Tag: "the used"

With their latest release Wretched and Divine: The Story of the Wild Ones, Black Veil Brides take on the toughest of all rock challenges: the concept album. Sweeping in scope, the band’s new album tells the story of a despotic government that aims to destroy science and creativity while turning the youth into drones. Concept albums are notoriously hard to pull off, but the band’s already epic sound seems tailor-made for such an endeavor. We caught up with frontman Andy Biersack to chat about the process of making the album, the accompanying film Legion of the Black, and whether a stage version of the record may be in the future.

OS: The story behind the album is really compelling. Does it also reflect your view of the current state of the world as well as the story of the band?

Andy Biersack: I don’t necessarily think that the current state of the world is indicative of the story that I wrote, but it’s obvious that it wouldn’t be that hard to make the leap. It’s not a politically-charged record – it’s not meant to be a parallel for exactly what’s going on in politics or religion or anything else. It’s more meant to be a parable for our own lives and taking the characters that have been negative forces in your life and applying more power to them i.e. making them into these political/religious forces. But it wasn’t written as any kind of social commentary, really. Continue reading ‘Exclusive Q and A: Black Veil Brides Talk Composing, Collaborating, And Classical Music’

The Used may be about to embark on their Take Action Tour, benefiting the It Gets Better Project with We Came As Romans and Crown The Empire, but that hasn’t stopped them from releasing a lyric video for their b-side, “The Lonely” from their album, Vulnerable. The song also appears on the tour’s compilation album, Take Action! Volume 11.

Check out the video here and find tour dates after the jump.  Don’t forget, you can enter our weekly #FreeTicketFriday contest for a chance to score a free pair of tickets to this show! Continue reading ‘The Used Release ‘The Lonely’ Lyric Video’

This year’s Take Action Tour will be hosting headlining act The Used, along with We Came As Romans, Crown The Empire and Mindflow. The tour will begin in Las Vegas and conclude in Los Angeles. Along with the tour announcement, the track list for Take Action Volume 11 has been released. The album includes rare and unreleased tracks from Bad Religion, The Used, and All Time Low among others. Check out the tour dates and track listing after the jump and let us know what you think of this year’s lineup in the comments.

Continue reading ‘Take Action Tour 2013 Reveals Lineup’

Ten years ago, The Used exploded onto the modern alternative rock scene with their edgy and emotionally-charged debut album, The Used. Led by versatile frontman Bert McCracken—a vocalist who’s sweet and smooth pop voice can be easily turned into an ear-shattering scream— the group made a name for themselves with singles like “Taste of Ink” and “Box Full of Sharp Objects.” The Used saw further mainstream success with their subsequent records, In Love & Death and Lies For The Liars, as their shows became bigger and bolder than ever before. In 2010, they released Artwork, a strongly negative and dark album on which the band had struggled for creative control.

Never ones to quit when the going gets tough, The Used decided to take matters into their own hands and go DIY for their upcoming release, Vulnerable. Both McCracken and guitarist Quinn Allman took the time to meet up with us at SXSW in Austin, TX, to discuss the new album and how the band has grown, musically and personally, since they first began.

OS: You just returned from Soundwave in Australia. What was that experience like? How did the fans respond to the new single?

BM: It was amazing. It was the biggest, craziest festival. I mean, there’s like, one million bands on it, I think? 1,200,000 bands? [laughs] A lot of metal bands, so for a band like us…we kind of had to watch where we walk and not get beat up by all the metalheads. But it was so fun. We’re just doing “I Come Alive” right now from the new record, since it’s not out yet…but the feedback we got was amazing. Australian fans are fucking crazy.

OS: I hear that from a lot of people, that fans overseas are so much more excited…

BM: It’s weird…England and Europe and Australia are really crazy.

OS: You’re about to put out your brand new record, Vulnerable, and you’ve taken a DIY approach to this release. Can you talk about the advantages and disadvantages of releasing your own record?

BM: I guess the only disadvantage is we have to do pretty much all of the work ourselves. We teamed up with Hopeless to handle the distribution of the record, which is really cool. They’re really on it. I’d say the advantages are…everything else in the whole world. We get to do whatever we want with our own music, we get to create the type of things we want to create, no one can tell us what to do or how to do it, we get to make our own music video the way we want to make it…I mean, just 100% creative freedom. It’s incredible.

Continue reading ‘Exclusive Q and A: The Used Get ‘Vulnerable’’