News/Thoughts

Inspired By BB King

Around the age of 12 or 13, Vince Vangard got his first guitar, an acoustic. “I wasn’t allowed to start with electric, so I got an acoustic,” he remembers with a chuckle. “I had to learn a few songs, my dad’s particular requests, in order to earn the electric guitar…” His father was a blues fanatic, (who named his son after Eric Clapton—Vince’s birth name is Eric Plein), and took Vince to his first concert, BB King. “Blues music’s idea of the struggle of the spirit, and letting those feelings out always resonated with me,” Vince says. A musical uncle was also a big influence, with the family often getting out guitars for a singalong when together. As he grew up, Vince gravitated toward the punk end of the music spectrum, being involved with a number of different bands during high school and into college.

After accumulating a ton of gear over the years, he decided to try to do something with it. He ended up creating a rehearsal/live recording space and moving into live sound production. As happened in so many different ways, for so many creatives, the pandemic prompted a change in focus for Vince.

“It took me a long time to settle into my style in some ways…I just didn’t have the right outlet…” Vince says. “ I accumulated a lot of songs over the years…It wasn’t until the pandemic hit and things cooled down with my endeavors in the industry; and I got sober; and kind of had a chance to put everything together and actually follow through on songs I’d written, [that I could] get to the point where I could tackle bringing them into the world.”

Vince has made good on his artistic aspirations with the upcoming release (October 7) of his debut full-length album, Spirit Blues, a soulful folk and Americana album bursting with personal revelation, hard truths, and fine songcraft. The 10-song album is a pure distillation of where Vince was at when he wrote the songs. Conceptually, this is a courageously confessional storyteller album with a well-thought-out song sequence that speaks to a dark victory.

By Dan Walsh

To find out more, visit https://vincevanguard.bandcamp.com. Here full interview here.