Californian four piece Plague Vendor released their intrepid debut album Free To Eat earlier this month on Epitaph Records.
Plague Vendor’s gritty brand of rock was birthed by four friends with a predilection for dark tones and instinctual playing in their hometown of Whittier, California. The name was inspired by a Mexican folk tale that members Brandon Blaine (vocals), Michael Perez (bass) Luke Perine (drums), Jay Rogers (guitar) had read, with the first written songs recalling narrative elements of the story. Early shows were raucous and treacherous, with a sense of shock value, making it clear that Plague Vendor was peddling something formidable.
Now having released Free To Eat to critical acclaim Plague Vendor embrace multiple sensibilities at once, veering rapidly from aggressive thrash to melodic introspection, compressing the range of human experience into ten rapid-fire, in-your-face songs.
We asked singer Brandon Blaine to give us a track by track run down on this exciting debut LP.
Black Sap Scriptures
“Black sap was a poem I had written years before the music was. A bottle of wine and a fresh notebook helped.”
Cursed Love, Hexed Lust
“This song is in it’s own lane on the album, we had a good time writing it.”
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Breakdance On Broken Glass
“I enjoy horror & western films. For this I felt compelled to combine the two and throw myself and the rest of the guys right in the middle of our very own horror/western”
My Tongue Is So Treacherous
“‘My Tongue Is So Treacherous’ was inspired by an Arthur Rimbaud poem, from ‘A Season In Hell'”
Numbers
“Numbers is about my first girlfriend who still is a good/close friend of mine. she is phenomenal at math.”
Plague Vendor
“Plague vendor is our anthem. Its a graveyard groove. I imagine a crowd of thousands shouting it.”
Finical Fatalist
“‘Finical Fatalist’ is what is. A man mad at the world and then switches to the other view of the people contributing to his stress and benefiting off him.”
Seek The Ruby Scarab
“Is kinda of a short story/poem inspired by true events, a SCI fi movie, and yet another Mexican folk tale.”
Garden Lanterns
“I’ll leave the title a mystery. God damn I’ve done it again I’ve found something better than a one night stand. Take two of these you don’t have to say please just tell the world to fuck off and catch a disease. The lyrics say it all.”
Neophron Percnopterus
“Neophron percnopterus: “as vultures waiting still a thousand plagues have cursed these hills” inspired by the book of revelations and Salvador Dali.”
Free To Eat is available now via Epitaph Records.
