“Scorpio Rising I think’s crap and Power of the Damager has some good songs on it but the production wasn’t that great. Prove You Wrong; I was not crazy about the way it sounded. Again, I thought there was some good material.”
Of course, who’s to say Victor’s an appropriate point of authority? Sure, he’s been Prong’s major songwriting force all along, but that doesn’t make him an infallible adjudicator. “My general perception of things is usually wrong,” he says. “Going back ten years, I was like ‘I can’t write any more Prong material’. I’m easily discouraged or I get negative real fast. It’s only when I get in there and start realising that it can be done, that’s when I’m like ‘I’m OK – I can do this’.”
This realisation explains the band’s recent career resurgence. After a seven-year release drought, Prong re-launched in 2002 with the above-panned Scorpio Rising. Band activity was fairly intermittent for the rest of the decade, but these days Victor is focusing on Prong fulltime. Album number eight, Carved into Stone came out in 2012 and Ruining Lives followed in April this year. Interestingly, with regards to these two records, Victor’s erstwhile dissatisfaction has flipped completely.
“Carved into Stone is excellent and I think Ruining Lives is excellent,” he says. “[Ruining Lives] hasgot some of the best songs I’ve ever written with Prong. I think it’s a killer record. In my opinion it rates there as one of the best.
“There wasn’t that many problems making it and when things are like that, very positive and everything’s moving smoothly, a lot of times you come out with something good.”
While Prong is conveniently described as a hard rock act, throughout the last 28-years the band have traipsed widely through the heavy spectrum. The forthright technicality of recent years is a long way from the hardcore thrash sound heard on the band’s early records and the industrial grooves dominant on 1994’s commercial crossover Cleansing. Perhaps this amorphous quality has something to do with the fact members have come and gone almost as frequently as records have been released. Either way, retreating to self-criticism, Victor doesn’t view the characteristic diversity as a major asset.
“I’m not really worried about repeating myself. I almost want that to happen, because that’s something that Prong has been lacking. We haven’t repeated ourselves and people don’t know what to expect. It almost becomes arrogant in a way.”
Presumably this is another factor contributing to the front man’s enthusiasm for the two latest offerings. These records play as companion pieces, propelled by a similar energy and compositional boldness. Still, that’s not the result of intra-band stability.
“Alexei [Rodriguez] who was the drummer on Carved into Stone and was drumming live for several years, he had to get a regular job. Then I’ve had problems getting a solid bass player. Now Art [Cruz, drums] and Jason [Christopher, bass] have been around for a couple of years. I’d love to keep them around, but you never know what happens. Prong doesn’t make extraordinary amounts of money and it’s something that I take day by day.”
Nevertheless, throughout all of this reshuffling, Victor’s driving presence makes it all cohere under the Prong banner. “As I grow and I get older, I realise ‘this is what I do, I can do it’. My guitar playing is Tommy-Victor-guitar-playing, my vocals are me, so I don’t really worry about comparing to others and competing with other bands anymore. If I’m there, if I’m alive, I can do it, it’s still Prong.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
