Ten Questions to ... Zac Campbell of The Kentucky Vampires

The Kentucky Vampires shot straight to the upper echelons of the goth stratosphere with their self-titled debut LP which both musically and visually ticked all the right boxes both for long-term fans of the genre and those discovering the joys of the darkside for the first time.

Zac Campbell of The Kentucky Vampires

Buoyed not only by a distribution contract with Secret Sin records but also a third member in the personage of bassist Motuvius Rex, the band returned with a classic sophomore album that I’m sure that I’ll still be spinning in twenty years if I’m lucky enough to be alive then. Crimson Curse is the album of a band confident in their own sound, identity and direction, beginning with Abbas Marler’s church organ solo (yes, really) to set a suitably creepy scene, following on instantly with a couple of up-tempo deathrock salvoes that would not have been out of place on the band’s critically-acclaimed eponymous debut. The synergical combination of Zac Campbell’s well-crafted guitar lines, Motuvius Rex’s buzzing bass and Abbas Marler’s strangely affecting distant baritone croon combine in two perfect slices of modern goth, Holy Heretic and The Falling Sun with Marler’s intelligent lyrics (the former is about Joan of Arc calling out to Archangel Michael for help, for example) and Sonsombre’s Brandon Pybus’ expert mastering adding an extra layer of sheen that competitors will struggle to match.

The fourth track is where the band show their real maturity with the slow-burning Moon Rays, with a classic Cure guitar tone and Marler’s echoing baritone creating a truly lovely aural effect rarely heard in guitar-driven gothic rock. The next trio of songs, Phantom Mystery, Silence and Vampires Coffin (which is possibly missing an apostrophe somewhere) find the band back on familiar more up-tempo territory, the latter adding a creepy B-movie synth with Marler’s Latin incantations adding to the spooky atmosphere, and providing the perfect introduction to the band’s tribute to the great Vincent Price, Saint Vincent, which again sounds very much like a (better-produced) variation on a theme from the debut album.

But for me what really make this such an epic album are the final three tracks, A Different Shade, Die With You and Our Love Has No Goodbyes, all slow-burners which show that the band only increases in power and intensity when the tempo drops, allowing Marler to show off his dramatic range and Campbell to showcase his subtlety and genius on the guitar, as well as revealing his songsmith abilities to the full.

In short, I cannot recommend this album highly enough to anyone who has appreciated any era of goth music, and the fact that it is available for “Name Your Price” on Bandcamp (whilst we await the CD and vinyl release on Secret Sin after the current global pandemic) makes it an even more essential purchase. You can get it on this link right now!

I was therefore delighted when guitarist Zac Campbell agreed to answer my “Ten Questions…” for this blog, to enable me to find out more about the inner workings of one of the most promising bands of the past decade. As an aside, I must add that dealing with the current generation of goth/post-punk musicians is an absolute pleasure: all of the musicians whom I have bothered so far for this blog have been unfailingly helpful and have gone out of their way to assist by giving full and interesting replies, and Zac has certainly been no exception. My grateful thanks to him.

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1.      NVL: With the onset of the global pandemic, rather than put back the release of your new album Crimson Curse, you decided to just release it digitally initially, and very generously made it “Name Your Price” on Bandcamp. Is the plan still for Secret Sin to put out physical versions (vinyl/CD) in due course?

Zac: Yes, it was a group decision by the band to release it on Bandcamp as “Name Your Price”. The plan is once the world starts to go back to some sort of normal, to release the album on CD, and vinyl as well through Secret Sin Records.

2.      NVL: The album artwork and the band logo from Crimson Curse seem to have moved away from the very overtly goth bats and graveyard vibe of the debut. Is this a deliberate re-positioning?

Zac: The artwork was done by our vocalist Abbas Marler. He has taken the lead on the artistic representation of the album. He also did the artwork for our EP that released back in November. I think as we move more into a more professional sound that the artwork is starting to reflect that. Our very good friend Marky Shotgunblast from Cincinnati Ohio created the bat logo we use, and I created the original logo. Marky does all of our merchandise printing and creation as well.

3.    NVL:   Since the eponymous debut, The Kentucky Vampires has expanded to a three-piece with the recruitment of Motuvius Rex on bass. Was this primarily with live shows in mind?

We’ve always been a 3 piece as far as live performances. On the first album Abbas and I did all of the music ourselves as far as writing, and cycled through several live bassists. When Motuvius joined to do live bass, we decided to include him in the writing process. I am more of a guitarist than a bassist, so in that regard he is bringing something to the band that is out of my element in writing. It’s also nice to bring in fresh new ideas to help keep things more interesting! We’ve actually now added a drummer, our great friend Thom Warnoch. We have began writing material for the third album including Thom on the drums, and Motuvius on bass. This is great for many reasons but I feel like adding other people to the writing process will make things sound much better and more interesting than just me writing all of the instruments. Thom brings a lot of experience on the drums and right away there’s a big difference in the feel of the new material.  

4.   NVL:    Your love of Hispanic and Latin American deathrock is well-known to all who follow you on social media, and I can hear the influence of for example Los Carniceros Del Norte’s Las Tres Caras del Miedo on your sound, particularly on the first album. Which bands would you recommend to fans wanting to examine that scene further?

Zac: Oh, that’s a tough one. I absolutely love almost everything goth, death rock, and punk going on in Mexico and central and South America and Spain. That scene is just full of incredible musicians and music. I try to share everything I find from these areas and try to help bring exposure to bands people might not find otherwise. I tend to focus on Mexico the most as my wife is from Mexico and I am now fortunate enough to have an amazing family in Mexico, so we visit Mexico a lot, and this has led to meeting a lot of really cool people, making some great friends, and finding some really amazing music! I can tell you some of my very favorite bands from these areas are Acid Bats, Los Carniceros Del Norte, Los Gorgonas, Dimness, Hoffen, La Procesion de lo Infinito, Lucida Fila, Blood Dance, Frio y Vacio, Red Ulalume, Cruz de Navajas, Mementut, Sex Catrina, Draconian Incubus, Deliverance, Luna Mysti, RRRRRRR, Mekrokiev, Los Dezterrados, Belgrado, Diavol Strain, La Calle Morgue, Last Dusk, Eyaculacion Post Mortem, Modi Key, Bloody Benders, Caifanes, Heros del Silence, etc… I could literally go on and on about this topic haha.

5.      NVL:  When the band first formed, Albie (now fronting his own project Scary Black) was the band’s vocalist, and when he left Abbas moved from bass to vocals. For me, Abbas’ vocal and your guitar sound is a perfect match, and it seems impossible to think of TKV without that combination. Can you remember when you first heard his vocals on one of the songs and the effect which it had on you?

Zac: Yeah,  actually. I was shocked! When Albie left I was really ready to hang up the band so to speak, and I was honestly rather depressed he had left, when Abbas said he’d try to sing, I was just like “OK, let’s give this a shot, why not?”. I had never heard Abbas sing at all before, I sent him a track and he sent it back with vocals recorded to it and it literally blew me away. It’s been a real honor working with him on this band, and I can’t imagine doing this project any other way. Honestly, I have to say if either he or I leave the band for any reason in the future, then that’s the end for the band.

6.       NVL: Three of the tracks on the new album were originally released as an EP in November, signposting a broadening of the traditional TKV sound. Part of this was due to the mastering which was done by Sonsombre’s Brandon Pybus. Why did you decide to get third-party help for the production of the new songs rather than just doing it yourselves?

Zac: Brandon and I had become really good friends and while I was traveling for work up in his area he invited me and my wife over to his house. We had a good time and got to hangout and watch a Sonsombre practice session and after that Brandon and I started talking about music production. Brandon and I use a lot of the same software for recording and he was showing me some tips and tricks and eventually he had offered to mix and master it at some point. I of course love his production on his Sonsombre albums and brought the offer back to Abbas. We both agreed to give it a shot and it turned out very well! Brandon made the tracks pack more punch and just sound more massive and clean than we had before. I personally believe after you spend hours and hours listening to the same song over and over again as you’re writing and recording it, that it’s better for a third party to mix it as they can bring a different perspective to things than what you have stuck in your head.

7.     NVL:  One development in the band’s sound which has made the album less “samey” and more powerful in feel than the debut is the inclusion of more slow-burning songs with a more bombastic, epic feel. Was that a conscious decision or just a natural development?

Zac: I’m not entirely sure really. I mean, during the writing process we were really focused on bringing something more than we had in the first album to have a strong follow-up album. Ultimately there are some main differences between the first album and the new album on each of our parts. That is that the first album I wrote the basslines first and fit guitars around that, on this album I wrote guitars first and focused more on them than I did the first album. I also tuned the guitars down. The first album I was mostly listening to Mexican and Spanish deathrock bands and more punk music. This album for a few months I was writing it I was listening to primarily bands like Nosferatu, The Cult, The Cure, Die Laughing, Fields of the Nephilim, Cassiopeia, Age of Heaven, The 69 Eyes, The Mission, etc.. and I think that had a large influence over it. I also moved out of Kentucky and moved to Florida living close to the ocean probably also has had an effect over me as far as inspiration on writing. I’m not sure I’d say it was a natural progression but had a lot of little details influencing how I approached writing the music. Abbas approached writing the lyrics for this album differently and with the addition of Motuvius to bass it all fell into place as it is.

8.     NVL:  That brings me onto the song-writing process. What comes first when you’re writing a new song, the melody, the lyrical theme or an overall “feel”?

Zac: Typically I have wrote the music and then I send it to Abbas, he then writes the lyrics and we custom-tailor so to speak the song to fit around how the lyrics turn out. On the first album I wrote a bass line first and then built up the rest of the song around it. The second album I wrote a guitar melody or hook first and built up from there.

9.     NVL:  I’m sure that a lot of goth band guitarists would want me to ask about your very distinctive guitar sound, which is just as quintessential a part of TKV’s sound as Abbas’ croon. How do you that slightly rough deathrock sound bleeding through on your riffs?

Zac: I use a lot of effects, the main part of my sound is just chorus, and more chorus and more chorus haha. I use a lot of chorus on my guitars. On the first album I just left the chorus on all the time, this album I took it off the rhythm guitars and tried to make the guitars more clean on the album. I will say a lot of my sound comes from my amplifier, and my guitar. My guitar is setup with the pickups height in a position closer to the strings. This to me makes the guitar feel more responsive and have more dynamics. The amplifier is a lot of “the sound” though, I have experimented a lot with trying to build a mobile guitar rig for traveling across the country for shows and potentially out of country and I have had a difficult time recreating the sound of my amplifier. I also use a lot of vintage analogue effect pedals from the 70s/80s. I always looked at it like I was trying to make my guitar sound like a lot of bands from the 80s and early 90s and just started buying old effects pedals for this reason, I’m sure plenty of the new latest and greatest do this just fine, but to me used gear is just cool. I actually collect guitar equipment, especially effects pedals! On the new album I used 2 or 3 different guitars on each song depending on the song, so that’s also adding some more different flavors and tones to the album.

(thanks to Zac for providing these pictures of his pedals and speakers)

10.    NVL: This week you’ve mentioned that you’ve started working on new material for TKV. What can you tell us about this – do you have an idea yet in which direction the band’s sound might head, and when are we likely to be hearing new product from the band?

Yes, we are starting up on the new album, trying to take advantage of the quarantine and pandemic situation to focus on making some new music instead of reading the news all day. This album will most likely be more in vein with the Crimson Curse album, but it will without a doubt sound different with the addition of our new drummer Thom to the band on this album. I also am using some different guitar equipment on this album for recording so it will overall have a different vibe to it. Since the writing experience is a little different now, it’s a little difficult for me to give a rough idea of when something will release, but all I can say is we’re actively working on new material now!