Long Read - the Jaws of Life with Pierce the Veil
It’s no real stretch to suggest that Pierce The Veil have defined generations. Entire lives, even — ‘it’s not just a phase’ might have started as an internet meme, but it’s not an exaggeration. So, getting to sit down with one of the remarkable men who has helped create and sustain the band for all these years, and chat with him about the old, the new, the exciting, and the flu, was nothing short of remarkable itself. Introducing, for When The Horn Blows, Jaime Preciado.
Well hello! It’s a pleasure to have you joining me today, on Valentine’s Day of all days!
Of course! Happy Valentine's Day my good man.
Have you got any plans?
I actually just got back from a weekend in Vegas, so I am chilling out with the wife today and just keeping it mellow! It's actually kind of sh*tty weather outside -- it's all rainy and cloudy, which is not really San Diego's norm.
I mean, for once you've caught England on a good day – about 2:00 PM earlier it was so foggy, I couldn't even see outside the door. It was ridiculous!
That just sounds very par for the course in the EU!
Exactly! Anyway, let’s get into it – a few cliché questions, a few Jaws Of Life questions, a few general and a few fun – sound good?
Sounds great!
Let's start with… December 2022, Kentish Town. How did it feel and why the hell such a small venue?
Hahaha – well, it felt awesome. Playing two nights there was incredible. I think for us it was also playing shows in general, especially when we honestly thought that those shows weren’t going to happen at all for such a long time, so it was an incredible night and an incredible feeling! And the venue? Unfortunately, yeah – we kind of didn't know what to expect, honestly, so we kind of went in very conservative [with capacity]. When you don't play a show for however long it was, you want to just be a little wary. Honestly, we were just very thankful that people came out at all! And yeah, that whole tour sold out so far in advance, but I think we knew we were going to announce the 2024 gigs so we didn't want to jump the gun and make the venues that big out of the gate.
So it was sort of a fingers crossed-situation, but it worked out!
Honestly, all the shows so far have worked out so well and we're really happy to be back playing shows. Plus, for us, it's a new venue. We’d never played [O2 Forum Kentish Town] before, and for us we’re still just really excited to keep playing different venues. And, of course, excited to be finally getting a chance to play Ally Pally! I've heard nothing but amazing things, so that's going to be sick!
What was it like choosing the set after such a long time away? Ie eventually deciding to drop pretty much anything from a Flair For The Dramatic, and obviously giving live UK debuts to the new tracks?
With the new album now out, we have 5 albums to choose from – and now, this is the fun part. Obviously, working on the album is super – but you know you’re working. Now, though – now it's the good part, getting to pick and choose from all our back catalogue.
At the end of the day, we're going to do our best to try to make everyone happy, but it's hard being in a band with five albums. You’ve really got to pick and choose. But that's also what makes it so fun – you never know what you're going to get!
Are there any songs you’re particularly excited to play live? Both as a band and you personally?
Yeah, I mean… I'm excited, first and foremost, just to have the record out. We’ve been holding on to these songs for a really long time. But, honestly, you can pick pretty much any song off the new album, and we're excited to play it. I think… I think ‘Death Of An Executioner’ in particular is going to be a lot of fun live. Not only for the fans, but for us, knowing where the song started and where it’s ended up, and just the amount of work that went into it. That one was easily the trickiest to finish – and not because we didn't know what we wanted but… like, at one point the song was near 8 minutes long, and then we had maybe, 10 different versions of it, and we just were going back and forth between them all, and between us we just didn't really know what the final product was going to be; but, I think the one that we put out was the right choice and the right call. It turned out really cool and I'm really excited for that one. It's always the ones that you're the worried about the most that end up being your favourite!
I can imagine… Well, not really, but I can imagine that I can imagine!!
Now, you said about playing around with Death Of An Executioner, having about 10 odd versions of some of the tunes – teasing an extended cut?
I doubt it! think once we finalised the album and it got mastered, we sort of just let go of all the other stuff! But that's the beauty about making music. You have to be able to let go of it and go ‘You know what? It's in the fans’ hands now’. Otherwise, we’d be working on the same 10 songs forever! So no, I don’t see that happening. But we've done weirder things, so who knows?
Right now though I'm just really happy with how the album is. I don't think I would change anything really, except perhaps if we could have done it all two years earlier!
Talking a bit more generally about Jaws Of Life, why do you think it's sort of resonated so much with everyone? I've seen nothing but praise for it everywhere I looked, which must feel amazing!
I mean obviously I'm going to go immediately to our fans, not only for sticking around for as long as they did – I mean, we didn’t put out music for almost half a decade, so that's f*cking wild! And then just… I don't know, man, the timing of it? With ‘King For A Day’ going viral on TikTok, gaining a lot of momentum for that – which is crazy for a song that's like 12 years old – plus just that resurgence of the emo scene, the When We Were Young festival style stuff that really kind of took everybody by surprise: like, ‘holy crap, this is real’. All of that I guess contributed, but again, mainly our fans! It’s hard when you take that much time off; not a lot of bands can just take that much time off, come back and expect them to care. That's just such a hard ask. So we’re super thankful for that.
We’re now just riding the wave, excited that people are, for the most part, enjoying the new record – and that's really all you could want. You want people to support you and your artistic endeavours so that’s where we're at right now! We're just really happy.
Do you think you ever could have made Jaws Of Life without that big ol’ five year break?
I don't know! Honestly with every album that we do, we always try to push ourselves, to be different than the last one. And this, I think – because the time was so long, I mean – there was just more and more pressure, and there was just a lot of doubt. Especially for me personally, – a lot of doubt. Is this the right stuff? Is this wrong?
There just ends up being a lot of stuff going on in your head, and you have to basically just trust your gut. This is our fifth studio album and we obviously got here by just doing that. So, in a way, this one was no different, you know?
And I think all of that — the worry, the doubt and the resolve, both the good and the bad – contribute, which is what I think makes the record really special. The moments you shared while making it, sure, but also the journey. It was just such a long journey to get this one done and obviously you probably know but there was a pandemic tossed in there too, which kind of shut everyone down for two years so… That’s not our goal to take that long to make music obviously! So hopefully the next album and albums to come will come at a much, much more rapid pace.
You mention about the Pandemic and this being a long ol’ process. IE making the album, what was that like for you guys? Was it all bits and pieces or was it all sort of crammed in at the end or?
That was actually really tricky! We knew we were going to call the album Jaws Of Life, we knew we had a bunch of ideas, but then the pandemic hit and it all sort of… stopped. I know a lot of musicians and artists and bands put out a ton of music over lockdown – they got creative when they were trapped inside their homes with little else to do! – but we were basically the opposite. We completely stopped. A lot of it was because some of our family members were pretty high risk and obviously we didn't want to risk anything, but it out of necessity just became this kind of self-reflecting time, a chance to think about what this band means to us and what we want to accomplish with it, talking it through with our friends and families. As I said earlier, there was a moment in time when I was like, ‘dude, is live music just going to be like a, ‘go watch your favourite band on your TV’ thing from now on? Is that what we’re doing now?’ For us, we're in the business of crowds and that was just super hard to hear – there was just no finish line, and that was so tough.
Fast forward to the end of the pandemic, and we jus got together as soon as it was safe to do so, grinding as hard as we could to come up with as many ideas and songs as we could before just bringing up a bag of tunes to New Orleans where we created the record.
So yeah, I think all that stuff kind of made it a little bit different than any of our other albums, because the process was obviously different. A lot of zoom calls, a lot of face-times, and the rest of what was the new normal at the time. It was very strange, but once again I think that's why the record sounds the way that it does!
Makes a lot of sense, everyone was just in survival mode!
If you don’t mind however, I’d like to sort of move away from that and back to something you mentioned a few minutes ago. It’s a bit of old news now, but obviously you guys played the When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas – what was that whole experience like? I heard a rumour that some bands had no idea it was even a thing!
Really?? I mean, that whole announcement was just kind of chaos; I think the reason for that – and obviously I'm not 100% certain on this – but my guess was that maybe the admat leaked, and the festival wanted to get ahead of it and announce it a little earlier. I don't really know – I just know that I was doing something and then my phone just started blowing up with ‘is this real??’ Because the line-up was so ridiculous that it just felt ridiculous. It felt like somebody went on Photoshop and made this, that it wasn’t real, because obviously it wasn’t – but I assured everyone that, no, it was.
And it kind of just broke the internet. So yeah, I think that that’s happened with everyone. But it was a funny kind of couple days, people going back and forth; even the family was like, ‘did you know you were doing this?’ And I was basically going ‘I think so..? Pretty sure.’
But the festival itself was fantastic. It was probably one of my favourite shows of the year. And it was just such a testament to the genre, that a festival of that size can be done with bands in that scene. Obviously, you guys in the UK have some of the best festivals in the world – but it was just cool to see that in the states, you know? Bands like Paramore, My Chemical Romance… it's so awesome, and I feel like we need more of those festivals in the states for sure.
You've said about so many of those ‘scene’ bands, sort of coming back. I mean, I've sort of had you guys and yellowcard in mind, and of course My Chemical Romance before that, and even Paramore to an extent. Do you ever feel sort of jaded, or is it always the same rush?
I can't speak for other people and other bands and stuff, obviously, but for me it's just still always such a cool thing for me. I'm always so excited, even if it’s just because it's something that we all built! It wasn't like we had like a radio station playing only our music or anything – I mean, we had to fight for all our fans, we had to grind out the small, sweaty bars and clubs, and to us that's incredibly important, especially for this genre. It wasn't just like an overnight thing, it happened over years and years: playing things like Warped Tour, going out and travelling the world, spending a ton of money, not making any money, just doing all this stuff. I think it's special, and I always get so excited. It’s like going out every night and saying ‘we did it -- look at this. We built this’. How could you not be excited?? So I'm hoping that the new generation of bands coming up still have that, and never get that jaded feeling, because I get it. I can totally see people feeling like that. But for me? I'm just so thankful for everything that's happening, and always will be.
Very good answer, and glad to hear it! Now, you mention playing all these sorts of dive bar shows. Are there any that stick in your head as memorable, in either a very good or very bad way?
I mean, if we're talking UK, I can never and will never forget any of the barfly venues that we played. Those were wild. Those were kind of the shows that we grew from – sticky floors, people kind of drinking in the back, asking ‘who the hell is this band?’ A pint kind of vibe! Even in the states you have the same kind of thing. I love those sort of dirty punk rock shows, because that's what we grew up listening to! Getting a beer spilled on you like that was pretty much automatic and just having that energy in the room… don't get me wrong, playing a Brixton Adacemy show is fantastic, and it's huge and massive and it's awesome, but there's something to be said about those small, intimate shows where the energy is just everywhere, and everyone in the room has the same energy, and it’s just… wild.
In terms of those early ones you guys cut your teeth on: so, I'm 23. If you were to go back to when you were 23 – Flair For The Dramatic just came out, you’re just starting to get known — what advice would you give yourself? Anything you wish you hadn't done? Anything you wish you'd done more of?
It’s hard man, I don't know. You need to make those types of mistakes to learn from them, I think, and so I don't know if I would? I know this is a super cliché answer, but I don't know if I would change anything! We've always had that mindset of like, let's just keep trying. Let's throw stuff at the wall, see what sticks; and, when it didn't stick, it didn't mean we failed – we just learned something new. That’s kind of been our mindset since day one, since we started this band. We just knew that all of us wanted to do this, that it’s what we wanted to do with our lives, you know? So all the things we tried and failed, we learned a lot from. You can't just hit all the home runs, score all the goals out of the gate, because then maybe you do get that kind of jaded feeling we were talking about, if you're not getting the same highs from it suddenly clicking? For us it was little baby wins. Little baby victories all along the way.
So… Maybe get a haircut more! I look at photos back in the day. And I'm like, dude… But hey, maybe that’s all coming back too?
Hah, we’ll see! Anyway, jumping from the start to the present, to 2023 Jaime: do you ever have pinch me moments? What’s the most ‘wow, I can’t believe this is happening’ thing you’ve had recently?
Oh yeah, 100%! Obviously with the record getting just released on Friday, that’s still crazy to me. Different people all over the world sending me videos of them or, you know, or when Spotify gave us a billboard up in Times Square, stuff like that. Even when you're just walking down the street and get recognized, get a ‘hey, huge fan! Really appreciate you!’. That’ll never get old. I’ve said it a few times but our fans are just so awesome. They've been such such great people to us – when you put out music, you know, you're kind of putting yourself on the line to get judged either which way, but when you make someone's day, it's really, incredibly special, and I don't take that stuff for granted. I don't think any of us do, especially because we were gone for so long. We almost feel like a new band again! And with that comes the hunger, the need to keep playing shows, to travel the world and making those new fans. That was one thing that we‘ve done for all the recent shows, ask every night ‘who's seen us before?’
Obviously, loads of hands would go up – I mean, we've been in a band for almost 20 years. But then you'd ask who was seeing Pierce The Veil for the first time, and half the crowd would raise their hands too. So still getting that after however long we've been a band for is a dream. You can't really get much better than that.
Speaking about your fans, it’s obvious how much they mean to you – but have there ever been any sort of surreal sort of fan experiences? It’s almost commonplace now that people might camp one or even two days in advance to get up the front!
Okay, that’s wild! I don't know if I could do that. But that's just one of those things that says a lot about the community, how dedicated people are, and it’s nice to imagine that their are these little groups of friends making memories; I don't really remember camping out when I was younger, but I remember some of my favourite shows, watching Korn or Papa Roach. There's something different about the music, just in general, and it’s the same with the fans and the community. I totally understand why they do that? I would never ask them to do that myself – I’d say to stay inside where it's warm – but man, they love it. They love to be in the front row, the barricade, to have that dedication to wait for however long. That's a rite of passage, you know, for a lot of those younger fans – and hey, as long as they're staying safe, staying warm, that's all fine with me!
So if Pierce The Veil mean that much to so many fans – what about you? What does Pierce the Veil mean to you?
For me, Pierce the Veil just means family. I think we learned that more when we were forced to be apart over the pandemic and then, towards the end of the pandemic, when we started getting back together; when we were living in the house for two months in New Orleans, it made us realise just how much we really are a family, and how much we missed each other. It's even just being able to hang with each other – you know, eating dinner together. I mean, after the producer would go home, we would stay up and work on the tunes or record some stuff and then when it was time to call it, we’d put on a TV show or a movie and just kind of talk about life, even though we were just there together for 15 hours anyway. That just made it, and it really did just feel like we were closer than we've ever been. Not to mention, during that whole time, the seven years – we all got married, Vic’s expecting his first kid… that’s why I say family. Because it really is: our family has just gotten bigger.
That’s a lovely answer, and I hope it all goes well for Vic! Final few questions and then I’ll let you go – I always love asking this because you can get some great recommendations! In terms of bands that people might not know. Who do you love/ would recommend?
Oh man, people that you guys might not know. I mean, all the stuff I've been listening to recently are bands that people probably know… You know who I really, really love? I don't know how old this album is [released September 16 2022], but the new The Devil Wears Prada album. I think it's called color decay? I think they did a f*cking fantastic job with that album. I've been playing it nonstop for the last two or three weeks — again, I say new, but it's probably been out for ages, it just kind of popped up on Spotify for me recently — and I love those dudes. We've known them forever, and I know they're necessarily a new band, but that new record is really cool and feels almost nostalgic, which I think people are saying about our records? So I know what that feels like.
Basically, they did a great job. I think that record is really great. So yeah, I'll just say TDWP, even though they're a pretty well known band. I like them a lot and they're friends. so why the hell not?
Next — so for readers, as we said at the start, it’s Valentine's Day. So… Pierce The Veil pick up lines?
Pierce The Veil pickup lines. I mean, mine’s always ‘daddy's home.’ That's what I would say every time I walk into a room.
I more meant for band lyrics but good to know!!
Oh, haha, from the lyrics! Oh, if we're talking lyrics, I would go with ‘12 Fractures’. It’s the last track on the new album, where Vic lovingly says ‘there were shortcuts to heaven through your eyes’. There were shortcuts to heavens to your through your eyes — That would be a great pick up line if you really mean it — but don’t just start saying it willy nilly, you really have to mean it! I think that’s a good one.
Perfect! If any readers need an idea for any cards!
Final question, as a fun one. You were saying earlier about newer fans, who’ve never seen you before? Well, I have some friends who sort of never had ‘a phase’. So, what 3 songs from you guys would you recommend to sort of encapsulate Pierce The Veil?
Oh wow. Oh wow! I love that. I would probably say… I mean, the answer would obviously be ‘King For A Day’, but let's do something a little bit different than ‘King For A Day’, because they’ve probably already heard that song. Let's do… I would say off our first album, ‘Chemical Kids and Mechanical Brides’. Then I would probably say ‘Dive In’, off Misadventures. And then, off this album: Hit them with... ‘Pass The Nirvana’. Yeah, I think that would give you just a little bit of everything.
But saying that, I now want to go with more. What if we give them a little bit of, you know ‘Bulls In The Bronx’? I don't know. That's probably more one of those songs. Yeah, those three to four songs and you're going to like the way you look!
Perfect, that sounds great, I’ll pass it on!
Well, that’s everything. I won't take up any more of your day, but thank you so much!
Awesome! Thank you, James, my man — appreciate you! Hope you have a great day, and Happy Valentine's Day!
Feature by James O’Sullivan
