Interview with Bryan of Hail the Villain @ Uproar 2010
Miranda: This is Miranda Wilson, I'm sitting at Verizon Ampitheatre in warm Birmingham, Alabama on September the 3rd with Hail the Villain with their singer, Bryan.
Bryan: That's it! How ya doin'?
Miranda: I'm doing good. So far, how's the tour treating you?
Bryan: Better than we could ever have imagined. We knew it was going to be fun and that we were going to be playing with the best of the best in the rock scene right now, but we had no idea that we'd be playing in front of packed crowds every night and that we'd have such incredible responses down here. It's been fantastic.
Miranda: That's good. How did you come up with the name Hail the Villain?
Bryan: Well we were originally called Farenheit but it was a really generic name and all the artwork we had done was really pretty generic for it so what we ended up thinking was "Let's make a comic book for our CD cover and then we'll go from there." One idea lead to another and it became a movie, like a full comic book instead of just a record, and then we wrote a movie. And from the movie the songs become so dark and eerie, that the name Hail the Villain encapsulated everything we were trying to accomplish in one shot.
Miranda: How long have you guys been together as a band?
Bryan: About 7 years, almost. We've been plugging away since, yeah it has been 7 years, 2003.
Miranda: Wow. How long have you been singing?
Bryan: I started doing musicals when I was in early school, so I'd say I've been singing for a good, probably, 15 years.
Miranda: So that's where the theatrics come from?
Bryan: That's where it comes from, I think. That, and a little bit of martial arts I studied for like 8 years. I put all that in it and throw a really entertaining show.
Miranda: So martial arts and facial expressions?
Bryan: That's it.
Miranda: Who are some of your biggest influences?
Bryan: For me, it's mainly Frontmen. I've watched guys like Axl Rose and Steven Tyler and I see how to control a crowd. I learn what it is to really get people going and really have that persona where, you know, it's just whatever I say I want people to do. I just want to feel it as a control thing. Musically I was more into punk rock and I really loved bands like the Decendants, and Circle Jerks, and Bad Religion.
Miranda: How would you describe your music to somebody that hasn't ever heard it before?
Bryan: I would say that this is a raw band. It's a band that doesn't come out with triggers all over the drums and autotuned vocals. It's a nasty sounding record. It's got an extreme amount of energy and we're just full of passion. Lyrically, we don't write about girls because we don't know how to write about love. We write about real issues, things that plauge me, and I try and make every song a unique moment on that record whether it be from just a musical standpoint and also a lyrical standpoint.
Miranda: Well that's good that you don't write about love and girls.
Bryan: Well we just wouldn't know how. We've screwed that up enough times.
Miranda: I don't think anybody really knows how.Tell me about the release of the Population Declining album and what can somebody expect to hear from it. Is it a rerelease?
Bryan: No, it's not really a rerelease. We made the record in 2007 and we put it out on our own and within a few months, Warner had jumped on board and said they were going to rerelease it, or actually release it. And then we told them about this movie we had and the comic books and the website ideas we wanted to go through. One thing just led to another and we just kept pushing it back because we kept creating, we kept making stuff for this record. And it ended up being a 2 and a half year project to get it to do what we wanted it to do. So, you know, you can expect something you haven't expected from other bands. It's not just about the music with us. It's about a whole visual side. It's about going on our website and involving yourself in the Villain universe.
Miranda: I like the website. Who designed it?
Bryan: We designed all the characters and we designed everything there is to know about our universe. We were instrumental in saying "This is how we want things to play out." Rune Entertainment did all the drawing for it, they're out of Toronto and Singapore, and Brand: Creative in Toronto were the ones who actually had the ability to put that together.
Miranda: To create the flash?
Bryan: To make the flash work, yeah.
Miranda: Okay, I was like "I wonder if they all did that. If they did, they've got some degrees."
Bryan: We had to buy our own Server to run it.
Miranda: It's pretty heavy.
Bryan: It's retarded, yeah.
Miranda: It's one of the best ones he's seen -
Bryan: High fives!
Miranda: - I'm at work and he's emailing me back and forth and we're talking, and he's like "Look at this! Don't load it at work, cause it'll mess up your computer. Wait 'til you get home."
Bryan: Well for us it was about, "What are people going to see the most?" Are they going to see a video, that MTV won't play? Or are they going to see a website that they're going to click on every day at work or whereever they are at home. So the website became our main priority. Making the story of the video and comic make sense to people. You can click around, start getting clues as to what's going on in our movie.
Miranda: I like murder mysteries and clues and things.
Bryan: OH there's lots in there!
Miranda: So what's the craziest thing I fan has ever done for you?
Bryan: I think, well we had one fan back home that actually got all of Joe's information and they ended up becoming a stalker. What they ended up doing was following him home, calling him a lot, but they ended up writing on his windows and leaving messages on his window like "We're masturbating in front of your window ten minutes ago" and it just went on until we called the cops and we had the situation sorted out.
Miranda: Eww. Are you sure that was a fan?
Bryan: I don't know what it was, it wouldn't be a fan. If we're going to fans, fans have been very respectful. I think the most respectful fan we've had was in Asia. They were incredible people. That, you know, they don't speak English but they really want to meet you. The southern states are the most, in North America, appreciate of you taking the time to meet them and say "Hi." It's not so much in New York or L.A. or any of those places. But the mid-west and the southern states are just fantastic.
Miranda: We have a southern charm and mannerism here.
Bryan: I think it's just being respectful and polite, like, just having that "Hey Ya'll" and everyone's saying "Hi." Even where we're from in Canada people aren't that polite at all. It's something to get used to but you just make sure you say "Hi." back and everything feels right.
Miranda: I mean, we try to be nice. So my final question and then I'll let you go get ready and do what you do is any message for your fans?
Bryan: Stay evil, stay real, stay raw, and enjoy the hell out of the Villain universe. Thanks for taking the time.
Miranda: Thank you!
