Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.
Leith Hynds: Vocals/Keyboards/Percussion/Sampling, Producer on ‘Eulogy’
Damian Anthony: Guitar
Bradford Davis: Guitar
Josh Christensen: Bass/Percussion
Skye Mclean: Drums/Percussion
For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Vaultry? How long has the band been around?
Until 2014, Brad and Josh were part of a Metalcore band in Victoria called ‘Two Years and Counting’. TYAC dissolved, losing their vocalist Clayton Rourke, and shortly after became Vaultry. Vaultry’s original lineup consisted of: Brad, Josh, Julien Ryhorchuk, Chasen Fraser, and Leith Hynds, who had only been a part of a handful of small short-lived projects until joining Vaultry. In the summer of 2015, our bassist, Julien parted ways with us and we brought on drummer Skye Mclean, moving Josh to Bass. Skye was at that time part of another rock project called ‘This Day Burns’, and quit in 2016 to work on Vaultry full-time.
Shortly before writing on our first EP Coven began, Chasen was diagnosed with Leukaemia. After a long tireless fight, he passed away in January 2016. We weren’t sure if we were going to continue as a four piece, but we were so happy to have the support from our fill-in guitarist Damian Anthony that we welcomed him into the band in March 2016. Damian has been a part of many local Victoria projects including: The June Fiasco, San Felix, and Looks Like Rain.
What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before?
Vaultry is a made up word that Josh, Brad, Julien and Chasen really like the ring of. We thought it sounded like an old family name, which went with the dark aesthetic we started with when we formed. It’s currently been our only band name.
Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?
On our newest release ‘Eulogy’, Leith did the majority of the structure writing with Chasen before he passed. He continued writing the rest of the record, except for Hospice, which was written at Chasen’s Hospice residence with the entirety of the group. Our last single ’No Victory’ was the first writing collaboration between Leith and Damian after he joined the group. Each member’s parts are then altered and rewritten by that respective member. All of our lyrics are written by Leith.
Lyrically, we were fairly unfocused on our first release, talking about topics such as domestic violence, abandonment, and bad influence. On ‘Eulogy’, Leith was asked by Chasen in his last few weeks to rewrite the album to be a story of Chasen’s life. He rewrote the entire album to be a concept album about Chasen’s story of growing up transgender, his struggle with cancer, and our time coming to terms with his death. We think we’ll continue to talk about these sorts of real life topics, but we aren’t sure where our lyrics will go. Life is just like that.
What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?
We’re all influenced by an array of different and eclectic music, so it would take us hours to list all the bands inspiring us. Leith was influenced by a lot of Post-Rock and Electronica when writing Eulogy, which added a lot to the production choices him and co-producers: Adam Sutherland and Ben Erikson decided on in the end.
Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?
Brad: AFI
Leith: System of A Down
Damian: Three Days Grace
Josh: Underoath
Skye: Misery Signals
What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, ect …
We all stretch, do jumping jacks and do vocal warmups as a group. Skye plays rudiments on a practice pad and Brad does warmup scales.
What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?
Playing Sugar Nightclub was pretty exciting, it’s the biggest nightclub in Victoria. We’re gearing up to tour in May, and that should be huge for us.
If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?
We’re not super picky who we tour with as long as they have a good attitude and are cool to hang out with. If we had to name a few: Bring Me the Horizon, Underoath, Coheed and Cambria, Hail The Sun, PVRIS, Protest the Hero, Everytime I Die, Pendulum, AFI, etc. etc. (See this is the problem with asking us who we want to tour with!)
Is there anything else you would like to add?
We really want to thank Dreambound, The Pack Agency, Sleep Later Booking, Infiniti Studios, The Zone 91.3, and all our friends and fans for constantly supporting us. We have a new album called ‘Eulogy’ out in January, and it wouldn’t have been possible without them.
You can stream the title track "Eulogy" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfrefp5NHRM