try-hardzine:

So, This is our interview with Ben from Veils. With new releases and a jammed year, you guys should read this, check out Veils, see them at a show and buy their merch. A great band from Cornwall.

Hello Veils. Would you like to introduce yourselves?

Hello! I’m Ben and I play guitar. Chloe sings, Nathan slaps the bass and Ollie does the drumming.

Firstly can you explain how your band formed and why?

Well me and Chlo were previously in a punk rock band for a few years, and when we split up in the summer of 2010 we both wanted to go in the same direction musically and start another band. I had been playing around with a few riffs and sent some demos to Chlo around Christmas 2010. It wasn’t until January/February 2011 that we got Nathan and Ollie on board the project. We had three rough tracks written within a few weeks, and that’s when we recorded ’ Our Enlightenment is Dead’ in our friend Sam’s garage. It was really well received in our local scene (the Cornish hardcore scene is the best!) and I guess that’s the start of Veils!

Your first EP “Our Enlightenment Is Dead” was very successful in the UK. Your new EP “Clarity” is out to pre-order on 12” now. Are you really excited about the new record coming out?

Yeah! We’re all really proud of the whole thing and Lewis Johns did such a brilliant job recording it. The pre-orders have been selling fast and I can’t wait to have them in real-life to sell at our shows. Thanks to everyone who already has and will buy it.

How does “Clarity” differ from your “Our Enlightenment Is Dead” EP? Do you feel like you’ve matured musically while writing it?

Yeah, musically it’s matured a long way. Clarity is a concept record with each track flowing into the next one, representing emotions - hence the track titles in the parenthesis (Isolation, Anxiety, Adrenaline, Destruction and finally Clarity). The record is a story and we want it to be listened to as a whole, ergo the 5 tracks being on one side of a 12” rather than split up on a smaller sized vinyl. Clarity is defintely ‘our’ sound. Our Enlightenment is Dead was a very early form of what we were aiming for musically and I think you can tell within those three tracks we touched on a few different styles. Although with Clarity we range from progressive ‘wave’  reverby intros and outros to short breakdowns and blast beats, the whole record is more contained and I hope people will appreciate the musicallity and story we have recorded from track 1 through to 5.

You’ve released a couple of tracks from your new EP. Caves (Anxiety) and Standing Alone (Isolation). Can you explain the reaction you’ve gotten from people since releasing them and also can you explain they way you’ve named the tracks on the record?

Ah, I’ve just explained that above  (I guess you can cut and paste around here). We’ve had such an overwhelming response from these first two tracks. We first put Caves up on bandcamp and we just keep getting more and more plays and downloads. It’s really humbling. We decided to put the next track we would release to a video that one of our friends Sam put together from our recent weekender with Pariso. He filmed the whole thing and we’re super happy with the video and its response.

You guys are signed to Tangled Talk Records. Have they helped you guys as a band? e.g. Getting you guys on shows/Promoting your band

Tangled Talk has helped massively. Andrej (Tangled Talk) showed interest fairly early on in the year after we released Our Enlightenment is Dead. With good faith and after seeing us at a show or two I guess we got ‘signed’ we were put on our personal game-changer, The Tangled Tour. The calibre of all the bands on this tour was incredible and it’s here where we really stepped up our game when it came to live shows and professionalism. Thanks Andrej! Tangled Talk has also helped us out with the costs for Clarity with the printing and artwork of it being paid for, so we only had to pay for recording. Without Andrej’s help there’s no way the record would have been recorded so soon.

Have you got anything big planned for 2012 that nobody really knows about? Big gigs, Other releases. ect.

Well we’ve got a UK release tour in the first two weeks of February. We’re playing from Southampton up to Edinburgh and a lot of places in between. Joining us on a few dates will be The Long Haul and Hospitals. We’re also sharing bills with the likes of Run, Walk! and Cavalcades. Then in April we’re off to Europe for two weeks with The Long Haul visiting Austria, Czech Republic, Germany and Holland (and maybe France). So excited for that. Nothing has been set on a next release but whatever it will be, it will be 10x bigger than Clarity. Nothing else has been officially planned yet but we’re very excited for this summer…

Who would you say are your biggest influences?

Without getting into specific bands…anyone who cares about whay they’re doing, cares for others and plays with 100% passion.

Would you care to recommend some bands from your local area/on your label/friends of yours?

Everybody should listen to these bands. They are our friends and are all amazing:

FOR THIS WORLD IS HOLLOW AND THESE HANDS HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY
AS WE SINK!
THE LONG HAUL
BASTIONS
KEROUAC
CROCUS
HOSPITALS
GOODTIME BOYS

If you could tour with any 4 bands in any 4 places. Where and who?

Personally my dream tour would go like this: FTWIHATHHTTS, The Long Haul, Kerouac and Hospitals would join us on an epic summer tour of the US, then we move on to Canada, then down to Australia then work our way through Indonesia, back through Europe and then home. It would last 12 months and be the best thing ever.

Thank you from us at Try-Hard Zine! We wish you all the best for the future and are looking forward to picking up your 12”. x