There’s a familiar adage that a band has their entire life to write their first album and six months to write their second. The Des Moines, Iowa-based heavy-metal quintet Vended take this maxim deeply to heart. “That saying has been in my family forever!” drummer Simon Crahan exclaims from the driver’s seat of his truck on a sunny August afternoon. “It’s a big deal. Your first album is like having your first kid. My dad even told us this from the beginning.”
Crahan’s dad is none other than Shawn “Clown” Crahan, one of the percussionists and founding members of the legendary metal collective Slipknot. And that’s not Vended’s only connection to the Iowa Nine: Vocalist Griffin Taylor is the son of Slipknot’s inimitable frontman, Corey Taylor. Vended formed back in 2018, when Crahan and Taylor were just teenagers, and gradually developed their visceral sound over practice sessions in a modest Iowa basement.
And while they may have started as a musical family affair by association, it’s been the blood, sweat, tears and battle scars that the band — also featuring guitarists Cole Espeland and Connor Grodzicki, and bassist Jeremiah Pugh — have experienced through their own journey that have cemented their bond as they enter young adulthood.
Vended are now a full-fledged brotherhood preparing, at last, to unleash their highly anticipated self-titled debut album. The lead-up to this moment has been intense, and the guys are ready to make the most of it.
Over the past six years, Vended have played shows across North America, Europe and South America, sharing stages with Bring Me the Horizon, Avenged Sevenfold, Jinjer and more — and they’ve had no choice but to grow up and evolve in real-time while on the road. This year is shaping up to be Vended’s biggest yet.
In support of their full-length debut, this fall they’ll join a few dates on Slipknot’s 25th anniversary run (where they’ll perform ahead of Knocked Loose), before embarking on their first-ever headlining tour with opener Wristmeetrazor. Vended are most definitely making their own waves, and all signs are pointing toward a future in which these guys become dominant players in the new metal scene — just don’t make the mistake of calling them nu-metal.
“It’s fucking heavy metal!” says Crahan with venomous reproach, when asked if Vended identify with the current revival. “Whoever created the term [nu-metal] is a loser. We’re not nu-metal, and I will stand by that until my grave.”
“Our purpose is to make music,” Taylor firmly adds, “not lead the cattle.”
For Vended, the only thing they are trying to revive is the idea of doing your own thing — and not being afraid to express an in-your-face attitude. It’s a mind-set that Crahan and Taylor have been practicing for some time now, and refining through action and experience. So far, it’s been an exciting journey — but certainly not one without its patches of turbulence.
“You know how a pilot gets their stars for how long they have been a pilot?” Crahan posits with a laugh. “I think we needed to earn our stars, as well, to hone in on an album.” Despite their musical pedigrees, Vended cut their teeth on the road just like anyone else, and it was not as glamorous as one might expect. “We toured in a van with no AC in Europe during the hottest summer,” Crahan continues. “We had no room to sleep — but we had to earn the torture to make a disgusting album.”
“Disgusting” is a bold, yet fitting adjective to describe Vended’s debut record — a labor of love, six years in the making, which spans 13 tracks of unfiltered anger and crushing vulnerability, set to a back-drop of blast beats and unrelenting down-tuned guitar riffs.
Produced by Chris Collier (Korn, Prong), Vended trades the industry standard of slick modern production for something more abrasive, organic, click-track-free and, ultimately, disgustingly human — which has always been the band’s intention.
Vended’s Griffin Taylor
Anthony Scanga
“We wanted to make a big statement that we can do this shit without [relying] on a computer,” Crahan states with confidence. Vended’s approach is, in many ways, a middle finger to the modern music-industry landscape, which Crahan considers to be focused on content and marketing first, and songwriting second. “We’re brutally honest and don’t give a flying fuck about backlash or what anyone else is doing,” he continues. “We take this so seriously that we are willing to leave everyone behind while we go to Mars…”
Vended are clearly on a rapid upward trajectory, and it’s Taylor’s unmistakable vocal performances that are helping their artistic vision take flight. With every guttural scream and melodic hook, the singer presents intense and relatable lyrical themes with such palpable vulnerability that even Crahan admits he still gets goosebumps when he hears them.
Take “Am I the Only One,” which finds Taylor bearing his soul with lines such as “I don’t wanna let you down, confessedly/I just wanna find a way to sensibly, depressingly, find clarity/I have nothing left to lose but integrity/It’s a vicious cycle of tendency/Will you ever forgive me regrettably?” Or the pummeling track “Nihilism,” with hair-raising lyrics that include “Hopeless apathy/Nobody needs me anyway” and “I’m nothing but bullshit DNA/Fucked over with all the cliches” — proving that Taylor is willing to invite listeners into the darkest corners of his psyche with-out any restrictions.
“Lyrically, this record is about being able to tell my story — rather than what everyone else wants to hear,” says the singer, who tackles everything from existential dread and painful ruminations on past mistakes to scathing critiques on modern society. “At the same time, though, I wanted to make sure that I was also leaving room for the listener’s own story and experiences to be placed into it and be used as some sort of therapy. All I want to do is help people, and maybe be the Tylenol to someone’s headache.”
While the frontman opts to keep some of the intimate details of the lyrics to himself, Taylor admits that creating Vended has helped ease his pain — and also motivate him to try and be the best person possible.
“I don’t want to be perceived as a legend or godlike,” Taylor boldly states. “I want to be perceived as human, and not a spectacle.” Crahan nods in agreement, adding of Taylor’s performance, “I feel the pain, sadness, guilt and regret. And I know everyone is going to feel that, too.”
Taylor’s expressiveness on the record is so real, raw and emphatic that listeners might assume it’s a creative state he can naturally step into when he enters the recording booth. But the artistic process is much more complex for the singer.
“I’m the most apathetic, tired and melancholic person you’ll ever meet,” Taylor confesses. “And then once you meet me in person, I go off like a bullet because of my ADHD. However, when it comes to getting down creatively, I have to get into the [right] mindset to vocalize that emotion and that passion, because 90 percent of the time I’m so fucking tired and apathetic.”
Vended”s Simon Crahan
Anthony Scanga
The creative relationship between Taylor and Crahan is unique in more ways than one. On the one hand, there appears to be a symbiotic, yin-and-yang dynamic that has evolved significantly over the years — while on the other, there is admittedly an oil-and-water nature to their relationship that has been put to the test more times than they can count.
“When I first joined Vended, I didn’t feel that spark immediately,” Crahan admits. “Griff and I didn’t see eye to eye in the beginning — we both wanted different things. We hung out a lot as kids and then had a bit of a falling out, and when we came back together to form this band, things were a little awkward still.”
“It was mostly my fault,” Taylor interjects. “I was a little shit growing up.”
The singer attributes a few undisclosed “key experiences” as being the catalyst for his personal growth, in which he “learned how to be more attentive and forward-thinking in how I can affect others.” Taylor says that these lessons have allowed him to become the leader his band of brothers needed.
“These changes helped me have the strength [to] put our souls into this fucking Frankenstein of a creature [that is Vended].”
Differences aside, Crahan and Taylor are both pleased to reveal that the writing and recording of Vended’s debut album brought the duo closer than ever as friends, first and foremost, allowing them to be on the same page creatively, at last. “I couldn’t ask for more,” Crahan says with relief.
The term “world domination” often comes up in conversation with Taylor and Crahan, the latter of whom possesses an almost professional boxer mentality, willing and ready to take on any opponent, anytime, anywhere. “It’s fucking war,” says Crahan, “and though you aren’t going to win every time, you still have to fucking try.”
Crahan and Vended plan to use this tenacious approach as they not only gear up for the release of their debut — but also as they embark on their first-ever headlining tour, in addition to playing the biggest shows of their career with Slipknot. When asked if there are nerves leading up to such massive shows, the pair can’t help but laugh at the prospect. The drummer insists that Vended collectively possess the gift of being “stress and anxiety free” when it comes to approaching any tour. “We’re competitive, and we want this so badly. We are willing to take everyone’s throats.”
The question is, then: Do Crahan and Taylor see their own fathers as competition? “I’m going to look my dad in the face and be like, ‘Hey man, we got six mosh pits tonight,’” Crahan says with a laugh. “We aren’t going to win against Slipknot’s crowd every night — but we’re certainly going to try our best.”