Pierce The Veil On Their New Album Jaws Of Life, Performing At When We Were Young, And Vic’s Living The Dream Foundation

The group chats about their involvement in charitable causes and their recent album after crushing their set at the When We Were Young Festival.

If you’ve been to a Pierce The Veil show, you know that the band puts on a great performance where there are plenty of songs to mosh to and everyone has an awesome time. Their set at the When We Were Young Festival in Las Vegas was no different, playing hits such as “King For A Day” and “Caraphernelia” alongside newer tracks such as “Pass The Nirvana” and “Emergency Contact.” After they took the stage, the band was animated, starting the interview by asking each other about their deepest, darkest fears and jumping right into conversation. Jovial and fun, the band was excited to hang out with Substream after their performance at the festival and talk about the importance of giving back, as having a heart is everything to the band.

Formed in 2006 by brothers Vic Fuentes and Mike Fuentes in San Diego, California, the post-hardcore band injects emotional lyrics and highly potent energy into their music, making it stand out with its fuzzy guitars and massive melodic hooks. Having released five studio albums since the release of their debut record A Flair For The Dramatic in 2007, the band’s third album Collide with the Sky features the hit single “King For A Day” and marks their first release with Fearless Records. Subsequent album Misadventures was released in 2016 and a hiatus followed, with the band reuniting in 2019. In 2023, the group released their latest effort Jaws Of Life. Acting as a commentary on how “life can sink its teeth into you”, the record gives listeners something to hope for in a world full of negativity and existential dread.

Unpredictable, full of heart, and always engaging, Pierce The Veil continues to usher new generations of fans into the world of rock, becoming iconic in their genre — debuting atop Billboard’s Top Rock Albums, Alternative Albums, and Hard Rock Albums charts twice with Collide With the Sky [2012] and Misadventures [2016] along with two gold singles and a gold album.
The band sat down with Substream to discuss performing at the festival, their new album Jaws of Life, and Vic’s involvement with the Living the Dream Foundation.

Jaws of Life has been received so well, especially the single Pass The Nirvana. What was it like making that song?

“That song is very strange. We were trying to write a Nirvana-like riff for the song. There’s always a catalyst or a start, but it always takes you somewhere else. We ended up making this weird song that was difficult to record and find the right vibe for. But it came out cool. For the video, it was the first one we did in a long time. We were like ‘Let’s not perform in it, let’s just loosely act in it’ (laughs) The whole concept for that video was inspired by a 15-second Tik-Tok video where these kids who look so rad, with mohawks and stuff, were in this tiny car together and their speaker was just blown out. They were driving somewhere and they were jamming in the car together. That’s how it started. We wanted to touch on that outside, not cool vibe. Making people feel seen and accepted is a part of it.”

You’re here at the When We Were Young Festival for a second time. How does it feel to be at the event?

“It feels incredible to be here again. It’s so cool to feel the energy of all these people. This genre of music is so important to them and we all share this love for this world. We feel at home here. It’s very safe and very cool. We had to cancel one show last year because of the wind, so it’s nice that it finally went off without a hitch.”

Living the Dream is such an amazing foundation. How did you get involved?

” Thank you so much for mentioning it! I joined it four years ago now and it’s a non-profit that we love. As a band, we were very supportive of them. They asked me to pass the torch and take it over. I know nothing about non-profits so there was a lot of learning. At the end of the day, it’s putting our guests who are going through terminal illness, really having a rough ride, and bringing them out to a show, making a connection with their favorite bands, and getting to be face-to-face with their heroes. We’re doing a couple [of them] here at When We Were Young this weekend. We have a couple of guests out here and it’s going to be amazing.”