As a little boy, Vext was fascinated by one paleontologist, Bob Bakker, whose red beard and excitement about dinosaurs also rubbed off on Vext. And for me, because I was so low, I needed someone who needed me to live for, because I couldnt live for myself anymore. Bad Wolves will release debut album Disobey via Eleven Seven Music on May 11. My girlfriend I was living with relapsed and started drinking and kicked me out of her apartment. They didnt work well for me. "But I look back at that and it might have been the most humbling quote-unquote worst job ever. And in 2010 he broke into my apartment, and I came home to a home invasion. Youre 30 years old and your life is in shambles. And he was like, Oh its like that? And I said, Yeah you cant do this anymore.. He destroyed my family, my father. | And we both took separate directions in life. The musician told Kerrang that it seemed like a great job to him to be traveling to different places digging up holes. I was kind of insecure as to whether it was good enough to be on the record and released for others to hear, and when she responded that she wanted to sing on it we all felt really honoured. And for whatever reasonI dont know whyI picked up the phone. I dont even know why, but he was cool he had a red beard and kind of looked like a dirty hippy, but he was just super-amped about dinosaurs. French heavy metal outfit Sortilge have unveiled their latest single, Derrire les Portes de Babylone. The track is taken from the groups upcoming album, Apocalypso, out March 3rd via Season of Mist. Tommy:Were lifers. And I didnt understand why, Vext explained. Its flattering to me. Traditionally, throughout the course of rock and metal, when addiction or alcoholism become an issue that befalls an artist theres this pressure from everyone around them to keep pushing them on stage and trying to muscle through it. FREE TOMMY! Killswitch Engage had a black singer, and they were at the pinnacles of their careers at the top of the charts. Has writing a song about it been a cathartic experience for you? And we went outside and I said I dont do this anymore. Im walking around again, I actually just went to see All That Remains with Born of Osiris last night. Or that time his brother murdered him in 2010. He began his career as a sober companionan individual who stays with people in recovery as they struggle with their addiction. I felt like I had broken the rule. I fell and turned around and was struck again with a crowbar. So if anyone literally asked me anythingI would walk peoples dogs, watch their house, help people move, clean carsI just said I would do anything. I took off to a neighbors house and called 911. Some of them are normal for normal people. More, Vexts perspective, his purpose in life had been taken away. I think thats an upside to social media, in that we have a direct line to see and hear what people are thinking, and weve watched the numbers for Learn To Live - which is a metal song - and The Ghost - which is a progressive metal song - skyrocket unexpectedly. That at the end, when the end comes again for real, I will not have accomplished the things I wanted to accomplish. Psychology Today 2023 Sussex Publishers, LLC. Doing one-on-one and group therapy and kind of dealing with PTSD from that situation I think I kinda reopened some childhood traumas too, which I worked through. WebTommy Vext Metal Singer Birthday April 15, 1982 Birth Sign Aries Birthplace United States Age 40 years old #52867 Most Popular Boost About Lead vocalist for the bands Bad Wolves, Snot, Divine Heresy and Westfield Massacre who has also filled in for the multi-platinum selling heavy metal band Five Finger Death Punch. It taught me a lot about what not to do, and what kind of people and personalities I dont mix with. People reach out to me like: "Dude, the guitar solo!" I put my arm up, he broke my forearmmy bone pushed through my skinthere was blood everywhere. We were driving the family car and he took a phone and reached over and bashed my dads head in while he was driving the car.. We didnt know if wed get signed. People wanna label things, but I think metals just a music of the people, and theres lots of people. During the time he had been estranged from his brother only to find that his brothers violent behavior had become more common and dangerous. And he struck me with a crowbar, fractured my skull, broke my arm, and beat me up until my spleen burst. He began working at a nightclub and continued AA meetings. And some of them are small. I stepped in for a band, and Im mixed race. Because Ive been on my own for a very long time, and even my band members, its taken two years of being in a band with these guys to trust that they werent going to quit. Anger often enables, protects against, or is symptomatic of something else. Its like, Thats true, thats true, thats true! Ive heard weird rumours about other rock stars, but Im not really a rock star., Whats your biggest fear?Probably dying an unfulfilled life. In 2010, Vext recounted his near-death experience saying that he did not see any of his family members who had died. How even in tragedy we can unite and make something positive happen. Not too long ago, Bring Me the Horizon were just a bunch of lads from Sheffield scraping together a living playing deathcore at the citys metal clubs. Dolores ORiordan, the singer of the Cranberries, had died recently, and Bad Wolves decided to donate the money they received from covering Zombie to ORiordans children. My friend Miaher dad is Steven Tyler from Aerosmith. You just keep going. Id previously been in two or three other bands, and one famously derailed, and being with the guys in Snot really changed my perspective on what a professional band could be, because theyre a family. He opens up about everything from his twin brother to former bands, past relationships, and his sobriety. So its the relinquishment of expectations that reinforces the drive to do it the way that you want it to. Learn how your comment data is processed. He was like, Hey is this Tommy? And I was like, YeahIm really busy right now. in 2019. Did you ever feel like quitting? The song was first released on Bad Wolves' debut studio album Disobey in May 2018. The band released their 2018 album Disobey, which includes the single Zombie, a Cranberries cover that immediately shot up to #1 on Billboards Mainstream Rock Songs chart. Because my attacker had not been apprehended I was staying with a friend in Manhattan during the first few days of my recovery. I went into emergency surgery at Cornell Hospital where my spleen was removed and I received a blood transfusion. Have people drawn in by that song been getting turned on by your heavier stuff, who might not have gone that way previously?Thats what weve been seeing a lot of. And so she would be acting frantic and panicking, and then he would be like, I dont know whats wrong with mom. And then wed come over and shed be like hysterical and hed blame it on my mother. It is interesting to note that he has been a member of multiple bands over the course of his career. And Ill throw a bottle in someones face and then all of a sudden its like chaos. When I grew up every metal show I went to, it was predominantly white dudes in the audience and onstage. At home, his father had become an alcoholic; on the streets, his friends parents were drug addicts. Your cover of the Cranberries' "Zombie" has been one of the biggest hits of the year. So I got hired to go on tour with Mayhem Festival and I went on tour with this guy. [Testifying against him] was definitely one of the more difficult moments of my life. Vext was convinced he would leave his problems in New York, but realized that he took the violence with him, including an incident in which he attacked Divine Heresy guitarist Dino Cazares. Me and Tim [Yeung, drummer] are still really good friends, he played the drums on the debut Westfield Massacre record that I did too. It was their third single off of their debut album Disobey. This song is really like an open letter to him. The adoptive parents had been on a waitlist for two years, so when the hospital asked if they could take both boys, they gladly accepted. I was in a place where all of those regulations and rules of survival were no longer necessary and didnt applythey were a hindranceWhere Im from in the time I grew up, if somebody is at a bar and looking at you too long, it means somethings going to happenlike someones going to get stabbed or theres going to be a fight or someone might have a gun or whatever. Vext has since been replaced by Daniel DL Laskiewicz (ex-The Acacia Strain). But its also been in bed with someone I'm in love with, theres been being a 16 year-old kid and getting a puppy or going to see Pantera for the first time. I actually have started working in recovery and working as a solo coach and helping other people to get sober and deal with their issues since then. What have you been up to musically? And that was the beginning of a very long journey of recovery.. June 17, 2018. My mother worked at a jewelry store at a mall. In my perception of reality, my brother destroyed my whole life. Social isolation in the time of social media connection. "I had this near-death experience in 2010 where I was almost killed and I had a white light experience. You put your stamp on the song, to be sure, but how much do you change a classic song like that? It was a very traumatic situation. The success of the song is of course bittersweet, given that The Cranberries late vocalist Dolores ORiordan was supposed to lend her own voice to it the morning she was found dead. And I looked at my phone and I didnt recognize the number. [6] Specifically, the song was inspired by the fact that his brother attempted to murder Vext. One way of challenging the stigma of mental illness is when prominent artists share their struggles with mental health. And she got pregnant and she wound up losing the baby a little after six months pregnant. I liked the common themes that they all had, but Im also a big fan of the natural law and science. And a couple days later when he called me and said, she thinks the track is killer, she loves the song, she wants to sing on it, and we were like, wait, what? Its temporary, its going to pass, Vext described. We were recording at Jupiter4 studios in NYC demoing and had about 3-4 songs ready for vocals and then this happened. I got invited to go on tour with this band In This Moment. Ex- Bad Wolves frontman Tommy Vext (aka Thomas P. Cummings) has been hit with a lawsuit filed by the camp at his former label Better Noise Music. Just as bold as their music is the life of frontman Tommy Vext. I had an experience like that, but my experience included contact with people that Ive known for thousands of years that was the one slight difference. After Strait died, Mikey Doling and Sonny Mayo asked Vext to audition; he was honored to get a chance to join one of the heavy metal bands that had inspired him. His brother was high, and Vext testified against him, which led to the brother being convicted for attempted murder. Whatever lands in the world of music is something I'm likely interested in. And we were just two shot people. And he did it again to me. Or Westfield Massacre. He taught me everything I know about relapse prevention. Detaching from others to feel superior can ultimately lead narcissists to personal failure and social rejection. Everything had gone so wrong in my life that I wasnt meant to be alive anymore. Although all of us come from different bands and some of us come from legacy metal bands - we kind of just came onto the scene and were so widely accepted, especially in the rock genre, which is something we hadnt been exposed to before. He heard what happened and she drove down and picked me up and took me to his house in Massachusetts. It topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart for two weeks in 2019. So to me, its such a more direct sense of reality and emotion, and thats really what makes songs universal in a way. Hear Bad Wolves cover Linkin Park's single Crawling, honouring Chester Bennington on the third anniversary of his death. I dont want to have a fucking pity party you know, were gonna make this fun. Ive been in hundreds of fights, probably. We really opened ourselves up not just from a creative standpoint but also a subject matter standpoint, to talk about topics that are really important to us. Would you like to hear? he said. But Ross from Friends got Rachel for a while, so anything can happen!. The band has an upcoming album named, Dear Monsters, Or Divine Heresy. Can we expect to see Bad Wolves in the UK for some live dates soon? And I think that I found a job that, by being of service to other peoples families, if I was able to help them heal, it helped me heal a little bit every single time I could help somebody else because ultimately, I could never save him. I told the judgenothing in the judges power will ever make my family safe because hes not capable of giving this person the death penaltyAnd he tried to attack me in the courtroom, and he was subdued by the police officers.. He tried to smash my face in. Obviously the sessions were suspended indefinitely and having these current financial burdens I was not sure when we would get back in the studio. Vext had hoped this would bring him reliefbut he was wrong. Thats just how it was, he recalled. And then he would act completely sane. I dont want to live in this world anymore.. There was a lot of anticipation because I was really excited, and I had no idea what would happen. And then out of nowhere, something occurred that saved Vext. Given the tragic circumstances of Dolores' passing right before contributing vocals to Zombie, has having the song out there and touching so many people helped you to deal with that loss? I mean, people know that Im friends with Josh Brolin. CREDIT: Ethan Miller/Getty Images Bad Wolves and their former frontman Tommy Vext have settled their lawsuits. I think I started flatliningI woke up in the ICU unit. His father especially would excuse the behavior even when Vexts brother hurt everyone else around him. My mother called and said Hes having a bad day which was family code for your brothers losing his mind. She said dont let him into the house if he comes to the houseMy family had hidden from me the extent of what hed become, so I was like Yeah whatever. My mother was staying with her boyfriend that night. Despite being abandoned by his birth mother, Vext described a very happy childhood with his adoptive family, which consisted of his adoptive parents, he and his twin They told me I couldnt work because I cant register my social security number. I dont know what any of these people are talking about. John (Boecklin, ex-Devildriver drummer) founded the band and started working on it about three years ago, and I came in after he had written about 10 or 13 songs. The incident did not end there, as Vext assumed that his brother would try to steal from their sister, who lived in a nearby apartment. Vext reported that his brother wanted him to help him commit a murder. I expected I was going to feel this certain waybut I felt guilty. The best way to describe it is very George Lucas-like how they explain the midichlorians in the Force, like lifting things up and moving things around. And I would take pills to wake upand I would go onstage, play the show and I couldnt calm down, he described. ", Two broken homeless people figuring it out.. Theres a song on the record about my twin brother whos currently serving 17 years for attempted murder, who tried to kill me during a home invasion when he was high in 2010. And everything changed. Specifically, he feels that while his brother destroyed his family, he could at least protect them by helping put his brother in prison. Disturbed will honor two decades of The Sickness with a massive North America tour. Tommy: Shes the master, I am the student. These girls are naked! and Im just like Oh my God., Why should people listen to N.A.T.I.O.N. I remember when my brother hit my mom when I was about 14. And no matter how far away I moved he still got me, Vext lamented. He beat up the musician so bad that he fractured his skull, burst his spleen, and broke his arm. He taught me everything I know abouthow to deal with people with large egos, how to deal with artists. Vocalist/guitarist Matthew K. Heafy comments: In the early days of Trivium, back when we were discovering the many [], Sortilge share new song Derrire les Portes de Babylone, Firstborne drop Intercontinental Champions video, Tarjas Outlanders drop new single We Own This Sky featuring Ron Bumblefoot Thal, Trivium cover Heaven Shall Burns Implore The Darken Sky. We dont have anything set up yet. Bad Wolves confirm that they have split from vocalist Tommy Vext. Then about 10 years ago, at the start of my recovery from drugs and alcohol, I started to develop spiritual practices like meditation and prayer, and I studied several different religions. Believe me, were doing our best to get to the UK and Europe as soon as possible. And he was in this punk-metal band in the city. We spoke to them about that song, and well as the devasting "Remember When," the media narrative about rock music in 2018, and the importance of representation in metal. And he brought me to a meeting and I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous, Vext said. ", It was toughbeing an adult male and having my friends buy me a sandwich every day.. And I got on the train, and I met him and took him to a meeting. Siblings and new partners may feel jealous or threatened by each other. The songwriting process was a step towards healing, and even when recording, he could not help but shed tears. So its about having a more inclusive view of the whole thing. While adult child-parent estrangement isnt uncommon, it remains a cultural taboo and can bring harsh judgment. You'll catch me mostly writing articles about the artists and bands I love. Does it help you stay more grounded? And so the band thing is whats happening now, but I could see in the future expanding on this thing and creating something where people can go and utilize these resources that we offer on a smaller scale. 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