Florida’s Magnolia Park are breaking down the door to the next level with their latest album, Vamp . This 11 song thriller sees the band go in a heavier direction than ever before, leading to leveled up live shows, catchier hooks, and chugging breakdowns. Vamp also sees the band flex other creative muscles by introducing a wider cinematic universe, with the album centering around the character Ophelia, the leader of a team of freshly turned vampires (hence the album name) against the Shadow Cult in order to save the cyberpunk/Victorian city of Nocturne Nexus. The band have gone as far as to create a hubworld for the overall story of their album, which you can check out here ! Astute viewers and listeners will have been able to immediately pick up on the heavy inspiration from the classic title Vampire Hunter D . With inspiration so clearly on display, I absolutely had to talk to guitarists Tristan Torres and Freddie Criales and vocalist Josh Roberts about writing while watching Vampire Hunter D , being inspired by Soul Eater since the band’s inception, and the unique challenges of making a concept album. Can you briefly introduce yourselves? Tristan : I'm Tristan. I play guitar and produce. Josh : I'm Josh, and I sing. Freddie : I'm Freddie, I play guitar. Congratulations on the release of your newest album, Vamp ! How are you feeling with this new album finally out in the world? Josh : Excited! We're definitely anxious about it, too. We want to know what people think now that it’s out. The singles have been blown up which has been awesome to see. I'm really excited to talk to you all about the story today, not least because it’s heavily anime inspired, but also because it’s really interesting and a new approach for you as a band. Could you give the readers a little intro into what it’s all about, story wise and musically? Tristan : This is like our first step in a bigger overall picture. We viewed this album as the start. You can think of it like the first Star Wars movie, which is actually Episode 4 in the larger narrative. So where Vamp kind of starts, is a “chapter” to us. So it starts with our main character, Aurora, finding a way to battle against the Shadow Cult. She has to bring together friends along the way, so in that sense it’s a bit of a typical action, adventure, story. She has to find a way to be strong enough to defeat them, and she and her group find a way through these ancient texts, and they find out they must become vampires to overcome this evil. After a long journey, a painful transformation, and coming to terms with their new reality, they're heading to the city of Nocturne Nexus to go fight the Shadow Cult. But they're stopped along the way, and that's where our story, the first chapter, ends . So you're really thinking, long term big picture here, with this album really just being the start of a storytelling universe. Josh : Yeah. RELATED: Spite's Ben Bamford on How He Fell Hard For Anime Did the decision to begin making concept albums directly tie into the decision to lean more heavily into your heavier side of their music? Or was it more of an element of the timing lining up? Josh : We've always been creating stories with our albums and our whole lore of being a band. With this particular story that we're creating now, we wanted something to be very concrete, very communal, just because of us trying a whole new genre. At this point in our career, we wanted to just have our fans come on the ride with us. And what better way to do that than adding a story and and the lore to the mix that people can really sit down and read and follow along as we get on the journey together. The Vampire Hunter D of it all, was that something that's always been a favorite of yours, or does it serve as a specific inspiration at this point in your career? How does it all weave together? Josh : So first of all, early on we were writing songs off of watching like Soul Eater . The earlier days, it was all Soul Eater that I think that's actually how the characters developed. But I'm pretty sure like Vampire Hunter D , that's where Tristan came in and was like “this anime is sick.” Tristan : Yeah, I watched the original and Bloodlust in full right before we started writing. I thought the aesthetics and the animation style were so cool. And then, when we were writing I remember, Josh and Freddie came over to start the formal writing process of whatever was next, and I was like I found this cool anime we should check it out. We watched a little bit of it, and wrote and it was all like colliding and led to us creating this different world, and being inspired by that anime so much. Vampire Hunter D has the most gorgeous cityscapes, and the characters are so Victorian, but also cyberpunk. It’s very cool. You can see that in the artwork that you've made for your own story! Your characters have a futuristic, but also post-apocalyptic wasteland style to them, while also still being somewhat formal. It works so well for the type of music that you've made for the album. Tristan : Thank you. Yeah. Shout out to Jessica Griffith. She did a lot of the character, design and development with us so we really appreciate her. It almost sounds like you were like live scoring an AMV. Was it a challenge at all to decide what goes more into a song itself, lyrically or thematically, versus what goes into the wider world of the story that you're building? Tristan : Oh, yeah. Josh : At first, we had a whole different set of songs. Tristan : It took a while for us to make the album. I think we did like over 30 songs, recorded and mixed and stuff, but one thing me, Josh and Freddie always say is the songs come first and then the universe, because the songs need to be fire and if they’re not, then who cares, you know? Like Gorillaz, they put out fire music and they have a sick universe. So I think that's always been our goal. I don’t know if I necessarily mean that you’re having more fun, but is it a different headspace or a different experience to kind of be scratching that heavier, riffier itch? Josh : It's definitely a good head scratcher for us, because in the earlier days, I didn't scream. Like way early in the day, I was just the singer. And then Tristan, was like, “Yo man like you know how to scream. You literally do it all the time live. Just start doing it.” And I forget what was the first song that we did that, it might have been “Hellstar.” I could be wrong. Tristan : Yeah, it was. Josh : After that, we started thinking in terms of, we're going to do a black metal scream here, we're going to do extra lows here. We're going to do every style. Once we all realized it was something we could do, we were like now let's go further. From there we just started saying let's add heavy here, let's add like a little bit of spice over there. And yeah, kind of like adding more to it. It really does make such perfect sense for a concept album, let alone one that's so inspired by a series like Vampire Hunter D . I appreciate that you were able to bring those two things together. As you tell me more about your anime fandom, it’s clear you've been training for this your whole lives. Josh : Yeah, for sure. I feel like Asta. RELATED: Ankor on Learning Music Through Anime Openings and Endings On that note I’d love to hear about each of your anime origin stories. Josh : Man! For me growing up, it was Dragon Ball Z , Yu Yu Hakusho , Bleach and Zatch Bell! . I didn't get into Naruto until middle school. But those four are my Mount Rushmore at this point, and then Soul Eater came in right after Naruto . Tristan : I definitely started with Toonami. I was on the younger side of the wave where it really hit, but I remember seeing Naruto on there for a couple of weeks, and then it just shut off, because I guess Toonami was done or something. But I remember being so interested. And then I went on the internet, and found, like Naruto bootlegs, and watched through that and bouncing back and forth between sub and dub and figuring out what the hell is going on. Josh : That was about the same time Prince of Tennis was out, Megas XLR was out, all those other things were going on. Freddie : I think I started with Pokémon . And then I got into Naruto on Toonami, because I had a couple of friends in elementary school where we would do Jutsu battles in the playground. But I mean, no one knew what that was. It was before anime got really popular so it was more strange to most people. Josh : Look, man, I always say Pokémon has better games but Digimon has better anime. Tristan : I love the first Pokémon season. The first two really. I’d put those above Digimon . Freddie : Digimon for me was just like Yu-Gi-Oh! with Pokémon , but not as good. Josh : Whoa hot take! Digimon was lit in a different world. I liked it. Pikachu versus Agumon. I want to see what we win. As you were narrowing in on your anime taste, were you also finding your way into heavy music? Josh : Yeah. When I started watching Naruto , that's when I discovered AMVs and was exposed to songs like “Last Resort.” Papa Roach, Naruto and Linkin Park’s “Numb” and Thousand Foot Krutch, and all these other great bands. So yeah, I think that they were tied hand in hand together, like the rock world and the anime world for me. Tristan : Yeah, the soundtracks they had too, specifically Naruto , had sick *ss openers.As you go through anime, you're like, oh, oh, all these like anime openings are so sick and you just like to listen to them outside of the show. When it comes to this music anime and music I mean, the music was always good. Freddie : I didn't really get into rock stuff honestly, until I was like a little older. I was 12, I think, when I heard Blink 182 for the first time. And then that's when I actually started caring about music. And watching things like Pokémon , Yu-Gi-Oh! and Naruto made me realize the same thing about television. With Blink 182 and Naruto , those are the two where you realize that it's more than just something that's on. It’s something you can get lost in. Freddie : The AMVs go hard, though. “In the End” over any show was perfect. I would watch those a lot. Josh : AMVs catapulted Linkin Park for me! Freddie : I was already into Linkin Park by that time, though, I was searching for it because I was just like I saw a Spongebob edit, and then that’s how I learned more about AMVs, just from the recommended videos. Josh : I think that's like Linkin Park and Papa Roach man. They have to have some sort of thanks to the anime community, because without those AMVs I don't think it would have reached as far as it did. They're great music. Some of my like favorite music has been from those two bands, but I think the anime community really boosted them like so hard. Linkin Park had anime vibes already. I think the remix album looked like the Gundam. Freddie : Yeah, “Reanimation.” Everyone has that one they’ll remember forever. Josh : Last resort, Naruto and Sasuke at the great Hokage. I’ll never forget it. Is that fully when you realized that these two forms of art are made for each other? Do you think it's something more that brings fans of like alternative music to anime? Josh : I think both in a weird way, because, like rock and anime do work so well together. You have the story of anime that I think it touches more on, like what rock music hopes it can say in that three or four minute span. That whole story can be fleshed out in anime so well. They just kind of go hand-in-hand so perfectly together. Tristan : I like to write songs with a visual in front of me. I can't really write anymore without seeing some art to inspire me. So I feel like the anime visuals and music go hand-in-hand. Something we lost in the digital age, looking back now, is holding an album and looking at the art and feeling it in your hands. That's a part of the music to me. It's all colliding into one. It’s coming back in a cool way now, which I really love. I see bands like Sleep Token where they have unique visual concepts for each album that bleeds into their live shows. You’ve got the musical portion of your band, and now the illustrated and story world element, but you've also got the real life aesthetic, like the music videos and the promo pictures. Did anime help guide that as well, since it’s a lot harder to make real people look like anime characters? Josh : Oh, yeah, for sure. I remember for one of our videos, we wanted to recreate a couple of scenes from the third Naruto opening, where everyone's running in and out. Anime plays such a big part. Even now, Vampire Hunter D is our big focal point. And then we make something so great off of that. And who knows what the next one could be? It could be something like Solo Leveling or something like that, where it's about overcoming everything, being at the bottom and working your way up to the literal top. Tristan : I do also remember, because we're talking about this, Akira , Vampire Hunter D , and that was like our moodboard, and then like looking at that, while coming up with instrumentals, and the overall vibe of everything we did for this album. So it just all plays into each other for sure. RELATED: Baths' Will Wiesenfeld: My Life and Music Would Be Nothing Without Boys' Love Art What would you all say is your favorite anime of all time? Tristan : I knew this question was coming too. Had to ask. Josh : I can't let nostalgia get me because I would instantly say Dragon Ball Z , because that was the first anime I ever watched, and I grew up on it. But I think my favorite anime… it doesn't have to be the whole anime. It could just be a couple seasons. Tokyo Ghoul Seasons 1 and 2 were peak. It was perfect, and then they introduced Rei, and I was like, “Everything is falling apart so bad!” All of that to say though, it’s Bleach . Bleach is good. Tristan : Bleach is my all time filler. Josh : It is so much filler, but like it was the highest grossing anime for a time for a reason. Tristan : My heart's telling me this is Fullmetal Alchemist . It's like it's very hard to beat. But you know what, I'm sorry. I'm going to say Hunter x Hunter . That's a fact. Nothing has a better story arc, or crazy detail, and will flip you on the head like in Hunter x Hunter . Freddie : It's gonna be a lame answer. But I just like Yu-Gi-Oh! It’s lit. The Kaiba comps where it's like the funniest Kaiba moment, and they have, like Joey with a Jersey accent like there's just things about that show that don't make a whole lot of sense. And I love it for that reason. Listen to Vamp here . Learn more about the full story of Vamp here . Follow Magnolia Park here . Catch Magnolia Park on their upcoming headlining tour here .
