by Maddy Howell
After 12 years, no one understands I Prevail better than Eric Vanlerberghe.
Since day one, the vocalist has steered the Michigan band’s mighty ship through the stormiest and smoothest of seas. Forging their own path and marking off bucket list items they never dreamed they could accomplish; the frontman and his bandmates have found a connection deeper than most. A brotherhood that sticks together through thick and thin, that’s the spirit that sits at the heart of the band’s latest album.
With the departure of co-vocalist Brian Burkheiser earlier this year, a new chapter has begun for I Prevail. Vanlerberghe taking over the mantle as the outfit’s sole vocalist, handling both clean and unclean duties, presented a whole new set of challenges that he faced with a simple manta - bring it on.
“When the split happened, we knew we needed to just knuckle down and work on a new record,” he recalls.
“It was important for us to show that we're still I Prevail. The people who are writing the music are still here, and we're still going to have the same sound as before.”
Verging from crushing breakdowns to glorious pop-flecked melodic segments, the album format has always been the way forward for I Prevail. A genre-spanning sound that’s impossible to contain within just one single, they began writing and demoing their next chapter at home in their practice space. Pushing every aspect of their identity to its extreme, embracing aggression and vulnerability in equal measure, their reintroduction comes in the form of Violent Nature, a spiraling beast of a record.
“Going into this, I knew I had a great group of guys supporting me. We wrote some melodies and some chord structures, and they said, ‘Right, just go in there and do what you do’,” Vanlerberghe recalls.
“To be able to go in there with such confidence is huge. To know that if it sounded flat, or if my voice broke, they’d just be like, ‘Don’t worry, we'll figure it out’. After a couple of takes, we’d be sitting with something extremely special.”
The first taste the world had of their new era, the album’s title track is perhaps the perfect example of that process. No pressure placed upon them and full trust given to every musician in their ranks; it was born from an idea kicked about roughly halfway through demoing. With a couple of songs already fleshed out, they had the green light to get a little silly with it, resulting in their most blisteringly heavy cut to date.
“We had free reign to go down the rabbit hole of heavy,” Vanlerberghe grins.
“With every record in the past, we've always pushed a little heavier, a little louder, or a little more extreme. We were playing around with this one, and when we wrapped it up, we knew it had to be the first single. The point was to keep people on their toes, and to get them excited about what the rest of the album may sound like. They have no idea what's coming next, and that's how we like it.”
Recorded across two stints at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, Violent Nature is I Prevail’s most definitive statement to date. Darting from brutal to mellow to downright heartbreaking with little to no warning, it’s the product of a band in their most motivated form, laser-focused on their vision.
Of course, it helps when you have someone like Jon Eberhard at your disposal too. Declared an official member of the five-piece this year, the bassist and keyboardist took on the role of producer this time around. No outside voices, and no external forces trying to sway their creativity, that decision led I Prevail to the freeing position they find themselves in today.
“Often, when you go and co-write with someone, they want the song to be the biggest thing in the world,” the vocalist explains.
“They want to write the biggest, catchiest hook, but that’s not always what works for I Prevail. I don't think we would ever have arrived at some of these songs if we were working with that idea in mind. Jon knows the DNA of the band, and right before we started working on this record he was touring with us and seeing firsthand what moments go over well at our shows. In the studio he was able to say, ‘This is going to go off live. Let's focus on this’. We thought about when we’d use pyro, when the crowd would scream lines into my mic, and when we’d get the wall of death going. We’ve never tapped into that too much before.”
If you’ve ever been to an I Prevail show, you’ll know how integral the live experience is to understanding the magnitude of this band. Putting on some of the finest performances in modern metal right now, taking on some of the biggest stages in the world, that energy rips right through Violent Nature. Taking everything they’ve learnt over the last decade and channelling it into songs filled with grit and grandeur, it’s a record that makes their future seem truly limitless.
“As a musician, you need to hone your craft,” Vanlerberghe nods.
“Having those big melodies and soaring choruses isn’t easy to do, so we worked on that first. Now though, we know that these songs are structurally sound. We can add in that extra spice. That also allows us to make the songs more authentic, and there are a few on here that are hard to listen back to. You can hear that I needed to get things off my chest, and listening back to those parts now… I'm so proud.”
There are plenty of words that can aptly describe what it means to be a part of the family I Prevail have cultivated, but catharsis is perhaps one of the most important. Channelling grief, rage and despair into songs that feel like a purge of emotion, thousands have found solace in their lyrics and an escape in their riffs. An extraordinary position to be in as an artist, the reality of the connections he and his bandmates have built is certainly not lost on Vanlerberghe.
“It's mind-blowing to see how many people have tattoos of our lyrics or have lines of ours that have helped them through tough times,” he says.
“I'm forever grateful to be in this position, because as a kid music helped me to get through so much. Now, I'm able to create music that does that for other people. It's truly a blessing.”
“If you're speaking from the heart, and you're writing something that means something to you, chances are it’ll mean something to someone else too. You might not be dealing with the same exact thing, but you're going through the same feelings. That's what art is supposed to be. As long as it moves you, that's all that matters.”
Looking back over everything he and his bandmates have accomplished; Vanlerberghe will be the first to admit that he never expected any of this. Bringing fans together from across the world, meeting up at shows and making friends, I Prevail has grown into something that stretches far beyond the five musicians responsible for Violent Nature.
Standing before a community of like-minded people screaming the words that he wrote back in his face night after night, that’s what Vanlerberghe lives for. And that is what metal is all about.
“I remember when we did our first EP, we ordered 1,000 CDs. I freaked out and was like, ‘I don't know 1,000 people, who the hell is going to listen to our band?!’,” he laughs.
“I grew up going to shows, and there were times when I went by myself because no one else wanted to go with me. I ended up making new friends at the bar because we were all there for the same reason. We were there to escape whatever bullshit was going on in the world, to enjoy ourselves, and to be in a room with people like us for a few hours.”
“That’s what it’s all about, and with this album we’ve found a new creative spark,” he continues.
“We always used to take time off and work on the records at home, but now we've got a studio setup to use on the road. We're so excited to write demos and get ideas flowing, and now we don’t have to wait until we’re off tour to do it. There’s been a big change in I Prevail, and we can’t ignore that, but we're still the same band. We’re still here, and we’re still writing songs that mean the world to us.”
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I Prevail are set to perform a special album release show with We Came As Romans, in addition to their scheduled appearances at Louder Than Life Festival and When We Were Young next month. See the list of live dates - HERE
Violent Nature, the new album from I Prevail arrives September 19th via Fearless Records. Get the album - HERE
