Dead Vinyl

Just going to throw this out there, but I think that Dead Vinyl is hitting its stride. In the past couple of months, the four-piece dropped two singles off the album they are currently sitting on, and while both traffic in the heavy blues/’70s overdrive daemons that animate most hard rock bands, they’re a vast improvement on the Zeppelinesque riffage and Chris Robinson-esque-cawwing that the band has slung across area stages for the past five years. In truth, the first new track they put out, the giddily shredded “No Fun,” struck me as something off Houses of the Holy or Physical Graffiti, some deep cut unfairly excised to make way for the length of “The Rain Song.” But on repeated listens, I caught a hint of Queen dripping off the opening hot lixx from guitarists Tyler Vela and hired gun Nolan Robertson. Later, a chord change reminded me of Big Star, then some backing vocals sounded right at home on something more modern, like Natural Child or even local DV contemporaries Quaker City Night Hawks. Yeah, those influences are still either right out of the classic rock canon or drawn from the vein mined by other popular throwback rock bands, but goddamn if this shit doesn’t rock.

Dead Vinyl’s latest, the fuzz-skuzzed stomper “Black Smoke,” dropped last week, which they promoted with an accompanying video (shot by local video producer Jake Hill) and a show at MASS last Saturday. I was out of town, so I don’t know what the attendance was like, but on the merits of the two new tracks, plus this other Motown-influenced song I’ve heard them play, plus the rowdy, crowd-amping blasts that lurk in their back catalog, I’d say the band at least deserved to have a huge show. After all, as a unit, they’re tight af, their performances linked by the telepathy that comes with constant jamming made possible when a band all lives in one place. They all moved into a house together a couple of years ago, and the sturm and drang and elation and frustration of that experience seem to have been layered into these songs, as the band poured them into the molds before hammering them into what sounds like classic metal, say, for example, Black Sabbath circa ’72.

That might make you think their new stuff sounds like The Sword’s old stuff, which isn’t completely wrong but not particularly apt. Unlike that band, Dead Vinyl’s music is more organically retro – I’ve always felt like The Sword, by design, tried to reverse-engineer a Pentagram album. I don’t think most bands would actively attempt to sound like Poison, but every once in a while, I’d hear part of a Dead Vinyl song that made me think those dudes had accidentally borrowed a chunk of Open Up and Say Ahh! Those moments would usually slide back in the direction of a band like the Black Crowes. For the most part, DV’s last release, 2017’s Gold Mine EP, kept its nose out of the Sunset Strip’s mid-’80s gutter.

Visit_Fort_Worth_StayCation_300X250
These new tunes seem to have left that musical ghetto altogether, and the band is all the better for it. In my estimation, “No Fun” is the kind of track that would increase Dead Vinyl’s fanbase exponentially if an industry gatekeeper were beneficent enough to stick it in an episode of Mayans M.C. or whatever.

I’ve talked to Vela and singer Hayden Miller about what the band’s next moves are. From what they’ve told me, they’re currently in that limbo where booking a few road shows isn’t that difficult, but filling out dates for a whole tour has proven to be a challenge. As such, they’re waiting to release the album for when they can book a whole tour. Next weekend, at least, they’ll head down to Houston to open for Oakland, Califorina-based rocker Thaddeus Gonzalez. Here’s to hoping they nab a booking agent to onboard with them. - Fort Worth Weekly

On a similar note, Dead Vinyl uses a bunch of cardboard and other reclaimed garbage to make a pretty respectable little sci-fi short to go with its “Till The Cosmos Fall” single. One band’s trash is another band’s treasure, indeed. - Central Track

Last year, Dead Vinyl entered that career phase a lot of bands go through when all the members live together. In lots of cases, the “let’s all rent a house” period can easily degenerate into a darkened blur of nonstop partying and eventual burnout. But for the now-Meadowbrook-based rockers, they say their era of cohabitation has imbued them with ambition, focus, and attention to detail. You might say that Dead Vinyl’s living situation is helping to turn them into a grown-up band.

“We’re trying to put our big-boy pants on and do what needs to be done,” said guitarist Tyler Vela.

What Vela’s metaphorical britches and to-do list have entailed is for him and his bandmates to tighten both their chops and their professionalism. The endgame is to vault to a place where they can be on the road as often as possible, to evince the sort of “have gun, will travel” rock ’n’ roll ethos that separates the national names who come to town from their local openers. With the release of their new EP, Dead Vinyl will at least have the first part of their goal down. In terms of “have gun,” Gold Mine is packing six high-caliber rock songs loaded with massive blues-rock riffage, thundering drums, and balls-to-the-wall vocals.

TM_FW Weekly Ads_Digital_TEXRail Safety_300 x 250
Recorded in May at producer Taylor Tatsch’s Audiostyles Recording Studio in Austin, Gold Mine reflects the band’s refocused energy as well as a willingness to expand their musical horizons. Along with lead singer Hayden Miller and bassist Zach Tucker, Vela attributes Dead Vinyl’s maturation to the addition of drummer Park Anderson, stick-man of now-on-hiatus Animal Spirit, who took over the traps in the summer of 2016 after the departure of original percussionist Valmir Hajro.

Anderson “can play any style,” Vela said. “It was very easy for us to take weird concepts and have him play a beat over it. We were able to try stuff that we were sitting on for a while that we couldn’t get anyone to work on. And they were just really popping off fast with him.”

Anderson is a versatile drummer whose interests in jazz and worldbeat made him a good fit for Vela’s and Tucker’s heightened songwriting aspirations, but he also spurred the band to shore up their business and promotional practices, Miller said.

“He brought a PR presence,” Miller added. “He knows how to work social media better than we do.”

Dead Vinyl: “We’re trying to put our big-boy pants on and do what needs to be done.” Photo by Nicholas Wittwer.
Dead Vinyl: “We’re trying to put our big-boy pants on and do what needs to be done.” Photo by Nicholas Wittwer.
Vela, the least tech-savvy of the bunch, said it’s made him catch up with the rest of the world to help his band. “Parker’s the main reason I got a smartphone,” Vela said, chuckling.

For his part, Anderson is energized by his friend’s drive to hit the next level.

“That was the most exciting thing for me coming into this band,” he said. “All of us have that hunger. All of us want to live on the road. We can take it as far as possible, but we need to make sure we’re representing ourselves as an adult band.”

Yet even with their going-pro objectives, the guys still retain the improvisational streak that’s endeared them to fans around town, though they’ve learned when to let loose and when to stick to the script.

“We’ve added [vocal] harmonies to our songs now, which makes making up crap harder,” Vela said. “But we’re trying to do a mix of song structure and improv.”

Anderson pointed out that they’re still very much a live band, despite the polished arrangements on their EP. “A lot of our performances are us watching each other,” he said. “Every show is going to be different because we want them to have that fun, live feel. But the structures remain the same.”

Dead Vinyl’s aim of balancing that live show strut with matured songwriting seems to be hitting the mark. The band’s EP release show is Friday at Lola’s Saloon with Matt Tedder Trio and Royal Sons. - Fort Worth Weekly