What's Big and Sounds awesome? In honour of the insanely epic upcoming Big Sound Festival and Conference in Brisbane next month, The Soundcheck will be featuring an artist from the festival every two days until the event kicks off on Tuesday 5th of September.
So far we've met Melbourne alt-soul machines The Cactus Channel and blues king Karl S. Williams, and this time round it's time to get to know lovable rambunctious indie rockers The VANNS.
The VANNS have seduced audiences around the country supporting the likes of Sticky Fingers, The Delta Riggs, and Kingswood. The boys have also been selling out their own shows around the country as well as tearing up the stages of Party in the Paddock and Yours & Owls Festivals.
B (BACKSTORY) TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR BAND AND HOW YOU GOT STARTED: We’re all from the south coast of NSW, none of us went to school or grew up together, we all met though being in different bands and getting on the sauce. The band was very blues based when we started; heavily influenced by an overdriven stratocaster and listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan on repeat all day everyday.
I (INFLUENCES) WHO ARE YOUR INFLUENCES? ARE THERE ANY NOT-SO-OBVIOUS ONES? A big influence at the moment is a thai restaurant around the corner from our home studio called ‘Dhok Koon’. This place cooks a mean green curry; well at least we think it’s good as we’re normally legless by the time we get there. It’s inspired a few song ideas in the writing process for a potential album.
G (GIGS) WHAT'S BEEN YOUR MOST MEMORABLE GIG SO FAR? We played Party in the Paddock festival in Tassie at the start of this year, it would be our biggest crowd we’ve played to thus far; absolutely chockers. Those punters probably put on a better show than us though, the amount of people dangling from the scaffolding and singing most of our songs word for word was insane: we were buzzing.
S (SONGS) WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE SONG TO PLAY LIVE AND WHY? My favorite song live and I think the other lads would agree is ‘Harder To Find’, which is off our latest EP. It’s a song which starts very minimal and keeps getting bigger, but when we play it live we push it as hard as we can, losing ourselves in it; making it scream a bit of “fuck you” in the nicest way possible.
O (ONE OTHER BAND) WHO IS THE ONE BAND/ARTIST YOU'RE MOST PUMPED TO SEE LIVE AT BIG SOUND? Keen to see ‘Dear Seattle’ play, I’ve heard so many great things about that band. We’re also touring with them in OCT/NOV which we’re keen as for.
U (UPCOMING STUFF) WHAT HAVE YOU GOT ON THE HORIZON, ANY UPCOMING TOURS OR NEW RELEASES? Our next tour is in OCT/NOV with Kingswood whilst also in the midst of writing an album.
N (NAME) WHAT'S THE STORY BEHIND YOUR BAND NAME? The name was only meant to be a temporary thing when we first started. We signed up for a band comp and didn’t have one, the organisers haggled us saying we needed a name or we couldn’t play. We had nothing so we tried all of our last names and ‘The Vanns’ was the best we had; our mates got around it real quick, making t-shirts and logos before we even settled on it.
D (DREAM TOUR) WHO IS YOUR DREAM BAND/ARTIST TO TOUR WITH? Bruce Springsteen… Opening for him would be unreal, but I think seeing him play every night on a tour would be phenomenal.
You can catch The VANNS in action at Big Sound, all details plus a whole lot more below:
THE VANNS - BIG SOUND LIVE SETS: CLICK HERE
BIG SOUND FESTIVAL AND CONFERENCE TICKETS: CLICK HERE BIG SOUND ARTIST A-Z LIST + SET TIME INFO: CLICK HERE
For more info on Big Sound head to: https://www.bigsound.org.au/
BY TIANA SPETER