Pierce The Veil: Accidental heroes

Vic Fuentes is an accidental scene hero with a well-documented past: he’s soundtracked the beat of broken hearts and practically written his own autobiography over three albums. Along with his band Pierce The Veil, he’s also an advocate for bullying awareness and an ambassador for the Keep A Breast foundation. TMN sat down with the beleaguered frontman and bassist/vocalist Jaime (pronounce hai-me)Preciado at Sydney’s Sebel Hotel to talk about their ascent within post-hardcore and the genre-rewrite that’s leading the charge.

“Have you ever got a text from somebody, somebody that you care about and it’s like, ‘Last night was insane, I blacked out, I got kicked out of our hotel, I lost my shoes – it was crazy’. “

Fuentes is talking us through I’m Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket,the fast-paced song from latest album Collide With The Sky (2012) that uses as many Spanish chord progressions as it does personal experience.

“It’s someone you care about so you’re like, ‘Ah, that’s not cool, that makes me really scared for you’… I can’t be with a person that’s like that.”

Unsurprisingly, it’s these accessible tales mixed in with his paternal Mexican influence and intricate breakdowns that have fans obsessing. In the city for three days during Soundwave Festival, Pierce The Veil can’t leave the hotel without bombardment. As this interview takes place, a flock of five teenage girls stalk the outside steps of The Sebel, and three rainbow-haired, panda-eyed minors have quietly made themselves at home near the refreshments, because obviously being in the band’s periphery trounces education.

“It’s strange when they’re at the airport,” says Preciado, unconcerned with the three girls. “Because in San Diego there’s security, but here you can just go in.”

“I don’t know what you look like when you get off an airplane,” smiles Fuentes before stretching his hair out sideways, “I look like an insane person. They’re like ‘is it him? He looks like 80-years-old!’”

Having formed in San Diego in 2006, Pierce The Veil, like most U.S. bands, spent their green years performing the myriad club venues across America. Sleeping in hired vans and on floors, all for a ride on the coattails of their comrades on a slightly bigger label deal. However, the slot with Soundwave opened doors to South East Asia where the band toured just before making their way to Australia last month.

“It was definitely crazy to think we’d never even been to some of those countries,” says Preciado. “To have a whole heap of kids show up out of nowhere. We were like, ‘Who are they waiting for? Oh wait, we’re the last band.’”

“It was almost like a rite of passage,” adds Fuentes, “covering another step in our musical career.”

Despite the fact the conversation is suffused with wide-eyed modesty, Pierce The Veil harbour an irrepressible belief in themselves; a ballsy gumption sprints through each intoxicating riff. America has cottoned on to the hype, having siphoned the crowd-drawers to headline the annual (and highly bucket-listed) Vans Warped Tour this year.

“When you’re a kid,” smiles Fuentes, “the headlining mainstage guys, that’s what you looked up to. Those are the guys we thought were the biggest bands in the world, and now that we’re in that position, it’s, ah…”

“It kind of clicks,” finishes Preciado. “All the work we’ve done over the last however many years, it’s great.”

The four members of Pierce The Veil have an enviable support system in their families. For parents raised in an era where heavy music fell in line with the names Rush, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, the brutality of post-hardcore can be confronting. For the first two years, Preciado’s parents dismissed his position in the band as something he would outgrow.

“They were like, ‘Get a real job, let’s get your life going’,” he recalls. “Then she saw us in a magazine she picked up at the store and she was like, ‘That’s my son!’

“Sometimes when we play our hometown shows she’ll get me off the bus and say, ‘Go sign for those kids,” Preciado claps his hands in imitation. “Let’s go!’”

Sideline parents aren’t the only difference for a band who are oft pigeon-holed into the post-hardcore genre; one minute Fuentes will be acknowledging other acts on the bill using profane embellishment before each tip of the hat, the next, he’ll be watching footage from the same show on YouTube at his father’s request.

The band have always taken the road less traveled, lyrics so descriptive they read like diary entries, but Pierce The Veil aren’t a band who are open to interpretation. While Fuentes sees no choice but to open his heart and bleed into each recording, that’s where it stops for some of his more personal omissions – One Hundred Sleepless Nights is one track he has never sung live.

“That’s probably the most personal song I’ve ever written,” he says quietly, eyes to the floor. “I can barely listen to it on CD because of the way things are between me and her.”

With a little push, Fuentes elaborates: “She had a baby with another guy and that solidified the fact that we probably won’t be together. She’s trying to make it work with that guy and it’s just a really confusing and hard situation.

“She thought it was the best song on the album,” he laughs. “There were mixed feelings, there was a little bit of anger, and I understand.”

Following this interview, Pierce The Veil will perform to a sold out Hi-Fi in support of U.K. metalcore band Bring Me The Horizon. Fuentes will invite our own Jenna McDougall of Tonight Alive onstage to guest on new track Hold On Til May (the Sydney band toured the U.S. with PTV), but Fuentes won’t let the ties stop there. As he tells TMN, he wants 21-year-old McDougall to guest on the band’s next record. “She’s such a great person, she’s so nice. We just got along well so I’m going to try and write something.”

People horde together by their passions and while straegised collaborations are now the norm to keep chart toppers on top, Pierce The Veil are one band who let their art manifest organically.

“I don’t sing on records for people that I don’t know,” says Fuentes. “I’ve been asked to sing on a lot of random records and I don’t want to do them.

“We try to keep it bands that we really respect both as people and as musicians. So whenever you hear something that we’ve done with somebody else it’s not just on a whim, it’s always very well thought out and meaningful.”

It’s hard to imagine today just how important this band is; but whether they go on to make multi-Platinum records or sell out arenas isn’t how we should measure it.