Warm Flow: In Conversation with Verity Den

Despite the thrill of the chase, at times one can become numb to the derivative nature of many modern-day acts. By and large, it’s all about following your nose, and over time, there’s an inexplicable muscle memory that develops where you just know what hits and what doesn’t. It’s those sound frequencies that move you in ways that are like a gateway to a new spiritual plane.

From the first note of Verity Den’s Priest Boss – the lead track from their exceptional self-titled debut album – it was evident this band unlocked a part of the mind exclusive to those of the upper echelon.

It happens once or twice a year. A new band comes along and sweeps you off your feet, which also maintains the notion that new music has the power to change your world and is exactly the reason why people should never shut themselves off from it.

The Carrboro, North Carolina based three-piece consists of vocalist/guitarist Casey Proctor, vocalist/bassist Trevor Reece, and guitarist Mike Wallace. Each have spent years in DIY communities across the United States. Proctor, formerly of Haruspex Palace and a mastering engineer whose work includes the Holy Sons masterpiece, Raw and Disfigured; Reece and Wallace, underground veterans who have spent years writing songs together, most notably as the severely underrated Drag Sounds.  

The three join forces as Verity Den, and on their debut (released via the excellent Amish Records), they offer something fresh, vital, and valiantly original. Splicing together wonderful ideas that many others would consider square pegs in round holes, Verity Den is a scuzzy, blissed-out torrent of sound that stands completely on its own two feet. The songwriting synergy between Proctor, Reece and Wallace, something of boundless prestige.

From the off, Verity Den showcase their meticulous crafting of sound, with the immediate, droning splendour of Washer / Dryer. It’s essentially the song the Breeders’ never wrote. Then there’s Priest Boss, exploding with the remnants of shoegaze and motoric psychedelia, taking guitar-based music to wonderful new places.

The tenderness of Prudence and Tess is a passage that is Verity Den’s watershed moment. The two tracks, dovetailing with a warm, ethereal flow that transports the listener to somewhere simply beautiful. And it continues on Other Friends – a whirring stream of melody and distortion, subtle with energy and soft colours. Essentially this is the rainbow collation of sound.

Then there’s the low-end, strip-light noise of Everyone Thought You Were Dead. Verity Den crank up the heat with aggressive walls of sound, and it bleeds into closing cut, Crushed Meds – an equally unhinged, wave of anxious noise, showcasing another side to this band.

Verity Den captures those moments where all the senses are sparked. Those wonderful moments of artistic expression that conceive infinite possibilities.

Earlier this month, Proctor, Reece and Wallace agreed to talk via Zoom about all things Verity Den. We talk touring, as the band are set to hit the road alongside Merge Records artist Rosalie, with shows in Boston, Baltimore, Kingston, Philadelphia and New York.

“I really love touring, that’s gonna be fun,” offers Reece, who alongside Wallace as Drag Sounds (to my surprise) never toured the U.K. Reece tells me about a brief stint in the country with his other band, Las Rosas in 2018. “We only did one show in London, that’s all the U.K. I’ve been to. I think my whole tour with Las Rosas was supposed to be U.K. shows… and then [it] all went mostly to the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia.”

The embryonic stages of a post-Brexit world, no doubt, however the talk moves on to post-gig rituals. “We usually go around to the pub,” says Wallace. “Not always as late as we used to, but sometimes as late as we used to. It depends on the night.”

During our conversation, it’s evident that Verity Den are a band whose persona mirrors their music. Quiet and shy, each radiating warm smiles and a general kindness that makes you enamoured with their music even more. Lifers, carving out honest art.

If only the world had more bands like them.

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Sun 13: These songs feel tailored to play live. Was that something you had in mind during the recording process?

Casey Proctor: “I don’t know that we thought about it much. The recordings have more synth elements that we’re able to duplicate some of live with a looper pedal. We’re actually thinking about adding a synth player to the live show, so that we can have more of that.”

S13: Had you all have been friends prior to starting Verity Den?

Trevor Reece: “Mike and I have played in a lot of bands together for a long time. Mainly as Drag Sounds for, I don’t know, maybe 10 years. Is that right?”

Mike Wallace: “Yeah. (laughs) That’s about how long, in addition to other similar things.”

Trevor Reece: “We’ve been playing together for a long time. Casey reached out to me wanting to join that band, Drag Sounds, and we decided to start this new project.”

S13: The thing I loved about Drag Sounds is that sonically it was so distinctive, and I think that really carries through with Verity Den. What was the most important aspect you wanted to achieve with the record?

CP: “Right, a lot of the songs are actually older songs that Trevor had already tracked out. We turned them into fully fledged demos and made 23 cassette tapes to sell at some of our first shows, which was less than a year ago [when] we started playing live. I just happened to meet Matt [Harmon] from Amish Records at a Union Pool show in Brooklyn, NY and ended up sending the demos to him. Less than a month later he was like, ‘Let’s put this out,’ and I was like, ‘We’re re-recording all these songs. He said, ‘No, I want to release this version!’ It was something we weren’t expecting to happen.”

S13: The sound is very meticulous and very well thought out – as someone who also worked extensively in engineering and mixing records, how much of that side of things influenced these recordings?

CP: “I guess you could say I have a style, or production preference. But at the same time all the projects I’ve engineered or produced end up sounding different each time. I asked to join Drag Sounds because when I heard their songs, it felt very familiar and raw… something I could add to. I knew that it would work when we started demoing the songs that Trevor brought in… Mike would come in to track his guitar overdubs and get it right away. So, it was very easy to get the ideas down and start mixing.”

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S13: With these tracks being released on the cassette first, to me listening to them for the first time, it feels like the instrumental tracks may have come before the more song-based ones. Was that the case?

CP: “No. Washer Dryer and Priest Boss were the first two things we put down. The instrumental pieces came last… Tess is actually just the three of us playing acoustic guitars in my living room with one mic in the middle.”

TR: “I had a collection of noise guitar instrumentals already recorded that we worked with for the last two tracks on the record.”

S13: The track that jumped out at me was Prudence, which feels really effortless to me… like a song that may have come after you wrote the instrumental tracks. Did the lyrics come before the music?

CP: “That was a song Trevor brought in. The loop was there, the rhythm guitar was there, the drum machine was already there. And then it was just Mike doing overdubs and me writing/ adding the vocals. The music existed before the words, and it was one of the first songs we built together, before the instrumental songs came. The instrumentals came after jamming together for a couple months.”

TR: “I think Prudence was finished and recorded before we even played it as a group in the studio together.”

MW: “That’s true and that’s fairly different from most of the records I’ve been a part of previously. Most of this LP was completed before we really played live or even all that much as a group. Whereas in previous groups, it was the opposite; you’re playing a lot before you make a record, and the record is capturing something. Sometimes I’m thinking about the record and trying to, not recreate it, but there’s a map I’m trying to draw even if we don’t get there the same way every time. It’s easier to know how to communicate the songs because I’ve had the experience of listening to this fully formed thing and can detach somewhat, which hasn’t been typical or possible in previous bands. I think the recording process informed this first batch of songs and continues to be a significant aspect of the writing process.”

S13: Interesting. You’re playing a lot of live shows, and it’s like you say, most bands usually play 50 live shows before they release an EP or an album, whereas it seems like Verity Den is more of a fully formed machine within a short space of time. It seems rare for a new band these days.

MW: “I understand what you’re saying. This is a newer project, but it doesn’t feel like a new band, just because we’ve all been playing for a while. It’s kind of a continuation of everything from before. We’re all involved in other projects, too. Verity Den is exciting because as a newer project that has all these possibilities, but in other ways it’s also just part of this long journey of playing music and making art.”

S13: How much of a challenge is it for musicians such as yourself that have been in the DIY, underground scene for decades now? As you become older, is it a challenge to maintain the work ethic to keep writing new songs and play shows?

CP: “It doesn’t feel challenging to me. When I’ve taken breaks from doing it, it just doesn’t feel right. I don’t know about you guys. You seem to be the same way…?”

TR: It’s something that keeps happening, and I’ve accepted that I’m a lifer at this point. I’m cool with that and do my best to make it work.”

MW: “Yeah. There are circumstances of your life that change – the stuff that’s not music – but you can’t stray too far. If you’ve been doing it for a while, you have this whole community and this whole world, and so much of your life has already been directed around that. It becomes like a stream, or a river that’s getting bigger in a way. Even if it’s not always apparent from the outside, you just continue doing it. I think in my case because it’s the thing you’ve done longer than anything else.

“It’s great the bigger it gets, but it continues happening regardless of outside support or attention. If no one was going to put out a record, there would still be records being made, and stuff going on. So, it’s really nice that you want to talk to us about the record. That’s really gratifying, But I think it happens no matter what, because it’s connected to everything that’s happened so far in some way. At least in my life.”

S13: Are you still dialled into new music, and does it influence your own material?

TR: “I don’t know. (laughs). I like to think I stay on top of things. As far as writing songs, I write mine the same way I did eight years ago in Drag Sounds… The Velvet Underground are my influence or early indie pop bands.”

CP: “I think we all have pretty broad tastes in music.”

MW: “My relationship has changed with that a little bit as I’ve gotten older. I’m more aware of how big music is and I find myself as interested in getting really deep into a long discography or spending time in areas I haven’t much before like classical music or new age stuff as much as keeping up with new bands. I think it’s like… if I come across it or if a friend turns me on to something rather than trying to keep up. Sometimes I’m just listening to try figure out how it was made or for a certain player or just how a song or artist relates to something else.”

CP: “I’m definitely paying some attention to newer bands and releases. I don’t know that it has a lot of influence on our sound, though. The stuff that we’re drawing from was built up over a long period of time.”

S13: With your sound, people may be quick to point towards shoegaze, particularly on a track like Other Friends, but to me it feels like there’s a kraut rock-inspired thread that runs through the whole album.

MW: “That’s interesting. That motorik and rhythmic pull, I think that is something that’s a through line in a way, both in this band and prior groups.”

CP: “That and definitely playing with different types of distortion, using white noise and pink noise. I like that the songs are fuzzy and warm, but at the same time, really chaotic. Marrying those things seems to be a pretty satisfying combination.”

S13: The way the songs land feels like journey in increments. Was there a lot of thinking that went into plotting the track listing? 

TR: “When we were making the tape together, we definitely thought hard about the flow.”

S13: Is there a story behind Priest Boss? It’s a great title.

TR: “I have a friend who’s an organist and has a priest boss. She’s talked about hanging out with her ‘cool, hot priest boss.’ (laughs) I thought ‘priest boss’ was very catchy.”

S13: Is that how you’ve always written songs. An idea like that and just expand from there… like a notebook musing from a situation?

TR: “Yeah, I think me and Mike both write stuff like that. It’s always something that is taken from a situation, or something that I would hear that’s catchy… like compiling stuff I notice around me. That’s something that me and Mike have always shared, song-writing wise.”

MW: “Yeah, definitely.”

CP: “Lyrical collage.”

TW: “Yeah. There are other things you put into it. But yeah, Priest Boss… I thought it was a funny line. I’ve used it twice already in this band who knows, I might use it again! (laughs)

S13: You could make a Priest Boss concept album.

MW: (Laughs) Priest Boss is our alter-ego enemy band.

S13: Or it could be a band name when you do a secret show at Glastonbury?

(All laugh)

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S13: With North Carolina being steeped in such a rich music history, do you think living in a small town lends itself to being more creatively focused?

CP: “It can be, yeah. I moved out here from Bellingham, Washington. We had a similar community there. There’s something special about Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and the triangle area in general, though. I think the energy here is conducive to a lot of creative things happening because it’s been like that for so long. It’s more normalised.”

MW: “Yeah, I think that probably has a lot to do with it. Because a small town, it can be either, right? It can be a good space for being creative without distractions. They can also feel too small, or there’s not enough going on to get creative or, like, interactions and friction to get ideas.

“But I think like you’re saying, Casey, it’s been that way for so long, and there was this history of Carrboro, Chapel Hill. Really, even way back to punk, R&B, soul, and jazz. There’s so much that’s been happening for so long, it does feel like there’s a foundation for that. There’s change, but there’s always been places to play. There are colleges, there were always new kids coming in who wanted to be in bands or be on the radio and have energy for that. The type of music changes, but I think there’s always energy for it even if it does ebb and flow.

“These small towns, which aren’t as small as they used to be, certainly, I think are still good places for music, art, and creativity.”

S13: Have economic factors and things such as gentrification impacted on the area over the years?

MW: “I don’t know. I live in Raleigh. Me and Trevor are from North Carolina, not the triangle area, just different parts. In general, there’s probably a similar thing happening with a lot of cities. Touring different cities pre-pandemic, we were traveling a lot more, [and] you see the same things happening here that maybe you saw earlier on. There’s a ton of people moving here, and there’s a lot of old stuff getting torn down and replaced with new stuff that looks like every other place. Rents are rising, people are getting squeezed.

“We used to be able to make a living by working in a restaurant or bartending, jobs that allow you more space for travel and creativity, [but now] it’s harder, because the rent’s higher, there’s fewer places to live. It’s situation to situation, person to person, but when you’re having a conversation, it’s something that often comes up.”

CP: “What’s the big company moving here?”

TR: “There are so many.” (laughs)

CP: “Apple. We’re hoping all the Apple techs are going to want some kind of music culture, you know?” (laughs)

MW: “Show me your lanyard. The show is now fifty dollars for you.” (laughs)

S13: Do you think the wave of tech has degraded art? For example, looking at the precarious position of Bandcamp, how much does that affect a band like yourselves?

CP: “Yeah, having no other good option doesn’t feel great. It’s hard to focus on all of these things when you just want to make art. (laughs) So everything else, we just have to deal with it and use it to our advantage when we can. That’s the only way to survive, I guess.”

MW: “There are some interesting things to think about. Thinking of Chapel Hill or the ’90s, the earlier indie, DIY stuff, or at least before now, it feels like it was easier to work outside of larger record labels or larger structures, because you could just press your record and that would be the way people can hear your recordings. If they wanted to get it, you could sell it to them, and you could have this hand-to-hand thing, which I guess is the idea of Bandcamp, even though there’s a tech company in the middle now who’s taking a little bit off each of those sales.

“People still buy records, of course; physical media is always going to be something but in smaller numbers. Then if you have this other thing, like Bandcamp or Spotify or streaming it kind of disincentivises people to buy the physical thing when they could just play it on their phone. I’m just as guilty of that as anyone… I try to buy records, but I stream stuff, we’re all on Bandcamp.

“I don’t know if you’d call it a necessary evil, but it’s what’s happening and to not participate in it at all doesn’t exactly feel like an option if you want to have music be accessible or heard. You can choose not to have certain things up there or on the internet. Everyone makes that decision depending on what you want to do, but it does feel unavoidable at some stage. Especially if someone’s investing in the band or investing in the record, it’s going to be on platforms. Like Casey said, using it to your advantage and try to be ethical within those confines.”

S13: Do you see your work as artists as an extension of your everyday personalities? Or do you view creativity as an escapism?

TR: “I think it’s pretty consistent within my day to day. It’s what I base my entire life around.”

MW: “Yeah, maybe at different points [I] feel different about it. It does feel a little separate from my day job stuff, or other things. Not in a negative way, but it does feel like a truer version or expression of who I feel like I am. That’s the truest or the rawest. Maybe it ends up being an escape, but it’s also being comfortable, whereas you spent a lot of time at your day job not feeling all the way comfortable. That’s interesting to think about.”

CP: “I think I’ve used it as a way to escape at times. I’m not doing that as much in this band for whatever reason. Maybe because Mike and Trevor are more grounded or something. (laughs) I don’t feel like I’m playing as much of a character as I have maybe in past projects, so that feels pretty good. But there’s always an element of transcending one’s personality when you’re creating art and performing. Creativity can lead to reality as much as it can avoid it.”

Verity Den is out tomorrow via Amish Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.