Brought together from all over Texas, Vox Vocis is what happens when The Mars Volta meets Coheed and Cambria. The group has been together for the last four years, passionately chasing their dreams of stardom with hard work in the lively music community of Houston, where they have created undeniable, in-your-face progressive rock. With years of brotherhood behind them, Vox Vocis is set up for a release you can’t miss and a tour that you have to see.
Produced and recorded by Stephen Adwell of AMR Studios, and mastered by Mike Watts (Theory of a Deadman, The Dear Hunter, Story of the Year), the band’s first release, In The Arms of the Sun, was released January 22, 2016.
“The record is a culmination of things set in motion four years back. Besides containing a story we wrote as a band, it contains four years of struggle; the empty venues, the endless drives, and the times we thought we were done, but came back better for it. We want people to hear the tale we’ve put together, and through it hear the love we put into the album in the years that we wrote it,” explains drummer Zachary Burton.
Though the group has had a myriad of line-ups over the years, today they like to consider themselves a trio, with Alex Vaquera fronting the band, singing and playing guitar, Alejandro Nunez playing bass, and Zachary Burton drumming. Currently, the boys are out on a tour, a three week run up and down the West Coast. Vox Vocis has shared the stage with a number of heavy hitters including The Ongoing Concept, Hail the Sun, Stolas, Icarus the Owl, and Eidola.
Vox Vocis Tour Diary #2
It’s currently 1 a.m, and we’re driving out of Sonora, California where just an hour ago we finished a set to one of the most lively crowds we’ve had all tour. We’re heading to LA in the third night drive of the tour, but we’ll get back to that later.
Eugene – The Wandering Goat
This show was a lot of different things for us; our first time in Oregon, our first show in Oregon, our most flexible promoter (double booked the night, but moved things around so events happened,) and a reunion. Our former guitarist left for Portland, Oregon to join a math-pop band called Icarus the Owl last spring, and when we confirmed the dates in Oregon, him playing those dates was met with universal agreement.
We met Tim earlier before the show and had Sizzle Pie, an artsy pizza joint. After the free pizza in El Paso, and ordering pizza in Tempe, we had began rating pizza parlors and found Sizzle Pie the best. At the venue, Tim walked us through the vocal warm-ups that Icarus the Owl practices before every show and the techniques showed in our performance. More than anything, this date was sentimental.
Portland – Ash Street Saloon
We drove to Tim’s home outside of the liberal bastion of Portland straight after our Eugene show (the two hour difference and our desire to be tourists led us through the night,) and spent the next day nerding it out with pizza and video games, and being guided through the city by Tim. As ‘when in Rome…’ goes, we caught all the must-sees; the nationally-known Voodoo Doughnuts, the five story bookstore Powell’s, local record store Everything Music for our vinyl enthusiasts, and for those interested, tried marijuana legally.
The venue was blocks away from of all of this, and the show was a blast. Every stop that was a first time visit for Vox Vocis was met tentatively, but here we were pleasantly surprised. 30 to 40 people filled the room and the locals greatly complimented our tour package. The next morning we set out for Bend.
Bend – Volcanic Pub
The drive to Bend was a freezing one. We left early in the morning to give time for the snow and freezing weather, and stopped as we headed south to play in feet deep snow. Bend was the coldest stop yet. In Bend, we split up to do laundry and send our order merchandise, before we left for the venue.
Of course any show on a Monday night is going to struggle to bring a crowd, but the locals we got to play with were phenomenal. After loading into the most spacious, groovy venue we’ve had the opportunity to play at, we were pleasantly surprised to play with Bravey Don, a rock 3 piece that sounded like a professional group straight off the radio. We left that night stoked; new friendships made, and gas money in hand.
San Francisco – Honey Hive Gallery
The Honey Hive Gallery was our first DIY stop ever. We heard about the venue online and immediately set up the show excited for the opportunity. The venue was squeezed between homes on a packed residential street in San Francisco, so we frantically unloaded in the middle of the street as we packed into the narrow venue.
By the time doors opened, all six bands had arrived and the venue was fleshed out. Here familiar faces from college and grade school greeted us in the tiny venue that created an intimate show. We were unable to find a place to crash in San Francisco, and left for Sacramento that night, where we stayed with one of the nicest musicians we’ve met, Julian, who let us stay after seeing our postings online.
Sacramento – Colonial Café
We awoke to eggs, bacon, and toast, after our first full night of sleep; we didn’t wake up earlier than the sun, and Julian had made us breakfast. The day was going to be a success no matter how the night turned out.
Luckily, the quality of the night was of no question; Sacramento was one of our most anticipated stops. Here we played with some of our most supportive friends from the visit last tour, Life in a Spiral. The explosive punk quartet generously set up the entire show for us after we let them know we’d be coming, and booked one of the best bands in Sacramento at the venue. We played to a room full of enthusiastic fans for all the bands, both local and touring, and after one of the strongest sets of tour, we left again for Julian’s home, after he was kind enough to let us stay another night.
Sonora – Gypsy Shack
As I write this, we’re driving from this stop to our next show, and I don’t think we could have been more stunned. After the locals the day before had replaced themselves with a band we were unfamiliar with, we had low hopes for the show.
Sonora was only three hours outside of Sacramento, so when we arrived at one p.m., with the load-in time not being until 7, we were pretty perplexed as to what to do. We decided to see Star Wars.
Night approached and we began driving around the small town looking for the venue. Our GPS was unable to bring us to the exact location, so we parked at a nearby shopping center, and hoofed it until we found it. We were pretty convinced it wasn’t the venue until we were standing inches from it. From the outside, it looked like an antique shop – but inside it was a well put together venue, with a sizeable stage in the back. We loaded into an empty venue with cheerful Tina and Kris at the bar. We were originally disheartened, but by 8 o’clock, we had a crowd.
The local was a band called Problem Dog who had just released their record. They set us up for a super successful night in the Gypsy Shack. What started out as a fear for a bad night became total surprise when we had nearly forty people in the venue. Gypsy Shack has been the best upset so far.
