By Cathy A. Campagna

Formerly operating as Eiffel, Vaux from Denver, Colorado and Jersey have received the attention and adoration of the Warped Tour generation. The sextet consists of Quentin Smith, bassist Ryder Robinson, drummer Joe McChan and interestingly enough three guitarists Chris Sorensen, Greg Daniels and Adam Tymn, who believe it or not also all strike the ivories when they have a free hand. They craft their instrumentation into something that isn't really indie rock and isn't really metal but it definitely satisfies a craving for either.

Vaux initiated their journey six years ago with an EP on Volcom Records called On Life; Living. A fiery display of unpredictable anger shaking hands with organic ingenuity in composition. It was the equivalent to a violent abstract painting for all the senses. Their aching ambition was dramatically evident and has only grown since.

2003's full-length There Must Be Some Way To Stop Them ushered in a more technical approach and more racy melodies in Quentin's voice. That scouring demonstration, accented with flecks of delicate strokes, got them and their vehement live delivery complete with light towers onto the Warped Tour and noticed by Equal Vision Records.

From there it was off to stints with Head Automatica, The Used, and Thrice in support of their 2004 EP, Plague Music, a colossal victory in brute force counterbalanced by the crisp detail of RAWK. The major league of record labels, namely Atlantic now felt that they were ready to be picked. Before flying back to London to complete the vocal tracks on their forthcoming release, Vaux's Quentin spoke to Shoutweb regarding the band's raise through the ranks, his art appreciation background and, of course, what can be expected from the band's mid-2005 offering.

Shoutweb: You guys made a really big impact on the Warped Tour two years ago, it really seems like momentum has picked up for the band since then. What had it been like for you guys before that?

Quentin: We have been playing music together as a group for six years, but we have been a full-time band for about three. Prior to that, we were all in college and were playing a show once every month or two, but it has been a while, and it has been the same line-up the whole time. It's weird when I start thinking about how long it has been, but the pass couple of years have been a blur. It [Warped Tour] was one of those things where we would wake up in the morning and it would be like, "Oh, we are playing there today." Some days we would play the Volcom stage or the main stage, we went back and forth.

Shoutweb: You were on Volcom Records though at one point.

Quentin: For some reason we weren't always on that stage which was cool and some stages sounded better than others. It was interesting, some days it was 100 degrees and we were pushing our equipment across the field to get to some stage, and we had no idea where we were going to play. It was a little weird.

Shoutweb: It's almost a rarity for a band to keep its original line-up for six years. What has kept you guys together?

Quentin: I think we just got really lucky in that we got six who people who all have the same goals. A bunch of us had nine-to-five jobs and we saw what that was all about, and we definitely don't want to be going back to that anytime soon, and we genuinely love music, and even more important than that, we all get along really well. It was a totally a fluke occurrence. There probably aren't a lot of people that I could be in band with, living in a van for a year that is pretty tight quarters. Imagine riding around in a van with your parents [laughing.] It's good and it's gotten to the point where someone doesn't want to talk for a day, it's not a big deal. It's not like, "What's wrong?" That's the way it is, and we are all pretty open, it's like any other relationship expect there are six of us, we are like polygamist. It's crazy.

Shoutweb: You mentioned college, was that the initial breeding ground for Vaux?

Quentin: For the most part, half the band was in school with each other in Boulder, and the other half went to art school together. So yeah, we all kind of came together in college, and then once we finished school, we all kind of hit the road.

Shoutweb: Did you always envision the band sounding like this? The organ and piano, and it's overall craziness.

Quentin: No, when we started off we were all in bands before, but we weren't thinking we were going to do this all day long, every day of the year by any means. Everything developed in time. As far as the instrumentation goes, we like music and it is not just one kind of music that we like. We are probably going to mess around with it.

Shoutweb: How would you describe your lyrical approach? There is a lot of abstract license and you even get a little apocalyptic on the Plague Music EP.

Quentin: I think it definitely varies and a lot of it depends on the feel of the song, because we typically write the music first. Then I will come up with stuff that fits and then we change things around, it's kind of like a back and forth thing, but typically, you will hear a song and there will be a certain feel to it, like Plague Music was kind of tarring and ripping. That is where that one came from, it felt like a swarm of flies, I thought. Then a lot of times it will be like right before I go to bed, like that period when you are half awake, I will write a bunch of stuff down, and then next day you are like, "Oh, that's pretty cool." There is definitely one formula that I stick to all the time, some of it is more personal and definitely the stuff that is more personal is the more abstract stuff. I don't know. I have trouble expressing how I feel things bluntly, I am always dancing around that topic. It kind of runs the gamut. It's interesting when I got in the band, I didn't play music. Didn't play any instruments. I am from more of an art background; the things I am really comfortable doing are painting, graphic design, and stuff like that. I mean, I really enjoy singing, but if you had asked me ten years ago, "Do you think you are going to be a singer in a band?" I would have said hell no! It's really interesting and cool how things turn out.

Shoutweb: That is really interesting, because your voice is pretty distinctive.

Quentin: Thank you, and it's one of those things, and I got lucky. It's not like I had training.

Shoutweb: In a way, that might have helped.

Quentin: Yeah, I think so, yeah. I am excited it's more singing than anything is we have done before, because it's nice to feel like your throat is going to fall off all the time. I think I am getting there, it definitely gets to be more comfortable over time. It's something that I never would have expected to be...I have a theory, all the arts are basically that same, and if you don't think you are good at one of them, but if you have the mentality, you could probably figure a lot of the stuff out.

Shoutweb: An artist is an artist, no matter what the medium.

Quentin: Yeah, I think so. And obviously, practice makes perfect.

Shoutweb: It must have felt like a trail by fire for you then.

Quentin: Yeah, seriously. The thing with a lot of the bands when we started off, you know how emo isn't how it was when it started off seven years ago... bands like Mineral and Sunny Day [Real Estate], it's interesting to see how these bands...Like you say a lot of these Warped Tour bands are getting big now, and everyone is doing a band like Sunny Day that started like years ago, it's crazy.