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Eighteen Visions.
 Got your ticket to Eighteen Visions yet? If not, you might want to grab one real quick because baby, this show's gonna be a scorcher...
The band's just come off a tour in Canada, and are squeezing in a couple of last- minute shows in the States before their trip to Australia. "We've mostly been playing 'Obsession' stuff and just a little bit from the 'Vanity' record," explains guitarist Keith Barney. "But of course the newer the song the more fun it is to play. When you've been in a band for so long, playing the same songs for five years, it just gets old. But we've been writing a lot on the road. We're going into the studio to record a new album in October, and we have thirty-something new songs to go in with."
The band is well known for coming out with surprising new material - just compare their four past releases - but this fact is something Barney shrugs off when asked about. "I think it's more of a natural thing because we'd get bored doing the same old thing, you know? Like as much I love Hatebreed there's no way I could've been in a band like Hatebreed, just putting out the same old record over again. I have to be trying new things and as a band we're always trying to achieve new things, otherwise you just get lost. I think we had a big departure with 'Vanity', and another departure again between the 'Vanity' and 'Obsession' records, but I don't think we'll go for such a big departure this time around. It'll just continue with the current sort of sound but again we'll add things and build upon it."
Then again, hardcore's definitely a scene in which thinking outside the box can mean exile from fans who know exactly what they like. "The first time we got backlash was during the 'Vanity' record, because it was so far from our other stuff and such a new thing for us. Back then there wasn't a lot of bands in the hardcore scene doing a lot of the singing stuff. So James [Hart, vocals] started trying some singing stuff on the record and so a lot of people were like 'Whoa, what is this?' But it's just the scene, and it's just how they work and whenever something changes it takes a while to get used to."
Likewise, the band's appearance and style took some getting used to when they first broke out, back in a day where hardcore bands weren't exactly known for their snappy outfits and sleek haircuts. "We knew a long time ago that we wanted to set ourselves apart from other bands, especially in our live shows," explains Barney, "whether it's was the way we play or look or how we carry ourselves on stage or the amount of time we spend on our light show. We think that performing well live is such an important part of being a band, and the character and attitude of the band can mean so much. When you go and see a band you want to remember it, and you want to see them play professionally but you want to see them really shine and move around so we thought a lot about that. As kids seeing bands we liked that sort of stuff, so we tried to incorporate that into our own shows."
Consequently, the band have a sound and style that for a while there was quite unique, yet the band seemed to embrace the look as a whole. "The only time we ever clashed was with our old drummer," Barney admits. "Right now our drummer is Trevor, but before that we had this kid named Jason Trout, and he came from the mid-west of America, while we're all from Southern California, and we were just so different. Honestly, the way someone looks is the last thing you have to worry about but back then, to look at us, you could just see that we didn't match at all. And it was so obvious and put such a barrier between us all - we couldn't tell the same jokes or have the same conversations or anything like that, and it was hard. He ended up getting angry and we got in arguments so he left and we found Trevor, a friend of a friend type-thing who was playing in local bands so we took him in. And he's perfect." laughs Barney.
Ryan Smith
 | Eighteen Visions play an all-ages show at the Adelaide UniBar on Sat 20 Aug. |
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