What a difference a year makes. When Clash speaks to Mattie Vant, we manage to catch the frontman en route to rehearsals in preparation for his band VANT's session later that afternoon at Maida Vale. The following day, they'll embark on their biggest UK tour to date, but things were all so different just 12 months prior as Mattie found himself holed up in St Thomas' Hospital after sustaining a double leg fracture at the hands of his own teammate during a kickabout.
"I play in goal and one of my defenders thought it would be a great idea to karate chop my leg in half. I ended up breaking the fibula and tibia. I was on crutches for most of the time we spent recording the album and it really only got better early this year."
If you were to look at VANT's story in a football context, their rise from unknowns to Parlophone signee's bears all the hallmarks of a proverbial Roy of the Rovers tale. Originally a solo project (hence the name), Mattie relocated from the North East to London where he met his would-be bandmates while working at Birthdays in Dalston. After knocking together some demos, they came to the attention of label bosses, who, unperturbed by their relative infancy, wasted no time in readying a deal. "When we signed with Parlophone, we hadn't released any songs and had virtually no online presence or any fanbase at all – they signed us on the strength of the material we had at the time."
Watching footage of VANT live, it's easy to see why Parlophone were quite happy to take a punt. The band cut a swagger that could've been perfected during the garage rock revival of the early 2000s, but play with an energy and looseness that you might expect to find in the pop punk scene; something along the lines of The Vines channelling Green Day's 'Dookie'. Beyond the melodic hooks and loud-quiet-loud dynamics, however, lies their biggest USP: the lyrics. So far, Mattie has tackled issues as varied as immigration ('Birth Certificate'), media transparency ('The Answer') and on their latest single, social boundaries ('Parking Lot').
"'Parking Lot' is about boundaries and how people don't respect each other enough. It's to do with the choices we make, particularly when young, and the way those choices can affect other people. I read it off the back this article about American universities which said one in five women are raped at University which was a statistic that blew my mind. I couldn't believe it was a real statistic and the more I thought about it the more I realised, that when you are young, men in particular don't realise when they cross the line. It takes on a male dominant role in the first two thirds of the song, then the last verse 'if you're not ready, I'm not ready, lets keep things steady, lets keep things cool' is a message that I think everyone should adhere to."
Rather than born out of angst or worse, grandstanding, when speaking to Mattie you're left with the impression that he considers his words with a careful, critical eye and a genuine compassion; or in other words, he knows his shit. It seems strange that VANT are one of the few UK acts that choose to deal with such topics given the current climate of cuts, austerity and the fact young bands are finding it harder and harder to live in London. "It's definitely a conscious effort to make sure we're using that platform to say something worthwhile. I think with a lot of writers, you can write great music and great melody, but I think you almost miss out on a trick if you don't use the lyrics to have some sort of message. There's a whole different dimension of the song that you miss out on if you just write down anything that comes into your head."
With such a broad and encompassing message, it's easy to imagine VANT's message resonating throughout the UK and beyond, but for the moment they're just happy to take things as they come. "I guess, we'll see how quickly things move with these next couple of singles, then we can decide if we want to release an EP just to expand it a little bit. It's all very up in the air. We believe in everything we're doing and there just has to be an element of patience to it."
WHAT: Sagacious garage punk with a groove
WHERE: London
GET 3 SONGS: 'Parasite', 'Parking Lot', 'Birth Certificate'
FACT: VANT's drummer used to be a taxi driver in Sweden before moving to the UK for the band
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Words: Graeme Campbell
