. It definitely might come to life at some point. I would totally make that one happen one day.
You announced the Misadventures Tour and it sold out incredibly quick. Did you expect that to happen as quickly as it did?
No, not at all. Right when it went on sale, we found out that New York sold out in 30 seconds or something crazy and we were mindblown. It really lit a pretty strong fire for us to get inspired to get these tours ready and make them super special and get the production going and start, you know, just getting ready on our end. It’s really inspiring to see that.
Although you do hit mostly all of the major cities, it is a pretty short tour compared to other tours you’ve been on. Why is that?
Yeah, it’s sort of its own special thing. It’s not like any other tour we’ve ever done and it was meant to be a onetime event and a once in a lifetime kind of thing for fans. It was a gut decision on our part—being so close to our fans and feeling the vibe of everybody wanting new music and feeling pretty hungry for that. It’s been a while since we’ve put out new music so I think it’s going to be a good way to really come out swinging.
What was the reason behind the decision of playing the album front to back on this tour?
Like I said, it was kind of a gut decision. We wanted to have this be something different than the other tours we have coming up—give people even more of a reason to want to check it out. Also, I just thought it would be a fun idea. Most bands, you know, they play their 10-year anniversary album in that way, so it was very ‘70s rock band of us to just go out and play it. I’m sort of surprised that more bands don’t do it. So yeah, it just kind of feels right.
In the fall, you head out on a pretty lengthy tour overseas. Are you doing the same thing over there with playing only the album in its entirety?
No, the whole Misadventures Tour is just a onetime thing that is going to be super special and all the other tours will be back to old stuff and new stuff and mixing it up.
You have a quite a long break between the U.S. tour and the one overseas and I’m sure you’ll be playing festivals and other fun things, but is there anything else you have planned that you can talk about?
At this point, we’re just looking at as many tours as we can. And yeah, we are going to be jumping into the festivals. I think this record is a new stepping stone for the band and it’s going to be bringing things to a higher level and that’s we like to do with these records—dive into new things we’ve never done before. So right now, we’re booking tours and festivals all over the world and we’ll be announcing them as they get booked.
Awesome! Well I’m so glad you guys were able to finally get this album finished and out to the fans. Now it’s just a waiting game.
Thank you! Yeah, I can’t wait. I’m freaking out!
Pierce The Veil will be playing at Irving Plaza in Manhattan on June 15, and at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia on June 16. Their latest album, Misadventures, is available now. For more information, visit piercetheveil.net.
