VALIENT THORR play Soda Bar Jun 15 and Complex LA Jun 16; press photo
Valient Thorr, taking the concept of “out-of-this-world” to a new level, is coming to SoCal to celebrate their “15 years on Earth” at the Soda Bar in San Diego on June 15 and Complex LA on June 16.
Normally, Valient Thorr is on a mission to fit in with the general human population, as they are originally from Venus. On the day of our interview, however, singer Valient Himself (as he is named) was on a different venture: “I’m on a wedding mission…”
Among the erratic schedule of the wedding for Nitewolf, T-Shirt designs were being made by Valient Himself in correspondence with the upcoming release of their newest album with Napalm Records.
“In 2013, two weeks before our sixth record came out, Volcom Entertainment decided they weren’t going to be a record label anymore, so they kind of bailed on us and decided to make shoes instead of records,” Valient Himself said.
Having taken a break, an unheard of thing in their musical history of touring constantly while releasing album after album, Valient Thorr is back in the game with their very hushed seventh album.
“Truly a lot of it (writing new music) was due to Eidan Thorr, our guitar player, who has a new studio in Wilmington, North Carolina, and we just made it happen and it’s incredible,” Valient Thorr said.
“We’ve kinda been ‘mum’ about it, I mean we posted a bunch of pictures when we were recording it, but we haven’t said much about it since then except we announced our U.S./Canada tour.
“It’s gonna blow the announcement, but the record will come out Aug. 27, I believe, which is the first day of the European tour and then we’ll come back around the U.S.”
Now we have the date, but what about the music? Well, if it’s anything like their past albums, #album7 (as it is known only on social media) should be a punk rock meets metal political-type statement.
“A lot of people are going to ask what it’s about, and it’s always about a million things,” Valient Himself explained.
“The trick is if you want people to talk about it and argue, you have to put something outlandish in it where you don’t go for the cheap, easy gimmick, and then you just layer it with lots and lots of stuff so people will either argue about it or they get confused about it or it seems like it’s about more than one thing.”
One thing that Valient Himself assures fans is that the album will follow their trend of lyrics filled with “old man knowledge,” something only someone from Venus can obtain at the band’s still young age.
“I can say there are a lot of themes of looking back and looking forward and pretending that we’re already forward and looking back on now, and confusing shit like that,” Valient Thorr laughs.
“There’s a lot of old man wisdom even though we’re not as old as we think we are, yet, but we will be there soon because time flies.”
While trying to bring a message of their wisdom to all ages and genders, Valient Thorr plays to the tune of all genres, mixing a blend of metal, punk, bluegrass and “what Lemmy (Motorhead) used to call plain ‘rock-n-roll.'”
“Once we came to Earth, being from Venus and being stuck on Earth as the narrative goes, we became humans and if we’re not humans, we’re humanitarians, in that we care about all things,” Valient Thorr said.
“Dividing is something that’s always happened. Divide and conquer. Well, you don’t have to divide, you can unite and make a stronger case for yourself. So we’re just trying to unite people’s’ musical tastes. Or actually, not their musical tastes, their catalogue. If you want to get something that ties the collection together, buy our new album!”
Their diverse crowd is sure to rekindle, even after the slight hiatus, and continue the journey of the Thorriors, as they are called.
“We did slow down, but hopefully the Thorriors will unite again!”