Of Virtue signed with SharpTone Records in late 2018, set to showcase the band’s maturation and exploration with their infusion of alternative and hard rock into their metalcore foundation. By combining a positive message with a penchant for touring, punishing aggression and passionate songwriting, Of Virtue are the next in a long lineage of Michigan based metal acts to “make it big,” with an explosive start to 2019 and only brighter things to follow.
Music Madness caught up with the band’s guitarist Damon Tate to discuss the new album, ‘What Defines You’, and the all around new vibe surrounding the band.
Music Madness: Damon congrats on Of Virtue’s new release, ‘What Defines You’.
Damon: Thank you very much, man. That means a lot. It’s going on three weeks now and all of the reception has been pretty positive so far. Everybody seems to enjoy it. It’s done fairly well numbers wise for a band our size.
Music Madness: With new music comes touring…I know you guys are big on touring, anything in the works?
Damon: Oh yeah. We are going to Asia in the next couple of weeks. So we are finally going to play Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and we will be out there for about two weeks. Then we come back and do some spot stuff, like a couple little festivals.
There is another tour, still waiting for it to be announced.
Music Madness: Very cool. So sounds like you guys will be busy for some time?
Damon: Yep, right now we’re just working on trying to arrange what we’re going to do for the fall. So it’s going to be… We are going to take some time off between October and November. In December, we have some tentative plans we are trying to work out what we are going to do. Pretty much just play shows and just kind of keep it moving. Might go into the studio and work on some more music.
Music Madness: What has been the biggest difference for the band from the ‘Salvation’ record to this latest release ‘What Defines You’.
Damon: There is a lot. Biggest difference, obviously, we changed vocalists which pretty much changed our sound completely… If you’re familiar with our older stuff, we kind of had more of a melodic hardcore vibe, kind of like a Killswitch counterparts type deal going on. Then Nick left…our drummer left and I was like, well, we can’t really keep doing the same thing so we tried out some things and we did a bunch of demos and that’s when Tyler came in.
I had written some stuff that sounded more like our older stuff for Tyler, and that didn’t work. We were just like, well, it’s just one of those things where we are going to have to adapt a little bit and just go back to the drawing board with our sound and maybe explore some ways that we hadn’t. I’m doing a lot more singing now, Tyler was a screamer but he wanted to sing more and make everything a little more palatable so that we could reach some bigger audiences. I grew up on the new metal stuff and the more mainstream metal.
Sometimes you get away from it, because you’re going through your experimental phase, that thing where it’s like, I’m not going to be mainstream, but it’s like, no, 90% of what we listened to growing up was that. I was like, you know what, let’s try to shoot for that, let’s try to be one of those kind of bands, the gateway kind of bands that could introduce you to something else that might be a little more.
Music Madness: Do you think it gives you guys more room to explore down the road because the new music still has that edge to it? Do you think it gives you the ability to explore more avenues in the future?
Damon: Oh, absolutely! ‘What Defines You’ has some ballady kind of stuff, we have a female guest singer, and then right after it, you go into the heaviest song, which is kind of more reminiscent of some of our older stuff. We can do pretty much anything and not have to worry about being put into a specific box. We have the foundation of what we want to do and let’s see what happens. And the craziest thing is we can see it in the shows that we play now. Not only are there more people coming out, there is different kind of people, it’s not just the hardcore kids.
Music Madness: Do you have a favorite track off the new album…one that kind of hits home for you more than the others or one that you love to play live?
Damon: Oh yeah. I’d say I can break it into two. When I’m just listening to the album, I love “Immortal” or “Picture of You”. Of the stuff we do live it’s “No Control”, “Suffer”, “Thanks for Nothing”…just high energy, non-stop with people singing along. I think that is another big thing, having the big hooks and big chorus’ where when you first hear it, you’re like, oh, that’s catchy, then you hear it a few more times and can recite it back to us live. That’s a feeling where I’m like, oh man, that’s so cool.
I like to make it a pretty visceral experience, get in somebody’s face, spin around, jump up and down, fuckin’ climb on shit instead of me just getting up there playing music like I’m at a middle school recital. No, it’s a performance, it’s performance art. You’ll get to feel us, breathe us, get that energy and we’ll get it back from you. If you don’t want to give us energy, that’s fine, if you just want to stand there, head bang, do what you do, then we’re going to make it to where you’re not going to leave, you’re going to watch everything that we have to offer.
Music Madness: That’s the way it should be. You’ve got new music, multiple tours going on, you’ve had some changes within the band, how is the overall feeling of where the band is today?
Damon: Yes, absolutely. There’s upward mobility. We can’t really predict what our success is going to look like but, the shows are getting bigger, more people are coming out, different kinds of people are coming out. The response online has been great. The numbers have been great. In the past three years of us writing this album and then putting it out, we’ve been to Europe three times, we’re going to Asia for the first time, there’s plans to go to other continents in the next year. We’re getting that kind of exposure in a fairly limited amount of time, so I would say that that is a success.
If you want to see us play and people are willing to have us, awesome. People are listening to the music, that makes us feel great and as long as people are willing to hear us, listen to us, and watch us, we’re going to keep doing what we do.
Music Madness: Awesome. Again, Of Virtue, and they just released their newest album ‘What Defines You’ last month. Check out them out!
Social Links:
https://www.facebook.com/ofvirtue/
https://www.instagram.com/ofvirtue
Interview by Steve Carlos