Bigăr, Caraș-Severin County, Romania 

by Nᴏʀʙᴇʀᴛ Lɪᴇsᴢ from Deutschland 

Cascata Conde d'EU - Sumidouro / RJ

              I want you to take a moment and think of the optimal place to meet someone for the first time. What’s the mood like? Is there music playing in the background? Are you at the local Starbucks, aromatic coffee beans filling your frost-bitten nose? Do you have your place? Good. Now I want you to imagine walking into an empty Office Depot, employees suspiciously on the heels of you and a group of guys you met minutes ago headed towards the furniture section. It may have not been my first choice for an interview with Dallas-based band Vandfald, but it’s definitely an experience I will never forget.

            The band originally consisted of brothers Matt and Josh Lucas (lead vocals/keyboard and guitar/vocals), but has since welcomed bass player Asher Gleason and drummer Allan Torres. Although the four are still trying to work out the kinks as a band, the group was so comfortable around each other that it was hard to believe that Gleason and Torres have been members for less than a year. All four grew up around music and started playing their respective instruments at a young age. Their families have been supportive of the boys’ musical talents from the beginning, as they all received instruments as gifts (with the exception of Allan, whose parents originally bought him an electric guitar because they didn’t want drums in the house).

            After a creative process of about two to three years, the band released their first album, titled Fall Out, on June 25, 2013. The album draws inspiration from the loss of the Lucases grandfather and friends. As Matt puts it, the album is really about “falling out and escaping from everything, even if it’s just for a brief moment in time.” To put it simply, Fall Out is basically a collection of songs about life. It’s about the people that mean the most to you- friends and family, as well as the places you go and the people you meet. Recently, the band opened for Switchfoot at the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington and had the music video for their song “Kingdom” featured on Coldplay’s website.

            As the band looks forward to the future, they want to make sure they stay true to themselves and write music that means something to them. Unlike many of the bands we’re exposed to nowadays, the band seems to just be happy playing music. Whether they make it big or not, it’s clear from their love of music that they’ll be playing for quite some time. Vandfald wants to be known as “being guys you can hang out with and that are humble about their music”, and I have no doubt that they will be just that. I mean, who else do you know that would be down with spending their Saturday afternoon talking about music in an Office Depot?