“The songs that you hear on this record came to us really naturally. It made as much sense to us as the songs that we had written for Free to Eat, even though both records ended up sounding so different to one another. We didn’t talk too much about what we wanted to do. I think we’re a bit more proactive – we just went out and did it. We just wrote as it came to us, really.”
Production and recording for Bloodsweat took place in April last year. The band were joined in the studio by producer Stuart Sikes, who also assisted in engineering the record. When it came to putting the pieces together, Blaine – who is also the band’s primary lyricist – let the his personal experiences guide him through every last word. “I’m the kind of person that is writing all the time,” he says. “Something will happen in my life, positive or negative, and I’ll be compelled to write about it. I go through some experiences, I work through them by writing about them. It could even just be something like a book that I’m reading, or maybe a movie that I’ve been watching recently… nothing explicitly about them, but it all manages to work its way into whatever I’m writing. It just comes to be when I’m focused on the lyrical side of new music I’m working on.”
The evolution of sound that has encapsulated Plague Vendor can be compared to the stylistic departures and evolutions taken by bands such as Title Fight and Ceremony. It has lead them down considerably different paths in comparison to where they started, certainly; and yet, their sound never betrays its origins. Plague Vendor are the kind of band that are consciously aware of their beginnings – some parts of Bloodsweat lingering since the band originally formed, only now taking their proper shape. “It can take awhile for a song to really come into its own for us,” says Blaine.
“Some of the songs on this record have been hanging around our jam sessions since maybe 2009 or 2010. On the other hand, there are songs that were more or less born while we were in the studio working on the record. The one thing that holds them all together, though, is the fact they all really developed through playing them live. We learned a lot about what kind of songs we wanted to make, and we found that every time we’d give one of them a try when we were playing, they’d get a lot tighter. Building up these songs when we were touring gave us a lot of confidence when it came to making Bloodsweat.”
Momentum is building within the band’s camp. This past week saw them performing at South by Southwest, turning in an impressive run of five shows in three days. With a relentless touring schedule, Blaine attests to the band’s uncompromising commitment to playing live – even when, from time to time, it’s not exactly reciprocated.
“We’ve been touring through North America, and everywhere is just so different in terms of the types of crowds that you get,” he explains. “Some cities just want to get right up in your face, and they seem to know exactly what they’re in for. In other parts of the country, though, there will be crowds that just stare at you from five feet away. They don’t move or dance or sing, they’re just watching your every move. It’s strange. You really don’t know how to respond in a situation like that.” He maintains, however, that Plague Vendor are not about to change either their style or their approach. “We’re not interested in playing by a genre’s rules, or just sticking to the one idea or anything like that,” he says. “These are our songs. Each brings a different mood and a different approach, and we pride ourselves on that. This is who we are.”
As far as the band’s next moves are concerned, Blaine notes that they’re soon to venture out on the road once again, this time as an opening act for Swedish punk shape-shifters Refused and garage rock up-and-comers The Coathangers. “Refused are a band that are incredibly important to all of us – we can remember listening to them when we were teenagers,” he says. “We’re also big fans of The Coathangers. They have such a great sound and are really something as a live band.”
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
