Void Of Vision

Void Of Vision are on their way up through the local ranks. Whether it’s supporting Hellions, playing to bigger crowds and getting even stronger reactions, Void Of Vision should be one of the next big bands to come out of Australia. We recently spoke with vocalist Jack Bergin about how far the band has come, supporting Ocean Grove on their upcoming tour, the group's new single, and dodgy outer Melbourne suburbs.

So first question Jack - Is 'Sunrise' a stand-alone single, or is it part of a bigger release?

Sunrise is a stand-alone single for now. It will be off a forthcoming release that we are currently deep in the process of creating. There will obviously be more details on that in the future.

I spoke with Owen Jones (Digitalbeard Photography) at Emarosa’s Melbourne show and he said that the song itself was quite different for the band, in what kind of way was he referring to?

The track was originally going to be finished on our debut EP last year [‘Broken // Bones], but we kept it aside and we ended up becoming more fond of it as the year kicked into full pace. We revamped it in February and then headed into the studio with Sam [Bassal] of Ocean Grove. We played it on the Indian Summer tour [with Hellions] and we had a positive response, hopefully it's a good indicator of what’s to come . As for the writing process, we were listening to a lot more melodic hardcore, especially Being As An Ocean. We definitely feel like influences from that genre and band are in that track, with the old Void of Vision sound, yet it’s very different from anything off that EP. It’ll be interesting to see what people think about it.

Regarding the different styles, are you guys avid listeners of more typical hardcore or melodic hardcore?

We’re a really mixed band. I know that James and Mitch are into heavier bands. Matt’s more into the poppy, metalcore element, like Memphis May Fire. George is all over the shop, and I’m more into melodic hardcore. I believe these are all shown on the new track.

Sweet man, keen to hear it. You guys are still pretty young, yet you’ve done a lot of big tours lately, like the ‘Indian Summer’ tour.

Just doing that follow up tour with Hellions was great. That was probably one of our favourites to date.

With all the touring lately, has it helped you guys mature as a band?

Oh, for sure. Hellions are like big brothers to us now and they were able to pass on a lot of advice. They’ve been in the game for a while now and it’s good to have that outside influence. It was really awesome to tour with a band of that calibre too.

Again with touring, you guys have got the Ocean grove tour, you must be keen, as Devastator are coming along for the ride too.

It’s going to be great! We’re all very keen on Devastator; excited to see them have a full release out soon. To see them play those songs live…I’ve heard it’s ridiculously tight. I’ve heard it’s ALL ridiculously tight. With Ocean Grove, the EP is phenomenal. We’ve been watching those dudes from going to shows and watching them develop over the years. To tour with them should be sick.

I do think that ‘Black Label’ shits all over ‘Outsider’.

I sweated the shit out of them, went to all the shows, I was always up the front and now we’ve seen them develop so much, and we get to travel with them…I’m so stoked.

I take it your thoughts are the same towards Hellions?

It’s a really weird pattern. Most of the tours we’ve gotten, I’ve often found myself sweating the bands we’re touring with. With Elegist last year, I loved them. Same goes for Hand Of Mercy and Hellions, and now it’s happened again with Ocean Grove.

That’s sick! Speaking of those bands, what are your thoughts on this resurgence of nu-metal in the hardcore/metalcore scene? As we’ve got Devastator, Ocean Grove, Hellions, I Am Zero and many more riding that sound.

I love it, dude! It’s probably the genre that is in resurgence that I’m really into. I’ve found myself going back on all the old bands and loving it all over again. We played this Limp Bizkit cover on the last tour and reception was crazy. I think it’s such an easy genre to bang your head to (laughs).

Was that a cover of ‘Break Stuff’? 

(Laughs) yeah, it was for Break Stuff.

I distinctly remember Confession getting in hot water for playing that song live at Soundwave last year…

I do remember that. Those guys are on a much bigger scale so I think it’s different for us. It was just a one tour thing, was good for then, might just sweep it to the side for now (laughs).

I’m not in a touring band, and I’m wondering with all of these tours, is there a list or a set of goals to play certain venues or places you’d like to play or visit?

We do, and we’ve covered a fair few of them now. There’s the little venue in Wollongong called the Rad bar, that was a goal to play. I feel like the bigger venues are every band’s dream to get to. Hopefully in the future, we’d love to play venues like Billboards [170 Russell] in Melbourne, Hi-Fi in Brisbane, Metro in Sydney.

Do you think that maybe some bands shoot themselves in the foot, or at least undermine themselves by aiming too high?

I don’t know about shooting themselves in the foot, it’s good to be ambitious. I feel like sometimes that the foresight is too large and you forget those small beginning steps. We were lucky to develop really quickly, but still get those small beginning steps. At the end of the day, you do need dreams, but you need to stay on track.

Oh, of course dude. You guys mentioned in a recent status that there have been unpredictable setbacks, so what exactly where those setbacks?

After our Tasmania run, I was booked in for surgery on my nose. I unfortunately copped some damage to it a few years back, unaware to myself, and something didn’t go to plan and we had to pull out an all ages show we had to play. I think it’s made us more thirsty to get back on stage, to get organised for tour, and to get things done behind the scenes.

Right on. Earlier this year, I heard some news that you guys had some merch jersey’s stolen off you?

Matt, right after our set, changed into some casual clothes side of stage and when he came back and he found that they had been taken away. No idea what happened there. There was also another issue later that night, with some attendees having sour behavior who tried to start a fight over a stolen mobile phone. I feel like a lot of people that night were really gutted about that, as we all like to think our music scene is such a wonderful community. It would probably be in the best interest of those dudes to never attend those kind of shows again.

Yeah, that kind of thing fucking sucks man. Also, was that show with I, Valiance?

Yeah, that was one!

Okay, because Krys [Smith, guitars] from I, Valiance told me about that in our recent feature on them. That happened in Cranbourne right? As I know they had a bass stolen off them while playing in that suburb recently.

I saw them post about it the other day. We’ve only done Cranbourne a couple times, and we haven’t had the best experiences. I remember the first time we played there, James, George and Matt walked to a KFC down the road. They took a shortcut through a park and these random Sudanese dudes just started chasing them down (laughs). There’s some fairly skeptical areas around Melbourne. I love where we are from and where we play, but there’s some pretty shit stuff going on.

I’ve seen a few strange things in the Footscray area for Phoenix Youth Centre on occasion too.

No doubt you’ve seen some divisive comments about it, but what are your thoughts on the new Parkway Drive song?

It’s…definitely not my cup of tea. But I feel it’s a smart move, and not that they’re turning into a dad rock band, but that they could get a larger niche. If they could get a support slot for AC/DC, that would be sick.

That would actually make me go out to an AC/DC show. We won’t be seeing Void Of Vision doing some more mid-tempo stuff anytime soon?

I don’t know, there’s some weird shit we’ve been experimenting with. But I think what we’re writing is a different step to the what the EP was, but not straying too far from the path.

Keen to hear to it. I spoke with the dudes from Belle Haven a while ago, and they said about themselves and Ocean Grove that [in the past] they wrote what other people would like rather than what they wanted to write. Is, or was that the same for Void?

In a sense, yes. The songs we wrote seemed to be in vogue in the scene at the time and going to shows and seeing people love that sound. As much as we enjoyed the music we wrote, it seemed to be more crowd participative stuff. To a degree, we based it on what other would like. I’m very confident that the new stuff is on the same path that those bands took, in writing what we love. We’re trying to show and that we have a lot more up our sleeve then just being a heavy band; that we aren’t a one-trick pony.

Awesome man, can’t wait for it. That’s all I’ve got for you Jack, so we’ll have to leave it there. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do the interview too, it was great.

'Sunrise' is out on Friday, June 19. 

Catch Void Of Vision on Ocean Grove's 'Black Label' tour this July. Details via the Facebook event page.