We were able to talk to Billy Melsness of Vesuvius. We found out all about the band and how the scoop on their debut record and signing with Tragic Hero Records This is what he had to say:
1) What's your name and role in the band?
My name is Billy, and I am one of two vocalists in Vesuvius.
2) What made you want to be in such a heavy band and write heavy music?
I got into heavy music at a very young age, I'd say when I was
roughly 11 or 12. No other musical genres were doing it for me, and
metal's aggression and angst really drew me in upon the first few
listens. Nowadays I've branched out quite a bit more and my musical
horizons are as expansive as they've ever been.
In terms of writing, since it's the first genre I really got into,
it's all I was writing for a good few years of my life. With all the
practice I've had I think it's the genre that I'm most skilled in
composing, although cinematic scores are a close second favourite.
3) What is the music scene like in your hometown?
Ottawa has a fantastic music scene. Having toured around the US now
and seen how shows are run in other places, I have so much respect for
the people who put on shows and the local bands in Ottawa. They're all
so professional and good at what they do in comparison to some of the
shows we've been apart of down here. Ottawa promoters are always honest
and respectful, and every local band pushes ticket sales to the best of
their abilities.
4) Why did you guys pick the name Vesuvius? Did you take it from the movie "The Rocker"? Do you like the movie?
We get this quite often, but no, none of us have even seen the movie.
5) If you were to describe Vesuvius to someone hearing you for the first time, what would you tell them?
Vesuvius is hard to define using words, and my limited vocabulary
isn't really helping me out here, hahaha. Listening to the record will
put you in the best place to define Vesuvius for yourself. It's a
project that we've poured all of our emotions and influences into, and
the sum is a piece of art that spans from Slipknot to Leonard Cohen over
the course of 35 minutes.
6) The band doesn't have a bassist, how do you deal with that live?
Does having the keyboard in there help hide the lack of bass?
In a live setting we have the bass playing through the backtracks,
so sonically the keyboards don't need to cover up the lack of bass.
Considering how prominent the keyboard parts are in all of our songs, we
feel having live keyboards is very necessary for what we want to do.
7 a) Listening to your album I feel it has quite an aggressive feel
to it while having some melodic parts to it. Is that what you were
going for?
7 b) You recorded your album with Doug Medows and Frank Shooflar, what
did they bring to the sound? Do you feel the album is mix of Horizons
and Skip The Foreplay?
We've worked with both producers before with our previous band, so
we knew exactly what we were getting into. Frank is a fantastic
songwriter and vocal producer, and he helped perfect every vocal line
and every melody until it flawless. Doug is a talented and economic
engineer that helped us get through our second recording session with
the little time we had to finish it up. There are production ingredients
that are common in our record with those two bands, seeing as how Frank
worked very closely with STF, and Doug is the guitar player of
Horizons, but I'd say that's the extent of the similarities.
8) What are you hoping to get out of this record?
My Place of Solace and Rest has already granted us the opportunity
to tour relentlessly for the rest of the year with the support of a
label that has the utmost faith in us, which is what we ultimately
wanted to do with it while we were writing it. Musically we wanted it to
be vast enough genre-wise to open up the door for us to do something
even bigger and more expansive with our next record and not completely
shock anyone.
9) You guys just recently went on your first US tour with Curses,
How did it go? What was the response playing in front of people who
didn't really know you guys?
It was great! Both bands were fantastic people to tour with.
Although the crowds weren't massive, the crowd reaction was amazing. We
had at least one person come up to us after every show and tell us what
our set meant to them or how music also helped them through a hardship
of some sort.
10) How did you end up working with Tragic Hero Records? Did having Michael Labelle in A Skylit Drive help?
I've been in contact with the owner of THR for quite some time now,
before we played under the name Vesuvius, actually. He's just someone
that we kept updated with everything that we were doing, and once we
recorded our debut record and sent it his way he instantly wanted to
work with us. Having Michael Labelle in A Skylit Drive could most
definitely have been a good contact to help us get signed, and even
though he's a great friend of ours, we got signed very soon after we
found out he was joining the band so the reference wasn't necessary at
that point.
11) What was the experience like making a music video? how did it all go down? How do you like the result?
11) What was the experience like making a music video? how did it all go down? How do you like the result?
This was our third video shot with JP Charlebois and his company,
Cat Around Films. We know he does great work, and he's become a good
friend of ours over the past few years. This was however the first time
we had fully scripted a storyline that was as in depth as Hibernate's
is. We had Ben and Carter's little brothers do the acting in the video,
neither with any sort of acting experience, and they both absolutely
killed it.
12) Which bands from around your local Ottawa scene would you suggest to someone looking for new music?
There's a local band here in Ottawa that we recently played with
when we did our record release show called The Dead Centuries. They've
been playing local shows for quite some time now, but it was our first
time watching their set and they absolutely blew us away. All very nice
dudes and incredible musicians.
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