Las Vegas Metal: Interview with Vatican Falling -A “WAR” is Brewing in Vegas

by Annie · March 27, 2020

This past February I had the opportunity to sit down with the Vegas Deathcore homies, Vatican Falling, to talk shop for a second time. VF has been one of the local bands I have been adamant on paying attention to with the clear recognizable talent that they bring to the stage and in the studio. Dustin Allen plays double duty as both the Lead Guitar and the guy behind the sound board in the studio, fine tuning everything like a grand piano so that it hits our ears just right. Now we fast forward to March 26th and these gents have not only dropped a music video but have dropped a full length album.

Here is what they had to say about it…..

What sets WAR apart from your previous albums “Conquest” and “Famine“?

Adam Ray – Vocals: It’s a lot heavier. We have a lot more breakdowns and more gutturals. This theme works well with the genre.

Dustin Allen- Lead Guitar: I just think this theme is better. The albums are all themed. This album and the one after this are definitely going to be more into that theme of war, death and destruction.

Let’s talk influences. What musical influences did you guys pull from while writing this album?

Adam: I don’t know if I really pulled from anything. I gave a couple nods to some people. I think this album is just different.

Dustin: Teletubbies? I think as soon as this releases you’ll notice a big difference with the vocals because they sound 7 times better and Adam’s gotten better. We’ve been trying out different things and I think some of them worked out really well.

This album has 12 tracks that you teased fans with a bit ago but excluded Priestess of Blood. Is there a reason you left that track off?

Dustin: A couple of things. The biggest reason that I kind of talked to them about is the consistency of the mix. So this was one we mixed on its own early enough.

Adam: We also lost the file that included the whole session when we swapped hard drives. So instead of releasing a song that sounds different than the rest of the songs on this album we decided to leave it off. The one we did with Deathcore Dad, which was Paramecium Brain, was going to go on WAR but we decided to release it as a single separate from everything else. Big shout out to Deathcore Dad and everything he does for us. He puts us out there a lot.

So what is the message you are trying to portray with this album. Death, destruction and war. Can you go into that a bit more?

Adam: We have the four horsemen. We’ve already done 2 with Conquest and Famine. It’s really heavy driving a lot of breakdowns. A lot of dark just cosmic want to get into the pit chaos. There is nothing slow on this album. I don’t think there is one song that slows down at all.

Dustin: This is going to be energy provoking for the people that enjoy moshing.

Your artwork is super sick, who did it?

Adam: Den Yudi from Indonesia. The guy does some great work.

Let’s talk lineup changes. You guys have switched it up a little bit with members. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Adam: It wasn’t an easy decision at all. We love Marc and we love everything he did. It was a matter of we wanted someone in the studio that contributed a bit more to the writing. Now we’ve picked up Chris and are looking to advance on.

And Chris is on the new album?

Chris Storey-Guitar: Yeah, I helped a little bit with little bits and pieces. I think dusty is awesome. Me and Dustin are practically married and I am there (at his house) all the time. Me and dusty write really well together.

Adam: I was just telling them (Dustin & Chris) the other day I don’t think the world is ready for them to collaborate. There are songs that are not even on War that they are writing. There is this one song that they wrote it’s almost unfair how good it is.

What’s the deal with new merch releases? Is that coming before the album or after the album? Are you doing any bundles with hard copies of the album?

Adam: We are looking to find the right person to release our merch. We’ve had issues with that in the past with sizing and crooked logos. But we have a couple people that we have been talking to. Some places are a little more expensive than others. We are trying to get the best product we can for a good price. We are trying to do hoodies. We are doing t-shirts, hats and shorts.

Dustin: Vibrators, anything we can put our name on. Get some Booty shorts made. We are trying to find online distribution at a reasonable price.

Thomas Palmer- Bass: So if you are reading this and you do merch hit us up!

Are there any plans to do a release show or an out of town tour for the album?

Dustin: We kind of have one that’s in the works right now. But that’s quite a ways out. So This is Suffering hit us up or rather we were tagged and then have been talking to them. I would like to ideally have a big named band to open for or put something on ourselves as a CD release. But our main focus has been on getting this thing mixed and making it sound really good and then talk strategy about how we are going to release it later on. I think we are going to be a little pickier about it.

Adam: yeah we aren’t going to take a lot of shows. We are going to take a few shows here and looking at a lot more shows out of town.

If you had an opportunity to go on tour with a bigger band this year after your release who would be your top picks?

Adam: The dream would be to tour with Black Dahlia Murder. So This is Suffering would be pretty cool to go tour with as well.

Dustin: Shadow of Intent is fucking damn good too. Archspire too. I don’t know how fun they are but their music is cool.

Thomas: I think it would be really cool to tour with someone a bit like Alterbeast. There shows are so good. Poolside at the Flamingo is also super nuts.

Chris: I would like to play with Rotting Out. Madball maybe.

This concluded our interview, unless you want to hear a story from Chris Storey about how he burned himself on some chicken. But I’ll save that gem for another day. In the meantime, check out their new album and music video linked below and keep supporting your local and touring metal bands!