Localized: Vape Plug

April has been celebrated for centuries as the start of spring. And what a time for new beginnings — two of the bands on this punk-ish lineup have new names. Featuring co-headliners Olympic Deth and Vape Plug (formerly Ashbury Yacht Club) with opener YOUCH! (formerly Girl Meet), this show is bound to be sonically unpredictable and unmissable. Catch SLUG Localized on Tuesday, April 22 at Kilby Court. As always, tickets are just $5 for this Riso Geist-sponsored show. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. and music starts at 8:00.

Vape Plug was, up until November, going by the name Ashbury Yacht Club. I’ve written as much in my review of their recently released EP Pixie Curb Stomp under the new name, though that was before SLUG had booked the band for this upcoming show and before I had the chance to speak with the group. Long story short: Ashbury Yacht Club (AYC) is now an auspicious Salt Lake City label hoping to put out projects from local punk, metal and hardcore bands. “Vape Plug is the flagship band . ‘Vape Plug,’ cause we’re the drug dealer for music,” says frontman and vocalist Andrew Tassell. The change came after a few AYC members left the group and new people came in, leading to the current lineup of Sam Kingdon (guitar), Gray (bass) and Markus Birch (drums).

“We don’t want to take ourselves too seriously. We want to play shows were we can play more lighthearted music but also switch into something more aggressive.”

But what is Vape Plug? We could talk genre and say their work falls under the wide umbrellas of punk, hardcore and anything that could’ve been the title song for your PS1 copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, but all of those description can fall a bit short. The key thing is, it’s off the wall: “We don’t want to take ourselves too seriously. We want to play shows were we can play more lighthearted music but also switch into something more aggressive,” says Tassell. Much of that can be traced back to the varied backgrounds of each of the members.

Gray, the mononymously named bassist, met the other members of the band through his unnamed electronic side project when they were placed on the same show bill. When I ask about his approach to music, he remarks, “I’m all about the ephemeral nature of music — you have to be there and experience it.” That same type of experimentation shows up in his approach to writing bass lines for Vape Plug. “[I love] post-punk and New Order-style basslines, but currently I’m trying and incorporate pop sounds, jazz, hip-hop, even country,” he says. And while Tassell and Kingdon knew one another in high school, their musical paths differed quite a bit. “I definitely have a blues background, so the whole hardcore thing was definitely a transition. I was having to beat the swing out of my strumming,” says Kingdon. “I have a solo on one song where I was trying to do more bluesy stuff, but I had to make it more punk for the spirit of the song.”

Could we call this group a work in progress? Maybe, but only in the way that all bands are “in progress.” And besides, they’ve played a number of highly memorable, if not very chaotic, shows in their time. One of the group’s favorite memories was an impromptu show in a grocery store parking lot: “There was a kid climbing a light post and headbanging while people were moshing with a grocery cart,” says Tassell. At another recent show at Twilite Lounge, “a couple of girls were hunched over with their fingers in their ears. I think that’s really the spirit of the band,” says Kingdon. The members’ blended background is reflected clearly in the varied nature of the singles they’ve put out, and though some might view this as a lack of direction, Vape Plug sees it as an advantage: “You could say we’re still trying to find what works, but I think we’ve got a good thing going, even if it doesn’t have a clear direction,” says Kingdon.

Vape Plug is currently in the process of recording another EP, which will be out at end of the summer — though some of those new tracks will make an appearance at SLUG Localized on April 22.

Read more Localized interviews here:
Localized: P.S. Destroy This
Localized: Fight the Future