Interview: Everything you need to know about “Into the Vanishing Light” with Night Verses!

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Two nights ago, I headed out to catch Night Verses on their current run with fellow LA boys Letlive! With a little bit of a similar vibe to the later, the kids instantly latched on to the band but these boys definitely had kids singing the words alongside them. With their second full length record, “Into the Vanishing Light”, dropping TOMORROW, I knew that was what to really focus on in my chat with lead singer Douglas Robinson just a few minutes after they got off stage.

Douglas broke down the writing for the record to their time with Ross Robinson in the studio. He talked how he felt the record really was formed and even could be coming up for the band. Find our in depth record chat below and pick it up tomorrow!

A lot is going on for the band. You’re about to release the record, you’re only three days away. I’m sure that’s been a long time coming for you. Maybe the three things you must have with you while on tour to survive?
Let’s see, the three things I must have with me. So I’m a vegan. A lot of people are, it’s great. I love that. I hate being that guy who just has to say it but I couldn’t live without the snacks that I get on tour through this company, Go Raw, that endorses me. It would be so much harder to eat, like hands down. I tend to eat raw too, not just like dairy free, animal free. Like in general, I also tend to eat as raw as possible. So the bars they give me, all the snacks, are really good for you. I definitely would have a lot harder of a time eating raw on the road if it wasn’t for them. So that’s one thing. My phone, my wife and I are in constant contact. Probably my headphones. I mean I feel like that’s a no-brainer but it sucks because I would bring books too. I’d put books in that basket but if I don’t have headphones and a way to seclude myself from things, I’d probably lose my mind. So those would probably be the three things but books would be another big one.

And I’m sure you know people see you perform and Letlive comes to mind. I know you’ve been friends with them for awhile. Maybe how has this tour been going for you with the record coming so soon?
It’s been awesome. I think the coolest thing about us and Letlive is the fact that we look up to those dudes in the sense that they’re our friends who also do what they want to do. That’s what we strive to do so it’s cool you have your peers that you can run into that gauntlet with and I think that shows a lot on our performance when we play with them. It’s like we want to hold our own and show that we’re doing what we want to do kind of thing. The rest of my band more so grew up with them. I’ve only known them recently through like being in the band and what not but it’s really cool because we’re all peers and it’s cool that you can feel them doing what they want to do and releasing the record they want to make. Hat’s off to that! Anyone who does stuff like that it’s cool to be out on the road with a band that we respect musically and as individuals who really strive for that.

And obviously, the record is only three days away. Maybe how long has this record been in the making? I know there’s been a lot of talk about it, buzzing about it. When did you start the recording process for this record?
Pretty much right after “Lift Your Existence” which is our first record. We toured off of that for like two years and then after we toured off of that, we did a show in Alaska. Then after we went to Alaska, we were like okay, everybody is expecting us to put a record out pretty much within the next few months to a year but we don’t want to do that. We know our name has gotten out at that point and that’s cool but so many people just do things like that to kind of stay on that hype train or whatever. Right after the record, we were like we don’t want to compromise our sound. We don’t want to put something out just to put something out. So we wrote fifty songs for “Into the Vanishing Light” for a year. A little over a year after we finished the touring cycle off “Lift Your Existence”. After that year, we finally we’re ready to go with Ross but we wound up doing a couple more tours after that. So it was probably like two years in the making then being in the studio for a few months with Ross Robinson. It felt like such an eternity but we needed that eternity to like do what we wanted to do or else it wouldn’t have been right. So it’s definitely a long time coming but something we were very happy to do was to write the record on our own terms.

And you talked about how it is your second record and how you wrote about fifty songs for about a year. Maybe the most left-field thing you tried on this record and maybe something that you think screams Night Verses?
I think there’s a lot of stuff on this record that people did not expect already. Like we released three songs so far and the feedback has been awesome. Even the feedback that’s been like mixed feelings about it, like we’ve never had that. It’s always been yeah, yeah, yeah but now we’re doing stuff that shows that we’re not just trying to stay the same band and a lot of people are noticing that. So many of our fans have been embracing that because that’s how we’ve always been but it’s really cool to see the mix. It’s really cool to see the people who care so much about it that they’re like wait, what are you guys doing? But like that’s what we’ve always been about and it’s awesome to see that already taking place. So I think there’s a lot of stuff that kind of comes out of nowhere on this record. Then I think so far too, everybody has been saying that it’s Night Verses but we kind of have jumped further into the vibe that we wanted to get. Working with someone like Ross Robinson, you’re going to go in and just totally immerse yourself in everything like nothing else matters except for what’s happening at that moment. So much of that, all of that, is captured on the record. That we didn’t even really know how it was going to be to the end and it was really cool once it was all finished, it was like holy shit. We did not expect this to be this way in a good way. It’s what we wanted to do without knowing what we wanted to do. It was like such a natural, organic blossom. It kind of just took a whole new life of it’s own which we’re super proud of.

How long were you with him? I know you said about three months?
Yeah I think it was a little longer then three months or something like that. When our allotted time was up, we weren’t near where we wanted to be. Ross had approached us and he was like hey, can you stay longer? I was like we definitely could but we can’t really afford it monetarily and Ross, he’s the man, he doesn’t give a shit about any of that. What Ross cares about is making a record what it is supposed to be in that moment and he was just like I don’t care what it takes. We’re not there yet. That shows what kind of record this is. Even just through a story like that because it wouldn’t be the way it was if it wasn’t for the hard work and the dedication. Him being like hey it’s not there yet let’s keep this going. I have a wife to get home to, we all have our lives outside of the band but none of that matters when we’re creating and to feel that everybody is on that same wavelength and to feel the energy in that. It was nice to work off of each other with someone like Ross. Saying stay longer. Let’s make this the record. It’s cool, I mean, especially that’s a guy we all look up to. I grew up on his records, my band grew up on his records. Before I was in a band, before I knew what a producer even was, I was like I want Ross Robinson to do my records. Now here it is, years and years later, he’s one of my best friends. It’s such a trip. It’s a really great thing to know someone as passionate as he is about music.

So you’re ready for the album to birth.
Oh yeah I’m ready for it and it’s cool too because I’m ready for the next one now. I’m ready for going with Ross and figuring out the next one. That’s where I feel we’re all at as a band. It’s one of those things where it’s just like there’s no one like him that we would work with. Not to say that down the line, we don’t do a fucking Christmas song or whatever but honestly at this point of our lives, we’d really feel that there’s no one else who can work as well with us as Ross. Credit to all the people we’ve worked with in the past, Kris Crummet, such a good dude. He did our first record. Took total care of us. He mastered this record so we still have him as a part of us which was really important to us because he’s such a good person but on a production stand point, Ross’s track record is undeniable. That for a band like us, that’s what we needed to do in this next moment.

Then considering it is so new, the album is about to come out, kind of what’s your plan after this time with Letlive.?
It’s weird because we’re a band that we don’t really plan. A lot of bands have their schedule set out for like a year straight. We don’t like to do that. I don’t know why. We are always hustling. We’re always submitting for tours or figuring out our options for tours. Like right now we have a few really cool options and we still aren’t decided on what we want. Because we care about the vibe of this band so much that you can’t just plan everything out your whole life and then who knows what changes within us. We want to go this route or we think this might be cool for us or this or that. So I mean we have a plan which is always stay on tour. I mean that just goes without saying all the time but in terms of what road we’re going down, that’s always kind of up in the air. How we feel, where we need to go next.

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Colleen

Colleen has been writing about music since 2009. Interviewing bands since the glory days of Warped and has continued to do so for now over fourteen years. As well as doing freelance for other publications, the love for everything rock continues today.

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