Suburban Vermin – Seattle Punk Posse Interview
I have a close connection by default with the attitude and mindset of the punk genre, Playing in a very punk-ish band myself for many years.
Suburban Vermin drew me in immediately. While punk bands aren’t supposed to give a shit, a quick look past the music reveals that Suburban Vermin really does give a shit, maybe even two.
Tony Coke: You guys have a very impressive and professional online presence. Are yall with a label or management, or have you done everything on your own?
Jason Vermin: Thanks, Right before we started recording “Headless Over Heels,” we hired our manager Nina but since her background was in record production, she was focused on producing and mixing the record. While she was busy with that Amanda and I worked on the other aspects of the record like promotion, online presence, artwork, etc. We’ve never really worked with a label.
Amanda Gamino: Nope not on any record labels, just doing this ourselves the old fashion way. As far as management we hired Nina Guidry as our manager to take care of the bulk of all the busy work so the band has more time to focus on what really matters.. making music.
Tony Coke: I LOVE the comic book idea!! Way to think outside the box. Did that come together because of a love of comics, or just a creative marketing angle?
Jason Vermin: I think it’s a little bit of both. I’m a pretty big comic book fan in general and it’s always been on my bucket list to make one. The process for putting together the comic book was surprisingly easy too, considering we made up the process as we went along. Other bands have had comic books before, like K.I.S.S., but I think that they’re about the band members having some sort of super natural adventure or something. I wanted this to be a companion piece to the record. I really like the way it turned out though.
Amanda Gamino: The comic book was all Jason’s idea, he got super creative and basically said, I’ve invested my own cash in this so if it sinks it won’t hurt the band fund.
Tony Coke: You guys have been at it for a while now. Has it always been Jason and Amanda putting things together musically and business wise?
Amanda Gamino: Since i joined the band in 2008, it started out with someone else as the singer and I was just the underage guitarist, but once she was out, Jason and I decided we could split all the song writing up. After that its pretty much been us two as the main leaders, with now the exception of Nina bossing us around from time to time haha.
Jason Vermin: There was a very, very short period of time about 7 and a half years ago where Amanda was not in the band, but things really didn’t start cooking until she joined. Musically, the work has always pretty much been and is split right down the middle 50/50 and I handled the lions share of the business side. Since we hired our manager Nina, it’s freed up a fair amount of time. She now handles the booking and business side for the most part, which gives me a lot more time to work on the creative, but not necessarily musical side. This arrangement is directly responsible for our amazing music video and things like the comic.
Tony Coke: You’ve got a buzz built about the release of the new album, what plans do you have to promote it once it’s released? Any touring in the future?
Jason Vermin: I think the first thing out of the pipeline is going to be the music video for “Headless Over Heels.” It was directed by the talented Eddie DaRoza and was filmed in sunny southern California. It even has a cameo from Unwritten Law’s lead singer, Scott Russo. That’s kind of cool, because that’s one of the kinda Warped Tour hey-day bands I’d download off of Napster back in the day. That’s going to premiere on BlankTV’s site on July 10th. Then with the record itself, not only will that be available on line and physically through our website, you’ll also be able to download the comic book digitally and read it on your tablet or computer, but it does look better in print. We’re also going to be playing some pretty fun sounding festival shows in Washington later this year, including one with D.O.A, which should be insane. We have some stuff planned for those shows we can’t really talk about yet, but it’s really fun stuff that bands really don’t do, kind of thinking how can we market this like a different kind of event in addition to the way you’d market a concert. Between that, we’re hoping to for sure get out of town and play some places out of town that we’ve never played before.
Tony Coke: That’s awesome! A band I play with opened for D.O.A. once in a little club, it was bad ass. I climbed up on the bar during a song and fell off.
I hope I get to hear about this stuff you aren’t going to tell us about, being that I’m obsessed with marketing and music. Amanda? Touring?
Amanda Gamino: Touring.. YES! Ive always had this dream to tour all over and play music. For promoting this record we have a lot of big shows coming up before the record will be officially release which will give us a boost on getting our music out there to new crowds and pumping them up to want to buy the CD when its officially out!
Tony Coke: What’s the best way for people to connect with you guys? website, social media?
Amanda Gamino: Ways to connect with us; IG (Instagram) @suburban_vermin, Facebook, www.suburbanvermin.com, and reverbnation.com
Jason Vermin: First thing any potential Suburban Vermin fan should do is go to our official website (www.suburbanvermin.com) and sign up for our mailing list. We like to give people who sign up for that a little early heads up on some stuff, as well as some Mp3s and such. Also we have some of our music up there where you can choose the price you want to pay. If you go to our Facebook and leave a message or post a comment, we’ll respond. It’ll either be Amanda, myself or our manager Nina, so that’s a pretty good place if you want to connect.
Tony Coke: Kick ass guys, keep it up, I can’t wait to reconnect with you again here in a few months and see the stats after your new album drops and the progress you’ve made. And if you hit Texas, PLEASE let me know!