It’s not often you manage to meet one of the most exciting new acts currently gracing the music industry. Having formed less than a year ago, and already signed to Parlophone Records, VANT have invaded the UK music scene. With politically charged tunes, and infectious riffs, it’s easy to see how VANT’s rise to fame has been so quick. Headed by Matty, the four-piece supported Royal Blood this summer, as well as seemingly playing every major UK festival.
I met up with Matty and the rest of the band last Saturday (14th November) ahead of their support slot for FIDLAR. The previous 24 hours having been host to the deadliest attacks on European soil in recent memory, questions about album releases, tour plans and the rest seemed unimportant. Instead we agreed to talked about matters that felt more pressing: Politics, Immigration, and Terrorism.
Your songs carry very strong political messages, is there anyone who specifically influenced your world view?
Matty: I don’t think anyone really influences my world view. I think everyone has opinions, and there’s opinions that I respect, and opinions that I think are completely wrong. It sort of boils down to my own philosophies really, and the way that I see the world. It’s an impossible task to run the world or whatever, but there are certain elements that you can suggest and champion which are things that are important.
I’m guessing you’re a Corbyn supporter? What do you want to see from him as Labour Party leader over the next few years?
Matty: Yeah I am. I mean I think realistically I’d be very surprised if he got in, and my concern is if he did get in, although it doesn’t matter, is that realistically he’s going to be 80 by the time he gets to the end of the campaign. So realistically even if he got in, and it was a great turn, he’s got to find a predecessor that’s younger and champions the same views he has to continue the good work that he’s started. I mean it is exciting y’know? I mean it’s the first time in politics in my lifetime that there’s been a candidate that I could support or get behind and share a lot of the values that he stands for. I think it’s important as at least it’s a definition, at least it feels like two different parties now, whereas for a long time it was the same product, just being re-marketed slightly differently. It’s what Labour originally used to stand for. I think it’s just important that he doesn’t back down or get scared by the position he’s put himself in. Which is, on a much smaller scale it’s a bit like us, but it’s a similar thing with us. You look at what happened in Paris yesterday and we’re meant to play a show tonight, and act like nothing’s happened. It really hits close to home when something like a gig is the source of violence, when music is meant to bring people together. So what we can do is let it empower us and make sure we use that as a force to remind us that we’re doing the right thing, and we’re expressing things which are important, things can change the world hopefully. If we let ourselves be muted, which can happen with a lot of artists then you lose that voice and you lose sight of something which is incredibly important. You can understand why people don’t want to talk about things like politics, because you could get shot, or you could be completely cast away from society. It’s a pretty scary thought that the bigger we get the more of a target we’ll become. We’ve obviously got to be careful of that, but I’ll never lose sight of what we do. I’d rather die doing something that was important than feel like I’ve just sacked it all off to work in Tescos for my whole life, sitting there, a couch or bedroom philosopher who doesn’t do anything about it. That’s what annoyed me the #prayforparis thing. I’m not against religion or people’s beliefs, but it’s a way of wiping your hands of a situation that’s incredibly fragile. By putting it in the hands of an omnipotent being and just saying “I’ve done my bit, I’ve changed my profile picture” to a peace sign with the Eiffel tower in it or putting a picture of yourself in blue white and red. It’s like “do you think that has any impact?” But at least being in the position we are, we can express our values and our views and hopefully inspire other people to do the same thing.
After last night’s events in Paris, specially due to the attack on the Bataclan, are you worried for your fans’ safety?
Matty: I’d like to think no, but who’s to say. Inevitably there’s an American band playing tonight, and Eagles Of Death Metal were an American band, so there will be heightened security for this show. London’s one of the nearest major cities in Europe away from Paris, so they can’t risk the same thing happening here again tonight. I don’t think it will, and we’ve got to concentrate on what we’re doing, and not let it distract us. I hope the process of going to a gig doesn’t change, and you don’t end up getting searched every time you go into the venue, but if it happens again we’re going to have to do that.
At the moment there’s a major refugee crisis, we’ve all seen the pictures that have come from Italy and Greece of the boats arriving, and horrible conditions people have both escaped from and faced on their way to these places. What do you think we should be doing as a nation to help them?
Matty: We should be opening our doors. There’s this argument, which is again something that annoys me, that we’re overpopulated. Who gives a fuck? These people are dying. I don’t give a shit if we suddenly have a million more people in the UK. I’d far rather our tax money was going into saving people than building fucking nuclear weapons, and championing wars. Its just frustrating… you just hit yourself in the head with it. The way the government spin it makes it seem that this is an impossible option, when it’s not. If you look over at Germany, lots of german people are meeting refugees off the train, celebrating that they’re alive, and made it that far. Why the hell are we not doing the same? Its ridiculous! Events like yesterday just make you realise that you need to be active in your own life, you need to make sure you’re showing what you believe in. It all boils down to belief in the end.
Matty: A realisation I had recently is that its all consciousness. The way any message gets across is when enough people believe in it, and use their voice to make a change. Whether that’s a positive change or that’s a negative change it just depends, and its down to an opinion within an individual. Belief is the centre of religion, but that religion is just an example of how that can sometimes be negative and sometimes be positive. Stuff like immigration, we can sit and twiddle our thumbs saying “that’s awful” or we can open our doors. That’s what we should be doing.
Are you worried that people will take yesterday’s events as an excuse not to offer aid to the people that desperately need it?
Matty:Definitely!
Henry: There was a case of that yesterday .Although didn’t read it fully as it was right after our gig, immediately on twitter there were reports of a refugee camp being set on fire.
Although weren’t they shown to be false reports in the end?
Matty: It’s propaganda innit? It’s horrendous.
Greenie: The news should be very careful about what they say as lots of people take that as total gospel, and I don’t think they are, judging by this morning. I think its like some form of entertainment to them, I tried to switch it off today.
Matty: We were saying earlier that it’s like when you’re a kid at school, someone starts a fight and everyone gathers around and chants on the fight when they should be breaking it up. Its like a form of entertainment for people, something for them to talk about round the water cooler on Monday morning talking about how “that was awful, wasn’t it?” Yeah it was awful but it’s going to continue to keep happening unless people stand up and speak up about it. But the thing we can’t do, which is what you were saying with that question, is retaliate in the same way. It’s a never ending cycle. If we “defeated” Al Qaeda, we killed Osama Bin Laden, but now we have ISIS. If you keep destroying the enemy then a new enemy’s born.
Greenie: They’re just going to be more angry and more hating the western world for killing the last thing.
Matty: It all boils down to education. I mean this is very prominent, we’ve been talking about this since last night, so we’ve been talking about this all day. The only way we’re going to have any chance as a species to survive past the next 200 years is to educate, and inform our children. Not just western children, all children. The main reason that this happens is because of poor education. People falling into these societies that promote harm, abuse and destruction of everything. It’s also down to fundamental things, like the environment. Like if it’s not ourselves that blow us up, it’ll be ourselves that destroy the planet anyway with meat production and fossil fuel. In 100 years time we could be looked back on as Nazis, our whole generation, purely because people will go “why weren’t these people less selfish, why did they not eat less meat, why weren’t people concerned about the environment?” I can’t let that happen as a person. I can’t say we can stop that happening, but I’m going to try my fucking hardest.
Henry: That’s it now though, we’ve been presented with these facts now, about meat production and agriculture, and thats a fact, that it’s destroying the world and people won’t change their comfortable way of life.
Matty: It’s because we’re selfish. I was really happy about that report the other day that shed light on red meat. The only way you can ever get people to change their beliefs is if it affects them directly. So if the fact that I eat a sausage and some bacon three times a day means I can get cancer, maybe I should eat less meat. The fact that it destroys the planet for their children, and their children’s children doesn’t affect them. They’re too busy say on their fucking arse and iPods watching Jeremy Kyle make fools of innocent people on TV and being fed bullshit from the press constantly. All they want to do is have enough money in their lives to feed their kids, which is completely valid, but their kids and their kids’ kids may not have any more kids after that, so what’s the point? Something has to change. People’s philosophy has to change otherwise we’re totally screwed.
As a final question, if there’s one message you could leave to your fans, or the people reading this article what would it be?
Matty: Equality. We’ve got to forget our prejudices and look at other human beings as hearts and fucking lungs, because that’s all we fucking are. There’s no difference between me or someone fighting for ISIS, it’s just they’ve had a different upbringing, and that’s why they’re doing these things. It’s not because they’re some evil person [to start with], its because they’ve become evil, because of the surroundings of their youth. We’ve got to forget everything, and not hate people, and show love and support to those people who are in a bad place, because it’s fucking atrocious.