SEPTEMBER 9, 2018

Nothing More is one of the hardest working bands out there in the music scene today.  Take a look at their tour schedule and you will see a band that lives and dies by the term “out on the road”.  But their hard work doesn’t stop there.  If you’ve been to a Nothing More show, you know the energy, heart and soul these guys from Texas bring every night.

They’ve spent this summer on an epic tour with Five Finger Death Punch, Breaking Benjamin and Bad Wolves.  Mark Vollelunga, guitarist, tells Sound Vapors about the tour.  Mark says, “The tour has been great!  This has definitely been, combined, the most amount of people we’ve played in front of to date.  It’s been consistently night after night and it’s really great to be exposed to so many new people.”

Mark goes on to tell us, “The response from everyone has been great.  This has been a metal tour for sure and I think we stand out, in a good way.  We can go there and cater to the crowd and get dark and metally, if you will.  But then we can go out and play acoustic songs like, Just Say When.  And it’s funny because we’ll say, all of you metal heads, this is going to make you feel uncomfortable for a few minutes. (Mark laughs)  But really, I think a good song is a good song and it makes us stand out in a good way.”

One of the first things that grabs your attention is 14 foot tall Scorpion Tail that graces the stage with the band.  Mark says, “Dan taught himself how to weld and for the past five years, this is one of the creations he’s built.  It’s propels Jonny up into the air via an airbag type system.  Which is awesome and frightening at the same time. (laughs)  Basically it’s a giant midi controller, exaggerated.  When Jonny moves a lever, much like an expression pedal, it will have a reaction.  We have it hooked up to the guitar and the bass to where, when Jonny moves a lever it will pitch the guitar up an octave and when he moves another one, it pitches it down an octave.  Then there’s several other buttons that are hooked up to the computer as well that glitch it out and do a dub steppy tremolo type of effect.”

If you haven’t seen their live show, this is just one of many reasons to go and check it out.  Just like they have put the time and energy into their music, the passion they put into the live show is truly commendable.

Another area where bands take advantage of growing their fan base and the bands brand is Social Media.  Bands like Nothing More have taken full advantage of technology and maintain a very busy Social Media presence and use it as another way to keep in touch with fans.

Mark tells us that it’s been great with regard to the Socials.  “It’s an interesting time that we are all living in.  We can really be connected quickly to anybody and everybody in the world.  And the goal is to reach more people and get our music out there.. Then we’ll play bigger shows and bigger tours, you know what I mean?  And everybody is trying to accomplish that goal.  So how do you stand out in a sea of everybody doing the same thing?  So for us we post stuff we like, not just where we’re eating today.  We try to pair it with our music and posting art, some of our favorite quotes and asking controversial questions.  Also trying to inspire hope because it is a dark world we are living in right now.”

Another aspect to the band that really seems to draws people in, is it’s songwriting.  Nothing More has a unique and deep writing style.  Mark Vollelunga shares some insights on the songwriting process for the band.  “We’re not trying to do the cookie cutter thing, verse- chorus, verse-chorus.  There are times a song needs more than that and you experiment and see where the song goes.  For us sometimes a song starts with a guitar riff or a vocal melody or just a lyric.  Like the last song on our album, Fade In Fade Out, it’s one I’ve been writing for five years or so.  It’s about my son and my dad.  My wife and I struggled a long time to pick out a name, as many people do, and we settled on Phoenix.  We’d really liked that name so I got the idea that I wanted to write a song about my son and kind of pair it with his name.  So you know how the phoenix burns in the torch and rises.  Birth from the ashes.  So in the same way, I went over to my parents house and I hadn’t seen my dad in a while.  I looked at my dad and.. wow.. it was like the first time I looked at my father and seen he’d grown old.  I think that’s such a powerful line and feeling that I felt that so many other people can relate to.  It’s so mortal and sad.  It’s something that we all go through.  So the idea grew from there.  So then I brought the guys in and we all collaborated on it together to what you hear now.”

Mark continues on explaining the writing process for the band.  “So there’s songs like that and then there’s the song, Jenny, which is about Jonny’s sister and her struggles with addiction and how that affected his mother.  God Went North, is about his Mom dying of cancer.  Then there’s songs like Funny Little Creatures, which started as a weird trance programming idea.  That song ended up being an introspective song about therapy, you know, going to therapy.  There’s just this first hand experience that really has a lot of reliability.  Everyone goes through this stuff.  And as people, we love stories.  We love wanting to know like, who’s Eleanor Rigby?  When Ben Folds was talking about Zak and Sara.  Who are these people?  I want to know these people.  I just love hearing about it.  So we try not to limit ourselves in the soul searching songwriting process and just sort of let the song go where it needs to go.  Regardless of genre or anything like that.”

I think these are all things artists strive for, when they are writing songs.  If you listen to the songs these guys have put out, it is evident that they live and breathe everything Mark is describing.

The band has so much going for it.  I mentioned to Mark that I noticed they have an album that has charted in the top 40 and in the top 20.  Is top 10 coming for the next record?  (Mark laughs) “There ya go.  Boom!  That’s the next step for sure!”

There are plans for a new album and Mark tells us that they are writing individually right now for it and eventually will come together when they’ve all collected a lot of ideas.  But he points out that there is a lot of life still left on this latest record.  “There are a lot of songs that have yet to be pushed in the single fashion.”  Much life left indeed.  I would recommend taking the time to listen their latest release, The Stories We Tell Ourselves, which was nominated for three Grammy’s and enjoy the depth that this band has to offer.

-Tommy Marz

Follow @Tommy and @SoundVapors on Twitter.

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