Vesperteen Interview

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to sit down with Colin Rigsby, frontman of Vesperteen, for an interview at the DC9 Nightclub recently. We discussed the current tour as well as his most recently released album, The Hype is Dead. We also talked a bit about his writing process and motivation for creating new music.

Hello! How are you?

Good, thank you! Tired.

So I see that you just got off tour with Great Good Fine Ok. How was that?

Good! We actually have two more dates left, so we’ve been out with them for almost a month now. They had a bunch of days off, so we kind of peppered in our own headlining shows.

What is your favorite part about touring?

I mean, the whole point is playing the shows, so all of my mental effort goes into playing and performing. Playing is definitely the point, but I do love just experiencing new cities and seeing people I don’t get to see all the time, friends and fans and otherwise.

Do you have any favorite cities or venues?

There’s certain crowds that tend to be wilder for some reason. Whenever we go to Tulsa, everybody is always really crazy and fun. As a city, it’s whatever, but the people there seem to be wilder. I like seeing new venues. I don’t really have a favorite, I guess. Any place where the staff is just really cool and nice is always great. Fortunately, we’ve had a lot of those on this tour.

You just recently released “Love Me When It Hurts.” What was the inspiration for that song?

That song is about a relationship, being with somebody, and appreciating the other person still loving you even when it doesn’t make sense, like if I’ve hurt them or I’m being difficult or irrational. It’s just about grace from one partner to each other.

From your self-titled album to The Hype is Dead, how would you say your music style has progressed?

That’s a good question. It’s hard to say how it progressed. Actually, on that one [The Hype is Dead] I had collaborated with a few other people that I hadn’t even met before. Most of those songs, I wrote with people I just met and we just jumped into writing and producing together, so that was a very different experience. I still wrote all the lyrics but that

really grew me as far as the process of working with somebody else. I still always approach it the same way, but in hindsight, I can look back and say that it really pulled me in some different directions, mostly process-wise. Even working with different people and different people’s musical instincts that might be different than mine, following those instead of grabbing onto what my own was.

Can you explain your writing process a little bit for The Hype is Dead?

Yeah, let me think. For one or two of them, I already had an idea, and I had at least the melodies and lyrics for all of them. Most of them, I would get into the studio with whoever it was and start talking about whatever we want to do, and sometimes I’ll just start messing around with a synthesizer or something and we just catch a vibe and go from there. I’ll finish fleshing out lyrics and stuff on my own, maybe the next day or something, once we have a solid musical base started. Then we just put on the other touches after that.

What is your main motivation for writing new music?

That’s hard to identify, because by a lot of accounts, I shouldn’t keep doing it because it’s just really hard. I honestly didn’t even plan on starting Vesperteen, it just kind of happened. The motivation was just to write songs because that’s just in me and I just always liked to create things; I’ve always been a songwriter and performer. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what. It’s not like I want to be famous or make money. I don’t even really have goals of needing to play Madison Square Garden or anything like that. I just have to play in general, and I have to write.

How do you stay motivated despite all of the doubt and/or negativity?

Seeing that it works. It gets me going if one person is way into it or just says that it means a lot to them. Or then on a larger scale, if we get a great show or a great tour. Because I’m always a little unsure that I don’t think anybody really cares, so to see it working in any way is motivation to keep doing it.

Lastly, do you have anything you want to say to the readers?

Anything at all? Which direction do I take with this... Check out the music! I’d like to think everyone can get something from it and find a little bit of themselves in what I’m writing. Check it out!

You can find Vesperteen’s music on all streaming sites, as well as his upcoming tour dates on his website. Be sure to check out his new singles and stay tuned for upcoming music as well!

Hosted and photographed by: Piper Rosas