INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL VAMPIRE BY DARA PETERSON
You’ve toured with bands both big and small, what kind of relationships and connections has this created?
It’s created a lot of long-lasting relationships, but a lot of really amazing people. I mean, people come together when you’re on the road and when you’re at festivals. I mean, it’s a lot of camaraderie in that most of my friends now are basically in bands or in the music industry, so it definitely created a long string of good people in my life.
You’ve regularly released covers of songs like “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims and even performed other songs such as Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” live. What aspects of these songs struck you to make you want to do these covers?
I think it’s just a love for the song. I mean, the Katy Perry thing, I ended up meeting her a long time ago on Warped Tour, and I always wanted to do one of her songs, and for me, I guess that was the most challenging one to do. It was very high out of my range, so I wanted to challenge myself, but it’s a similar thing with Teddy Swims. I haven’t got to meet him yet, but that was a challenging song for me. I don’t sing gospel. I’m not a great R&B singer. I’m just trying to work on those things, try to be a better vocalist, so I think all in all, I had to like the songs first, and I had to find it a challenge, and also something that people enjoy listening to, and I didn’t want to put out a deep cut that really didn’t make sense, you know?
Having started Vampires Everywhere! in 2009, and in later years being the vocalist in other groups such as Dead Girls Academy and The Killing Lights, what has it been like to evolve not only your voice, but also the sound and instrumentation of these bands?
It’s been a roller coaster ride for sure. Starting in 2009, I was never supposed to be a dual vocalist to scream and sing. I was always a backup singer or backup screamer, so when I took over the helm to do both, it was a giant challenge, and it led me down a path to want to get better at both. The screaming came first. That came very natural, and the singing, trying to learn how to balance the singing with the screaming was insane. Especially doing it on stage and trying to hear yourself over the other instruments, especially the drums. So if you look at the transition from each band from the metalcore to Killing Lights, which is more of like butt rock, to Dead Girls Academy, which was something between butt rock and pop punk, all the way to what we’re doing now. The transition’s been monumental for me vocally, and I’m still working to this day. I mean, I’m on tour right now, and every day, I warm up. Every day, I’m singing songs I sang when I was in my late 20s, so it’s kind of bananas, trying to sing that high again, and I’m hitting the notes, so it’s turning out to be a good experience.
On the note of your tour, you guys have had several cycles of rebirth and exploration, and are currently revisiting your debut album, Kiss the Sun Goodbye, with an East Coast tour. Looking back on the past 15 years, what kinds of thoughts and emotions are there? Is there anything that brings feelings of nostalgia?
It’s all nostalgic to me. I feel like I never left that record cycle, except now I have a mustache, but it’s a little insane revisiting songs. Last night, we played our first show, with this new set, and it was mind-blowing to play things like “Bury Me Alive” and “Kill the Chemicals,” which I never thought in a million years I’d ever be singing again, but the people like these songs, the people that love our band, Kiss the Sun Goodbye, was the album that defined who this band is for them, and so I’m happy to be going back out, wiping the rust off that record, and doing what they love.
After reviving Vampires Everywhere! in 2021, you’ve consistently been releasing new music every few months, including an album titled The Devil Made Me Do It that was released earlier this year. How do you and your bandmates keep a consistent flow of inspiration going?
Well, I bottle all my feelings up, and I usually spew them onto my texts on my iPhone. So once I get a new track, I’m super excited to write to it, because I have a lot to say about how I’m feeling, but I never usually voice that in real life. So this is my way of expressing my feelings and getting my inner demons out, and being creative. Without the music, the lyrics, and my career in general, I don’t know. I might have been imploded a long time ago. I might have imploded myself. So I never lack inspiration. I don’t have writer’s block. There’s actually too much to say for me.
Given the namesake of your band being from the Lost Boys, was there a certain full circle moment that hit when you finally released a cover of “Cry Little Sister?” What “was the process like while writing and recording?
It was terrifying. I did not want to ruin this song. This particular song meant a lot to me. I saw it in theaters when I was 13, and it means a lot to me now. I’ve done a lot of covers, and I wanted to make sure this one was a bit different, maybe even elevated, if you will. And so I spent a lot of time in the studio. I sang this song over a hundred times, at least, just to make sure that it was right. And I got a lot of opinions on it before I even released it. So I think for me, this was a defining moment, at least in the fourth chapter of this band, to raise and elevate our band back into scene culture.
On a similar note of the same song, in 2024, your cover of “Cry Little Sister” was revamped, pun intended, by synth and guitar master Tim Skold. What was it like hearing the song for the first time after it was remixed?
Even with that one, I was kind of concerned to see what he would do with it. I had no idea which way he would go. He writes a lot of obscure synth lines and stuff like that, so I really didn’t know what he was going to do. But he took it, and he put a little bit of his touch on it, and it came out amazing. I think it has enough variation in it where people will know that he- that he touched it and had his eccentric input on it.
As a musician with a strong sense of visual and musical style, and a regular user of makeup, how did the collaboration with Cross Cosmetics come about?
She actually reached out to me. I think she was a fan of the band back then, or something like that. I can’t actually recall, but there was a lot of synergy from the beginning. She’s very artist-friendly, and she wanted to hear our ideas about what we wanted to create. And I think it was actually a brilliant move, her collaborating with artists is something, especially scene artists, or what we do, metal, was a genius move for makeup, because a lot of people just don’t do that. MAC was on the precipice of doing that. We were sponsored by MAC a long time ago, but that seemed to fizzle out, and it went more to the pop and hip-hop world. And she’s cornered the market on what we do, and thought that was actually really smart.
In the past you’ve spoken of moments of self-doubt and painful life changes, but now over 15 years later, Vampires Everywhere! is still here and going stronger than ever. What would you say to not only your younger self in moments where you may have doubted, but also people who didn’t support you?
I would say the 2009 me would just be dizzy. The 2012 me would just be a giant asshole about it. And I was. In 2012, I did not take lightly what the industry at that moment was doing to me, especially my team around me. As I progressed and kind of chilled out with- with age, I guess you could say, I’ve kind of come to- come to terms with the fact that not everyone’s gonna love what you do, and not everyone’s gonna be on level. And there’s a lot of sneaky people out there, and you just gotta stay consistent and keep going straight and keep putting out the best music you possibly can. You have to keep on the road, and you gotta keep in people’s faces. No matter how many people are there or how big or small it gets, it’s just something that you have to do. Consistency is key.
