Postmortem Zine

Name: Adam Vass
Band: La Dispute
Important Links:
La Dispute
No sleep records









who is the biggest influence in your musical career?

For me personally, and this is sort of goofy because we are friends now, but Thursday is probably my biggest influence. I remember trying to learn their songs on bass as soon as I got one when I was like 13 (damn, has it really been that long?), and I probably would never have bothered learning how to play without them. They also were one of the bands that eased me through the transition from listening to the radio to finding music in other sources, getting into punk and hardcore and screamo and all these sub genres that mainstream society neglected.

what is your favorite part of playing shows?

My favorite part is just having fun and being involved in something collaboratively with other people. Getting together with like minded kids and just having fun, stage diving and singing along. Obviously I have some responsibility to also play my instrument, haha, but just having a good time with the kids in my band and the kids at the show is a very rewarding and cathartic experience.

do you any plan to be going on any tours besides your Austrillian?

Right now, we don't have a ton of plans. After our Australian tour, we have some time off to write and record the rest of the new full length. We're going to play SXSW in March, but I don't know yet if we plan to tour around it. In April, we're planning a headlining East Coast tour, but I don't know how much I can talk about it. We haven't been to that region in almost a year so we're really excited, and we'll be bringing some very good friends with us.

do you plan on releasing any new 7" or 12" within this new year?

Yes, we have a one-sided 12" split with Koji due out sometime soon. We recorded our songs last April and its just been a scheduling game trying to get it out, but I imagine it'll happen early spring ideally. We'll also be releasing our 2nd full length this summer, but I'll say autumn just to be safe. We recorded 6 songs for it so far but we plan to have it be pretty long and the rest of it is slowly coming together. The tracklist and album art are all pretty much in place, its just filling in the puzzle pieces now.

what was your inspiration to write Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair album?

Somewhere was the first thing we did after I joined the band so to me, it was trying to make something memorable, but not necessarily intending it to be our breakthrough record. My band before this was still burning cds in the basement and playing for 5 people on tour, so I had no idea what would come of this band and how far it'd take me. Hell, I'm writing this interview from Australia, and four years ago I never could've expected to be here. The interesting thing with our band is that everyone is so different and we all find inspiration in different places, but personally mine was just to held create something that meant something to someone.

what was your inspiration for writing the song Castle builders?

the record was getting kind of dark in the early stages and we wanted there to be some light at the end of the tunnel, so there are songs like this and last lost continent that are supposed to bring in some more hopeful themes to the record. what do we have to complain about, after all? life isn't so bad if you step back and realize whats really important, and that's what these songs were more about. i can't really say the same about the new record though, this time its pretty dark thematically but we're leaving out the hopeful parts.