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Love Bites is OUT NOW!

Grab your cassette or digital copy HERE!

6 brand new songs from Your’s Truly. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, we have a story of love that ends in tragedy, leaving a broken heart that lives on forever.

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What a journey this has been!

Back in September, after I released A Night In The Life Of…, I looked over the tracks I had brewing, and I noticed a pattern. I had a few very sweet sounding songs, and I thought to myself, “Maybe I can turn this into a themed album in time for Valentine’s Day.”

Generally, I don’t work with themes. I find it difficult to sit down and just write a sad song, or write a fast paced, dark song. Most of the time I wait until inspiration strikes and then run in whatever direction the music pulls me. So deciding on a themed album created a new challenge for me. I didn’t have enough sweet sounding songs for a full EP, so I’d have to sit down and intentionally write romantic, heartfelt, and sad songs.

Then November and December came around, and as it turns out, those months are pretty much useless, because no one can do anything around that time with all the holidays and travel, myself included. So any collaborations or mastering or artwork was going to be pushed back into January. That leaves VERY little time to pull everything off. So I pretty much just gave up on the idea of making the Valentine’s Day release.

But, as I’ve said before, the upside of giving up is that it takes off a lot of pressure. So with that off my back, I just started to work as best I could on what I had. Lo and behold, things just kept falling into place, and I had this whole thing ready nearly a month before release. It boggles the mind.

Over the next week or so I’m going to walk through the EP, track by track, and give you the background on each. Hopefully you’ll find that entertaining.

I hope you enjoy Love Bites. It was a ton of fun to make, and I’m really proud of it. I hope you get even HALF the joy out of it that I did making it.

Keep being awesome,
Vlad, your Vampire Step-Dad

P.S. – If you’re not excited about the idea of buying through my website, I understand. You can find the album on my Bandcamp page. When you buy from my site, I keep an extra 15% of your support, which gives me the ability to do things like cassette tapes, live shows, and other things I have brewing for the future. But I understand that you may prefer Bandcamp, because it is an excellent service, and so I make it available there.

Oh boy. What a day it’s been.

You likely already know how big a part of Carpenter Brut is for VSD, unless you missed the intro emails for the mailing list. Short story: Carpenter Brut is why Vampire Step-Dad exists. He’s how I found the genre, and so without him, no VSD.

So I was already excited to get to SEE him play in Atlanta. I bought my ticket as soon as they were posted. I even made some business cards to leave around the venue for people to find. But then something put a fire under my ass last week, and I decided to try to PLAY the show.

I emailed the promoters last Thursday and explained who I was, and gave them a sample of my music. No response. I tweeted at them. Nothing. Facebook message…doesn’t look like they even saw it.

Unfazed, I kept practicing and doing what I needed to prepare for the show.

On Monday, I decided to message them again, and continue every two days until they responded. Well, looks like second time’s the charm, because yesterday they emailed me back confirming I was on the show. 

Holy crap, you guys. I’m opening for Carpenter Brut. What crazy-ass timeline are we on right now? Check the spelling on your Berenstain Bears books…

So, now I’m scrambling to get everything together. I’m going to be bringing a drummer with me, and I’ll be playing both keyboard and guitar during the show. So, needless to say, there’s a lot of prep to be done.

But that’s not why I’m writing this email. I was talking to someone about this, and they asked what convinced me to try to play the show, and when I thought about it, I realized something.

It was totally because of YOU. 

I mentioned before in the Failure Heart story how your support is what convinced me to try things like making props and other things a step above just making music. Well, it’s now gone quite a bit further.

I can’t begin to tell you the confidence you’ve given me. All artists deal with a nagging sense that they’re frauds, and the other shoe is going to drop any moment, but every time that thought process starts creeping in, I just think about you guys. I look at the photos of where you’ve put VSD stickers, some of you wearing a VSD t-shirt, and it’s like “Who cares if I’m wrong, they think I’m right, so let’s try it.”

This show may be an utter failure. My computer night crash, I might forget my parts, who knows. But if it’s going to go down in flames, by golly I’m going to bring my flamethrower and make it a glorious failure. And that’s because of YOU. Your support is so uplifting and wonderful. I wish I was a better writer so I could come somewhere near describing it.

Anyway, I’ll shut up. But really, THANK YOU.

Hugs and Kisses,
Vlad, your Vampire Step-Dad

PS: In light of all this, there may not be a VSD Spotlight tomorrow. Sorry…SO MUCH TO DO.

Hmm…not sure about that subject line.

I noticed my subjects were getting kind of click-baity, and I wanted to avoid that. But I think I went too far the other way. What do you think? Well, I guess if you’re reading this it either wasn’t too far, or you’re just a rebel that likes to live dangerously.

Either way, I like you.

Oh man, what a week! So I launched the Loves Bites preorder early Monday morning, and I woke up to the nightmare scenario where everyone was paying double shipping costs, because I’d set up my store incorrectly.

You starting to notice how these stories are generally about much I screw things up? Maybe I need to stop showing my hand…Oh well, too late now.

SO, I messed up my store, and people were paying twice the shipping cost. FIRST, uh, THANK YOU for being so generous as to ignore exorbitant shipping costs in order to get your hands on a VSD Cassette. You guys are awesome (You will be refunded). I made some changes to drop the prices back down, and everything was cool until I started doing some shipping estimates on usps.com and I realized I was now charging too LITTLE. Sigh. Anyway, I’ve got it figured out at this point (I think), but boy was that stressful.

I’m still waiting to get the cassettes, but the second I do, I’ll be getting some photos taken of them, cause they are going to look SO COOL. I don’t know how I’m going to top it…I make have peaked too soon. You guys should probably just give up on me now.

Along with the cassette I want to get some photos of the Sweater Koozies. Those things are going to be neat-o.

Monday I’m going to launch a little promo video that I shot yesterday. It’s just a little playthrough of a solo from Love Bites, but of course it’s got that special VSD flair you’ve come to know and love. Here’s a little behind the scenes look:

I took thrift store IKEA lamp and covered it in tin foil to make it more like a spotlight, and then I stuff it with green tissue paper to act as a sort of color gel. I wanted blue, but green is all I had, so green it was. Add in some moody candles, and we’ve got ourselves a seance! I mean, a playthrough video! Keep your eyes out for that one!

And yes, that is a Skylanders poster. I share my “studio” with my sons’ playroom. Such is the life.

…

While I was in the shower this morning (TMI?) I had the stupid idea to try and get myself on the Carpenter Brut show that’s coming through Atlanta on March 15th. This is especially stupid because I’ve not ever played any of my music live yet. But hey, why not make my very first show be probably the largest show I’ll ever play?

I noticed a couple scene buddies (Night Stalker and Electric Dragon) had been asked to play when CB came through THEIR town, and as far as I know I’m the only synthwave artists in Atlanta (crazy to think, but Bandcamp tells me so) so why not give it a go?

Now, my history is in metal and punk, so I don’t take playing a show lightly. I consider the stage a kind of sacred place, and if there’s people standing in front of you, they deserve to see you put it all out up there. So, knowing this, I can’t just put a laptop on stage and do my dad dancing behind it, so I’m enlisting a rummer friend of mine to play drums, and I will double duty on keyboards and guitar. It’s going to be quite an adventure. That is, if they even let me do it. We’ll see! (Fingers crossed)

So we’ve got just 14 days until Love Bites comes out! I’m super excited to get this stuff out into your ears. If you’re interested in a cassette, you may want to grab one soon, cause they are limited to just 40. Sweaters quadrupally so. (Only 10 of those)

There’s a lot going on in VSD land! I’m excited! Are you excited? I hope so!

Tell me kiddo, with Love Bites coming out on February 10th, how do you plan on spending your Valentines Weekend rocking out? Let me know!

Keep being awesome,
Vlad, your Vampire Step-Dad

Vampire Step-Dad Update:
Alright! It’s preorder time!
Go! Run! Now!
https://vampirestepdad.com/lovebites

 

That’s right, Love Bites, the new EP from yours truly is now available for pre-order on my website. For the first time ever I’m selling PHYSICAL MERCH. You can grab a awesome looking cassette, and if you’re so inclined, and warm little sweater to keep the case cozy while you’re listening to the cassette.

Not wanting to preorder before you know what you’re getting? Perfectly understandable. I’ve got a little preview here, and there will be more to come in the following weeks.

 

Enough of all that business, here’s some new music for you to start your weekend with!