Pierce The Veil

Pierce The Veil fans the world over finally experienced sweet relief recently, as the group’s long-awaited fourth album, ‘Misadventures’, saw the light of day. On top of that release, the band announced an Australian tour - for this August - with Silverstein, Beartooth and Strom The Sky. Jesus, what a line-up, aye?! Killyourstereo.com had a quick chat with bassist Jaime Preciado (pronounced ‘hi-may’, not ‘jay-me’) about the new album’s limbo, their live shows and that The Story So Far incident, because why the hell not?

I’ll be straight up with you Jaime, I am not the biggest fan of PTV, at least not on the record as I much prefer you dudes in the live setting. I saw you with Escape The Fate back in 2011, and that set really impressed me. I think that’s why you’ve been able to maintain success for so long – you guys can really play your instruments and put it all on the line during your set.

We definitely take all of that into consideration whenever we tour or play a show. When we started this band, the number one pet-peeve we had was when bands would literally just play and get the hell out of there. For us, it wasn’t just about playing our songs; it was about putting on a really memorable and a really good show.

The guys and I love what we do musically and we’re lucky to have that chemistry, I think. We try to be as tight and as well rehearsed as possible, because when you watch a really good band live, they make it look really easy, like it's second nature. That’s what we want to do.

Practice does make perfect, man, and with bands being so static on-stage, I think that’s one instance where you can say, ‘I literally just could have gone and listened to the album at home’. The first thing that happened when you guys came on-stage on 2011 tour in Melbourne was Vic jumping off one of ETF’s amp racks down to the stage, and that really got my attention.

[Laughs] Yeah! We always pride ourselves on that. We take the time to come up with cool ways to put on these shows. We’ve grown and learned so much that we want to stretch the boundaries as much as we possibly can physically for these shows.

Right on. Have you ever been banned or got in trouble by the venue’s owner for jumping off or climbing something you shouldn’t have?

Oh, absolutely! I can’t help but run around and explore the…space, if you will. Once, I pretty much got on the PA and jumped off that, and that was really frowned upon. Especially nowadays, as everyone is very sue-happy with parents and what not regarding their kids getting hurt.

But we never did any of that crazy stuff to be gimmicky; we did it because it's organic. It’s never planned and is more spur of the moment.

No, I definitely got that when I saw you live. And with people being, as you say, “sue-happy” something like that The Story So Far incident, which is a huge topic now, just isn’t smart. Do you have any thoughts on that?

I think that bands are put under so much of a microscope with social media, and you’ve just gotta do what you do. But it’s an unfortunate that incidents like that happen, and I always find that our fans are very positive and are all there to have a good time. So we always aim to keep that vibe going.

Well said, and I’m sure you’ve had fans rush the stage at times and get up there with you guys sometimes.

Yeah, we have. We’re in a position now where all of our crew are on the same page. Your crew should be an extension of yourself and when kids jump on stage our crew is chill about it, as no one is there to hurt anyone. That was one of the things with The Story So Far video, it was just unnecessary, and it could have been handled in a much better way I think.

My thoughts exactly, Jamie. Now moving away from touring and live show, I’ve seen you guys jokingly compare yourselves to Guns N’ Roses and their album, ‘Chinese Democracy’, and so did it ever feel like that?

[Laughs] Yeah, as there are expectations for us and every time we go into the studio we want to outdo ourselves, musically. And even sonically, we want the best sounding record as well. Because when people were waiting, and with the prior release dates, we weren’t ready to release it.

It’s a blessing and a curse that you have fans upset there’s no new music, they are still talking about it and it’s still relevant. That really help us write it, the songs were there and we just needed to put the final touches on it. There’s really not another note we could have added.

One of those ‘It’ll be done when it’s done’ moments. I’m glad you guys got it out to the fans. Now, you guys have a very die-hard fan base and a lot of those fans follow you guys religiously online, I’m wondering if it feels weird to know that you have more of a “persona” outside of the band to the public/fans than in it? If that makes any sense…

No, no, it does man, and for us, we realised very early on that we needed to be ourselves. That was such a hard thing for us to realise early on, as there are so many people and outlets telling you what to do, what to say, what to wear and so on. You really need to not take yourself too seriously and I think kids can relate to us that way. We aren’t untouchable entities; we are just four dudes playing music.

Yeah, I can see that and 2016 now marks ten years of Peirce The Veil too, right?

Yeah, it’s crazy. We’re like scene veterans now [laughs]. It’s so gnarly.

Pretty much, and you guys aren’t that old; you ain’t balding just yet man. And I recently saw that both ‘Caraphernelia’ and ‘Bulletproof Love’ have about 25 million views online. Do you think the band's trajectory would have been very different if those two songs weren’t written or at least not as well-received as they initially were in 2010/11?

You know, that’s a very good question. I don’t know, maybe? I think we were so fortunate to be in that position back then. I always say that we are the luckiest band in the world. Obviously a lot of hard work went into everything we did at the same time.

No one can ever control the timing of those things and hopefully people will enjoy what you do. When we put out Collide With The Sky, that was our biggest growth period, and some bands may say that it sucks it took that long to get really noticed, but not us – we think that’s great. I tell most people that we want to be the biggest and best band we can be, but not tomorrow. It has to be over time. The whole point of this is longevity. You said that you saw us in 2011, and that was so long ago now, it’s crazy.

Exactly, it has to happen organically and not overnight like some viral video. Well, that’s a good place to wrap this up Jaime, thank you for your time today; it was good to chat with you. 

Hey, no worries Alex, you too. You have a good one.

‘Misadventures’ is out now via Fearless Records/Caroline Australia.