Pierce the Veil singer Vic Fuentes on band's biggest tour, new album, Pittsburgh memories

In the early days of Pierce the Veil, the post-hardcore band would throw in fun, unexpected covers — from R&B to hip hop to pop — as a surprise in their sets. It just so worked out that they were doing a Wiz Khalifa song when they hit Pittsburgh’s Stage AE in 2011.

“We loved that stuff too. All the bands were low key into that kind of stuff, and so were the scene kids,” Pierce the Veil singer Vic Fuentes said in a recent call. “So we would play a Lil Wayne song or something that was crushing at the time, a tidbit of it, and play it hardcore, like heavy. I remember we did this song called ‘Black and Yellow.’ And when we played Pittsburgh, we played ‘Black and Yellow,’ I just remember being like, this is the greatest, this could have not lined up better. It was so sick. And we came out swinging with that, and the crowd went nuts. So that was a fun time.”

Fuentes also recalled an outdoor show at Stage AE where the weather proved to be a little too frigid.

“My cord snapped off in my pedal because it was so brittle and cold out,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll never forget that.”

There’s not much chance of that happening on Pierce the Veil’s next show in Pittsburgh, when they bring their I Can’t Hear You world tour to the Pavilion at Star Lake on May 25. The San Diego-based band, which will be joined by Sleeping With Sirens and Daisy Grenade, is amped to play the biggest shows of its career, including sold-out dates at Madison Square Garden and Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

“It’s just exciting to be doing anything that feels new this far into our career, being almost 18 years as a band and still feeling like there’s more to go, there’s more out there that we’ve never done and experienced before,” Fuentes said. “I think that’s what we want to try and keep pushing as we continue into whatever the next 10 years of this band looks like.”

Their latest album, 2023’s “The Jaws of Life,” with a new deluxe edition released last week, includes a new song, “Kiss Me Now” as well as a cover of Radiohead’s “Karma Police.”

In a Zoom call last week from San Diego, Fuentes discussed the new album, highlights of the last year, the new single and more:

If you put yourself in the shoes of when the band first started, could you ever imagine playing these type of venues now?

I always dreamed that we could do it, but I didn’t think that it was a real thing because there are only a few bands that made it. But I really looked to those bands as proof that it could happen, a band like Green Day or a band like Paramore, and they were able to break through and hit new levels that I didn’t think were possible for punk bands and bands who grew up in small clubs and stuff like that.

So I always look to them as proof that it can happen. But nobody thinks that you’ll be doing this like we’re doing. I think the last tour was the craziest. We got to support Blink(-182) and play some stadiums. That was wild. (laughs) I think both our bands were just looking at each other like, what? How are they letting us do this? (laughs)

This tour will feature songs from all five albums, so did you revisit all the albums to pick what you wanted to play?

It’s been really difficult to nail down a set list. I think we spent two weeks just trying to figure out what songs we were gonna play and then what order, so I think we’ve got that down. When you think about it in this way of playing all these records and you want to give them all a little bit of light and make them all sort of fit together, you face just a ton of questions of like, am I satisfying the itch enough on each record and what does that mean for the fans?

It’s a lot of figuring out what’s important about each song and what kind of defined that time, going back to old Youtubes and just watching us play our early shows and being like, what did we think was important back then? And kind of remembering that stuff has been really fun.

How do you feel about that first album (“A Flair for the Dramatic”)? I know a lot of bands sort of look down on their early work, but is that the case with you?

No, honestly, I love it. I really like all our records. I think that we put so much time into them at that time in our lives, and I think we did a good job making them. We worked super hard on every single one of them, so whenever I hear them, I might think about those few years that it took to really dedicate ourselves to that one little piece of art. Listening to it, it’s cool because I can hear them and hear a song that I haven’t heard in like five years or something like that, and be like, man, what the hell was I thinking, this is crazy. (laughs) Sometimes I’m like, damn, I don’t know if I could put in the work that I did, that that kid did, because that is some crazy stuff.

Related

• Guitarist Scarlett McKahey of Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers on opening for Pearl Jam in Pittsburgh and more
• John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting discusses songs highlighting Ukraine, Israel and more
• 2025 Pittsburgh area concert calendar

In regards to the new music, do you feel like you’ve gotten some affirmation that the path that you’re taking is the right one?

100%. We were making this record, the new record, and we kind of thought we were making a record that the fans would turn their heads a little bit and not maybe quite (get). I think we knew we were gonna shock people a little bit with this record. But we also knew that it was just the natural way of the band and we just made the record that came out. And that was it. We stand by that with every record. We felt like it was something that people would maybe have to think twice about.

That was exciting to feel like we weren’t just doing the same thing again. But we did come into touring pretty blindly, not knowing if the fans would remember us, because it had been so long since our last record. I think it was like five or six years since we’d stepped on a stage. So once we did, we didn’t know if anyone was gonna care or be there. And to our relief and surprise, it was the opposite. Everybody was really amped and excited that we were coming back to play. We did a support tour as our first tour or two back. We supported a band and then we did some co-headlines just because we didn’t really know what to expect. And then fast forward a couple of years and it all just progressed really fast in such an amazing way.

I’ve read that fans use your song “Hold on Till May” to celebrate making it through the year. So what do you look back as the highlights of the last year that you can celebrate?

I think definitely getting the opportunity to play shows with Blink-182. I used to cover their songs in our bedroom. They were one of our favorite bands when we were kids, literally kids, 15-, 16-year-olds. So getting to know them and tour with them and play these venues, play Fenway Park and SoFi stadium, we could’ve never dreamed that we’d be on stage staring at a microphone with a sold-out stadium in front of us. That was just an amazing opportunity.

And just growing our family too. I have a new son, Emory, and my daughter, Violet is two and we just got a new house, so everything with the family has been moving in a new direction, so that’s been really amazing. I think just having our band be in a place where we have a lot more resources and people around us and our team is just incredible. So if we wanted to do anything, we can do it now and it’ll be done in a really great way. We have great management, great design team, great label, everything is just working together. When you have that around you as a band, there are no weak links anymore, where things used to be harder to accomplish when we were younger. Even if you had a big dream or a big idea, it was hard to do it. Now we can really make things happen. It’s just really empowering with your music and with what you can do with touring and making records and stuff. So it’s exciting.

The internet’s talking about this new single “Kiss Me Now,” so what should people know about that?

I wrote it with my friend, Josh Rheault. He used to tour in a band that we toured together called The Deer Hunter. But he’s an artist now. He calls himself Shell Pink. And so now me and Josh share a song called “Kiss Me Now,” which we think is really funny. (laughs) We wrote it for the record. We recorded it in New Orleans when we did “The Jaws of Life,” and it didn’t make the cut because there were too many slow songs on the record. We couldn’t see adding another slow song. So we just kept it in our pocket until the timing felt right to release it. It’s just a love song for my wife about time passing. I don’t know if you’ve ever known anybody in your life who has a fear of time passing. They don’t like birthdays or they don’t love time markers that just tell you that your kids are growing or that you’re getting older, that life is moving and just trying to do things before time passes and realize that there’s never a perfect time to do anything. And just take that risk if you need to.

Sort of living in the moment rather than waiting for the perfect moment?

Yeah, I was trying to avoid that phrase. (laughs)

You didn’t want to use YOLO in there?

But YOLO is literally what the song is about, yeah. (laughs)