Artist Selects: VIAL
Photo by DK Tong
Therapy, growing up, and nostalgia are just a few themes explored by the pop-punk quartet VIAL. In just a short amount of time, the Minneapolis-based band has released their first EP and made a name for themselves in the local scene as Best New Band in 2020. The band is made up of KT Branscom on guitar, Kate Kanfield on bass, Taylor Kraemer on keytar, and Katie Fischer on drums; including a powerhouse of vocals from each member.
I had the pleasure of getting to know VIAL and invited them to curate a playlist for our Artist Selects series. VIAL’s picks showcase their classic punk roots and happen to be a collection of songs they’ve shown each other throughout their time as a band. In our Q&A, we discuss the trials and tribulations of band life in quarantine, the true meaning behind DIY, and reminisce over moshing.
Listen to “VIAL Selects” below while you read the Q&A:
How long have y’all been playing together as a band? Is there a story behind how VIAL formed?
Taylor: We’ve been playing together as a quartet for about a year now which is exciting. It all started early last year when I went to a local show last year at First Avenue. I thought it was really sick and I wanted to do that but with no men. So, I texted the two most talented people I knew which were KT and Kate. I asked if they wanted to start a band with me and they were like heck yeah!
We didn’t know any drummers personally, so we decided to make a Tinder. Katie can take it from here.
Katie: I was on Tinder and there was a picture of three people who looked cool, fun, and talented. They said, “we need a drummer,” I wasn’t doing any drums at the time and thought hell yeah I can do drums again. I called them, they seemed cool, and we made a band.
What VIAL song did you have the most fun recording?
Taylor: I would say our song Grow Up because in the background we put in some claps and some slaps, for which we all aimed our butts at the microphone and made some slaps with our butts.
Photo by Slo Martin
The world of music has completely changed since quarantine, how are you feeling now? How has this affected your life in a band?
Kate: It’s certainly affected our life as a band in a million ways. Since we’re such a young band we hadn’t had a lot of our firsts. We hadn’t gone on our first tour pre-COVID, we hadn’t done our first festival, our first weekender, or any of these huge firsts. We had them all lined up. We had our first weekender and a few festivals lined up, which were all gone. Luckily we’re still doing live streams which are amazing and fun, but we took a pretty big hit to the gut.
Taylor: It had a lot of positives and negatives. With the big hit, we learned how to keep up the momentum with Tik Tok and that kind of stuff. We’ve been relating to folks on there who have been wanting to revive the Riot Grrrl scene and make it a lot more inclusive. We’ve been meeting a lot of out-of Minnesota friends through there which has been great, and we actually met our management through there too. It’s been really great to meet people and exist as a band.
Tell us a bit about your songwriting process. What inspires you the most when writing music?
Taylor: We had a different way when we first started, I think before we really knew how to collaborate. Someone would have the barebones of a song, bring it to the group, and everyone would add their own thing to it. Then it became this awesome collaborative project where we could all say, “Ooh what if you did this, what if you did that.” Now, we all collaborate on the first skeletal part, where we’re all involved in every step of the process.
We’ve been making some songs kind of outside of our norm you could say, but end up being so musically complex, tight, and interesting. I love it.
Kate: Most of our songs come from personal experiences. We don’t talk a lot about similar subjects over and over again. They’re all from someone’s point of view, getting used to life, and growing in life. Whoever ended up writing the lyrics usually expresses whatever they were thinking about that day.
Photo by Taylor Kraemer
Many of your songs explore nostalgia and looming adulthood, what draws you to these themes?
Kate: Being a young adult right now.
Katie: Yeah I was gonna say just our age. We’re all new adults so it’s just been something that’s on our minds.
Taylor: It’s relatable too, you don’t have to be any one kind of person to understand the feeling of nostalgia. Or to understand the feeling of getting older, the fear of it, the fun and perks that come along with it.
What bands did you have posters of on your walls in high school?
Kate: I was very scene in high school and my walls reflected that. I had an Ice Nine Kills poster up on my wall, I’ve had an Alice Cooper poster up on my wall, a lot of My Chemical Romance CD art. I also had a fantastic mirror with all of my hard-hitting lyrics written on it in sharpie, that was really cool.
Katie: I was a big Panic at the Disco Fan.
KT: In middle school, I was obsessed with 5 Seconds of Summer. In my old bedroom, every wall was covered with their posters. But in high school, it was more classic emo bands.
Taylor: I also had 5SOS posters with a bit of One Direction in there.
Who are your biggest influences as a band?
Katie: A lot of the old Riot Grrrl bands like Bikini Kill.
Kate: I think a lot of the bands on the playlist that we made are a lot of our inspirations. Definitely, as Katie said, Riot Grrrl. I’m a big fan of taking inspiration from my peers too.
Photo by Liam Taylor
What are you missing the most about live music currently?
Katie: I think just playing live! Watching other bands play too and moshing.
Taylor: I feel like every time we played a live show we got so much better as a band. I miss that very clear way of watching back a video of a live show and thinking, wow it’s only been three weeks and we’re already playing that faster and more coherently.
Kate: I think it’s just the connection of it. We’re doing live streams and a lot of stuff online now, which is really fun, but there’s just something about being shoved into an obscenely hot basement filled with too many people all screaming at you.
I had a lot of stage fright before VIAL was a thing, to the point where I never thought I was going to play music. Then I got over it playing for VIAL, getting up on stage, and having the audience scream. It doesn’t feel real.
Katie: It feels so amazing to see something that you created bring joy to other people. It’s the most insane feeling and I miss it.
Where’s the best place to perform in the Twin Cities?
Taylor: I don’t know if this is for everybody, but I’m going to have to say Rowhouse.
*Everyone nods*
Taylor: That was where we played our first real show, our album release show, every single pivotal moment we’ve played at the Rowhouse. I think we’ve played there around seven times in our six months of being a band that actually plays live shows. But they just moved out of the house, so we’ll never be able to play Rowhouse again!
Katie: We immortalized them in our song Or Die, hopefully.
Taylor: Yeah, we shout them out in our song Or Die. They’re so pure.
Katie: They were always so respectful and so nice, which is not something we always encounter. So we’re just very grateful.
How would you describe Rowhouse?
KT: It’s the tiniest basement you’ve ever been in, but you pack fifty to one hundred sweaty young adults into it and tell them to go nuts.
Taylor: We performed our album release show there. We had our name in balloons set up on the back wall behind all the bands and they didn’t move it until they left the house! You could always tell when someone was performing at the Rowhouse because in the background you can vaguely see ‘VIAL.’
Katie: When it’s not winter there’s a bonfire outside.
Taylor: And occasionally a full bottle of ranch on the toilet seat.
Photo by Taylor Kraemer
In your song DIY, you respond to the lack of inclusivity that currently exists in the scene, what do you believe could change in the Twin Cities DIY scene to make it more safe and accessible?
Taylor: DIY talks about everybody in the scene, we reference ourselves too and how we can do better. The scene is still too white, the scene still gatekeeps, we all have a place to grow.
Katie: We would usually say right before we perform, “This is a roast of everybody in this room, including ourselves.” So, we’re not exempt. It’s something as small as making sure that when you’re on a bill, it’s not just everyone that looks like you. It’s making sure that there’s diversity on bills that you’re a part of or you don’t play that bill.
Kate: Yeah just looking at who is in the audience of a show and then looking back at who’s actually on stage. You gotta make sure it matches up. Otherwise, you’re just using this space that was created by BIPOC people, by queer people, to create their music and to have a space of their own. You can’t just go into that space and not respect that or the people that you’re making music for.
It’s a relationship thing between bands and the audience. A lot of bands in the DIY scene, strive to make it a lot like the mainstream music industry. That you have to pay your dues, you have to respect these elder bands, these people are currently in charge of the scene and it runs their way.
DIY was specifically created to get away from that. So, if you are sitting there as a musician and you are not seeing other bands as your friends, allies, people to support and people to uplift then it’s not the DIY attitude.
I feel like, intrinsically, DIY is working together and uplifting your friends and people you want to see do well and those people uplifting you. It’s everybody working together.
Can you explain some of the songs you picked for the playlist?
Taylor: I picked the song Nice Nice by Dazey and the Scouts. They’re another band that popped up on our related on Tik Tok that’s non-men fronted. We all listened to them and thought they were so good and now we’re obsessed as a band. Their song Nice Nice is a sarcastic response to men stepping over their boundaries when flirting. It’s interesting to see them pretending to be that guy.
KT: I picked the song The Opener by Camp Cope, they’re an all femme band from Australia. They talk about how men in their music scene over there are the worst, kind of like they are everywhere. It’s very relatable.
Katie: The song Oh Bondage! Up Yours! by the X-Ray Spex has a special place in my heart. I had never heard it before our very first rehearsal, then Kate showed it to me and I thought oh my god this is so good!
Kate: One of the songs that I put on was Holy Sick by WAAX. When VIAL first started playing shows I wasn’t in the state, I was living in D.C. actually. So, I was watching all this really fun stuff happen and Taylor sent me Holy Sick. It became my favorite song all while I was in D.C. and it’s permanently branded in my head as VIAL now because that’s the song I think of when I think about watching VIAL start from a distance and seeing how cool it was.
What’s next for VIAL?
Kate: We’ve got some big things coming.
Taylor: We haven’t released anything new since last November, so we’re super excited to announce our first real big boy LP. It’s in the works and we’re recording it in November hopefully!
It feels so much more like VIAL than our first album did, which is amazing but we crammed all of the work into two months and we’re super overwhelmed. Whereas with this one we have a gorgeous team with Heathers Artist Management.
We’re talking with a lot of people, collaborating with a lot of folks, and we’re trying to go into this album as a ‘no-men allowed’ project unless we need to of course. We’re trying to spread the love to people mixing and mastering who are non-men who are extremely talented and a lot of times don’t get the appreciation they deserve.
