"Vacant Moley is a one-man Atmospheric Slamming Hypergrind project by Ed Morris, of bands Dripping and Bloodtied. The project serves as a boundary-less musical outlet, open to ambiguity."
I was lucky enough to have Ed answer some questions! Enjoy the below interview, where we focus on his solo project, Vacant Moley, but touch on other things as-well!
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CEREBRAL REVIEWMENT:
Hello! Thanks for taking some time to answer some questions! Lets start with who Vacant Moley is? I understand you do all of the instruments? What can you tell us about yourself?
ED MORRIS (VACANT MOLEY, DRIPPING, BLOODTIED):
Hey, super honored to be on Cerebral Reviewment! Thank you so much. I'll begin with my name and background. My name is Ed Morris and I live in South Florida where I play guitar in my two other bands. 18 years old at the moment but 19 later this month.
Why the name "Vacant Moley"?
The name "Vacant Moley" came from my dog. Her name is Moley and she's all over the cover art
on the demo EP.
"Vacant" was just a random word that popped into my head. The two words together sounded weird and rolled off the tongue well, so I felt it suited the vision for the project.
Even while my vision for Vacant Moley shifted upon the making of the album, the name still does it justice.
The new full-length, The Programmed Obsolescence of Your Kind has a little bit of just about every kind of music! Is there a concept behind the album? What or who are some of the influences?
Do you need to get into a certain creative state to write music like this? How do you get there?
There is really no main concept for The Programmed Obsolescence of Your Kind. The intended themes touch upon a lot of different ideas and references, and there are plenty of
easter eggs throughout the album. The themes are scattered and unpredictable which is my exact vision for Vacant Moley as a whole. In the end, making music for this project all comes down to instinct in the moment. I don't have to think very hard. For that reason, when I listen back to the album it's very personal to me because it follows the patterns of my brain. And finally, I have to credit Dripping as a very large inspiration. When I joined Dripping I think I subconsciously calibrated my own "musical psychology" to fit the band's needs, if that makes any sense. Dripping's unique style has more than rubbed off on me in the 2 years I've been in the band, and elements of Dripping's influence can be found throughout the EP and the album.
So what instruments CAN'T you play?! When did you first get into music, and what is you "main" instrument?
At heart I'm a guitar player. It's been my instrument since I was seven. Even much earlier in my life I was extremely drawn to guitars. I have an easier time with bass because I learned guitar first. Bass is fun because it's super primal to me, at least in the contexts I use it for. But it is a different instrument so you have to treat it differently- with your velocity and dynamics, and how you choose to write with it. Other than guitar and bass, and arguably vocals, I'm useless haha. The drums are always one thousand percent MIDI. As for the other elements in Vacant Moley, such as the synths, samples, and ambience, they come from a wide range of sources. The synths were done in Garageband for Unencrypted Desires and the intro for Cranial Amputee. The samples were pulled mostly from open source sound libraries and video games. Ambience came from applying heavy effects to mp3 files of things like factory noise, rainfall, cheering crowds, and weird spacey stuff like audio recorded from black holes. Creating and placing ambience around the album was super tedious work.
What other bands or projects are you in?
Outside of Vacant Moley I do guitar and backing vocals for Dripping and Bloodtied. We're working on new material in both bands and we're super excited for people to hear what we have in store for 2025. With Bloodtied, we're just about to be wrapping up the writing stage of our debut album. All I can say is definitely keep an eye out for when it drops, the five of us created something very, very special together.
What are the pros and cons of being a one-man-band?
A couple things immediately come to mind regarding the pros of being a one-man-band. First of all you're on your own time. You can't show up late to your own DAW, so I think that's pretty neat. You're also in full control of your product, which is an enormous breath of fresh air when you're writing alongside multiple people in multiple bands. It's nice being the only cook in the kitchen. You can really hone in on your craft and perfectly capture all of your musical ambitions. However, both of those benefits have their inevitable, negative counterparts. Being on your own time opens a Pandora's box full of distractions. For instance, it's way too easy to go from trying to finish a song to fiddling with an EQ plugin. During the recording of the album I went through an infinite number of "final mixes" before the tracks were even halfway recorded. Being the only writer you can get stuck too. It's a little different with Vacant Moley because almost anything goes, but if you're trying to write an impactful, well structured song in any conventional genre of music, it's hard to do that without at least a second opinion. You also have to rely on your own validation, which sounds funny but it's something people overlook. When you're writing by yourself you can only guide yourself, and sometimes you'll end up scrapping something really cool because of ear fatigue.
So the demo artwork was heavily inspired by your dog, what about the full-length art, the purple with code, digital feel. and did you create the VM Logo?
The artwork was made by layering and distorting many different images together. Moley is hidden somewhere in there too. When you layer and distort images over and over again you reach a point where the art essentially creates itself. The binary code was a last minute idea because the art was screaming for it. The code doesn’t say or mean anything. My good friend Haley created the logo, she's an awesome artist.
Will Bloodtied be going on a tour to support that record when it comes out?
Nothing is set in stone yet but it's definitely a goal of ours to get out there following the album. We'll just have to see where the album takes us.
It really sounds like you MUST have a pretty diverse taste in music. What are some bands or music you are into that may surprise us?
Compared to others I don't consider myself to have the most diverse taste in music. I mostly stay within the realms of melodic death metal and brutal death metal, although I have it in me to appreciate almost all kinds of music. I just can't stand screamo or midwest emo. To name a few bands- Intestine Baalism, At The Gates, Sorrow Of Tranquility, Eternal Suffering, Cerebral Effusion, and Regurgitation. It may come as a surprise if I mention I really love bands like Children Of Bodom and Trivium in their earlier days.
Thanks so much Ed! Anything to say to your fans?
Thank you for having me on here! I also would like to thank all of those who have listened to Vacant Moley, and new material is already in the works.
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