By Kelley Simms
HOW TO BUILD A BOMB
Fashion Bomb
Photo by Stephen Jensen
C
hicago-based industrial metal
band, Fashion Bomb, is stoked (to
put it mildly) for its New Year’s
Eve show at Concord Music Hall supporting the iconic Al Jourgensen and Ministry.
Obviously, it was a hell of a phone call for
the band to receive, according to vocalist
Adrian "Val" Valerie. Fashion Bomb has
been touring stages worldwide, with its
provincial brand of apocalyptic industrial
metal since 2003. Though it’s been six
years since their sophomore effort, Visions
of the Lifted Veil, Valerie promises that new
material, in some form or another, will be
released in 2016. During a phone interview last month, Val and guitarist Acid
talked about their soon-to-be released new
material, and their New Year’s Eve show
opening for Ministry.
IE: You haven’t released any new material
since 2009’s Visions of the Lifted Veil, tell
us about the new music coming next year.
Val: We have been writing steadily. But
we’ve been taking our time a little bit with
releasing new material. We’re really trying
to find the best way to get our music out
there to the masses without the support
(from record labels) that was once available to bands. In the '80s there was a lot of
artist development where all the labels
would send the metal bands places and
paid for promotion and other things, but
that has kind of gone away. The [business]
34 illinoisentertainer.com december 2015
model has changed. Like everybody, we’re
trying to find the right way to get our
music out there without bankrupting ourselves. We’ve got songs we’ve written and
we’ve debuted some of our new material
at our live shows and it’s gotten some positive response. We’ll probably be releasing
stuff at the first of the year. It may come in
singles but we don’t know yet, we’re kind
of playing with the idea. We have a lot of
flexibility.
IE: Chicago is such a great music city full
of diverse styles and genres. How does
Fashion Bomb fit in?
Val: As you said, Chicago has a very
diverse scene and our audiences can see
decent music any night of the week,
there’s lots of venues and lots of opportunities. For the most part, in the hard rock
and metal scene, we’re all friends and we
go to support one another’s shows when
we can. It’s a good relationship, the people
who come to see the shows have been
doing so for a long time. They’re very
loyal and they know what they like.
IE: Your lyrics take an apocalyptic and
metaphorical approach. What’s your
inspiration and what can fans expect on
the next album?
Val: We tend to do a lot of themes in our
music. We’ve been writing some very
heavy songs; we’ve been writing some sad
songs, some songs that explore and kind
of asks who we are. Some of our new
releases will be hard hitting and kind of an
homage to days gone by where you can
bob your head and get a pit going immediately. But also coupled with what we’re
stressing is hitting that emotional core,
telling a story with lyrics that mean some-
thing and you’ll be able to connect to it
from a personal level.
IE: The cover songs that appear on both of
your albums are innovative, beginning
with Motley Crue’s “Looks That Kill” and
Tori Amos’s “Crucify.” What’s involved in
picking a cover song?
Acid: I think we try to pick a song that we
really like, we think that we can put our
own spin on. It would be super easy to do
the same song as it was very faithfully,
and it can be fun to do that live, but if
you’re going to record it and make a
record of your own version of a song, you
have to figure out how to reinvent it in a
way that is respectful to the original. The
thing I like about covers is that if somebody sees you or listens to you for the first
time and the first thing he hears is your
cover, hearing a familiar song reinterpreted by a band can help kind of bridge the
gap to show somebody that this is what
we’re about.
IE: Acid, you were involved in the production of your videos, “The Meek” and “The
Vow.” How were those created?
Acid: We have a lot of very creative and
talented friends, so when it came time to
do some video stuff, we pooled our
resources together and found some talented people with different skill sets.
Personally, I do some visual effects work
and was able to contribute to some of that.
IE: Would a video to introduce a new song
prior to the upcoming new release be a
possibility?
Acid: I think that’s probably a good idea,
we’ll probably end up doing something
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