It’s less than an hour before showtime, and things are getting messy backstage for Vended. Singer Griffin Taylor is standing at the bathroom mirror, overalls hanging down from his waist, smearing a black stripe across his eye sockets. His shaved skull is painted white and he’s splashing droplets of blue make-up across his face, inevitably the hitting walls next to him. Tonight is the second of two sold-out nights here at the Intuit Dome arena in Los Angeles, where Vended are opening for Slipknot and Knocked Loose. Remnants of the band’s make-up routine are everywhere: smeared on doorknobs, in the sink, on the bright yellow couches in their dressing room, and in every handshake with visitors. Griffin refers to these stains as “the Vended Virus”, and it’s been spreading.
“I don’t ever stop hearing the complaining about leaving messes in the bathrooms,” he says, flicking more droplets into the air. “But it happens and I try my best to clean it up as much as possible.”
Vended are earning a reputation for themselves right now, and not just for the mess they inadvertently leave behind them. Partly that’s because Griffin and Vended drummer Simon Crahan happen to be the sons of Slipknot singer Corey Taylor and percussionist Shawn Crahan, aka Clown. Like the latter band, Vended’s members came out of Des Moines, Iowa, and have adopted disturbed alter-egos, albeit mostly through make-up rather than masks.
But Vended – who also include bassist Jeremiah Pugh (aka ‘JJ’) and guitarists Cole Espeland and Connor Grodzicki – are working hard to build their own audience. Their recently released self-titled debut album has gone some way to silencing the accusations that Vended have only got here because of their parental connections. And while this tour is giving them some much-needed exposure, Griffin insists it’s hardly a family road trip. They’re travelling by Sprinter van, pulling a trailer full of amps, guitars, drums, props and merch. JJ, Simon and Cole do the driving.
At the Dome, they’re in what Cole jokingly calls “the kids’ room”, on account of the rows of tiny hearts hanging like beads down the walls. Most nights, Vended haven’t had much more contact with the headliners than any other opening act would have.
“We still do see each other all the time, like passing through the hallways,” he says of encounters on tour with his father. “We then poke fun at each other, son and dad. But at the end of the day, we are on the job. This isn’t
a vacation. This is work.”
Relaxing on a couch in the dressing room before he puts on his make-up for the night’s performance, sporting ripped black jeans, black t-shirt and black nail varnish, Griffin Taylor could be any kid a few days shy of his 22nd birthday. He was born the year after Slipknot released Iowa. Along his right arm is a large tattoo of a snake, a birthday gift from his dad and stepmom when he turned 18, inked by the same artist in Las Vegas who does Corey’s tattoos. He has subsequently added a few more (a black cat, a TARDIS from Doctor Who), but he’s still clearly in the early stages of building his own grown-up persona.
Griffin first began singing at school, in the choir and even, at one point, in a barbershop quartet-style group. He learned to singing melodically long before he started screaming on top of loud guitars. When it comes to metal vocalists, Griffin cites David Gunn of King 810 as a major influence.
“When I was in high school, I listened to him all the time,” he says. “I did everything to emulate his screams and get deep and guttural and disgusting. Practising his music really helped me get that deep stuff.”
Growing up, Griffin spent many breaks in the school year on the road with his father, sleeping in bunks on a Slipknot tour bus. In his early teens, his friend Cole suggested they start a band and compete in the school talent show. Simon, 18 months younger than Griffin and a friend through Slipknot family gatherings, caught wind of it and wanted in.
“Griffin and Cole were together on this and I heard about it,” he says now. “I messaged Griff and asked, ‘Hey man, you wanna jam?’”
Like the singer, Simon grew up in a larger-than-life world of metal, but he hadn’t spent his childhood dreaming of being a musician. He was more interested in becoming an MMA fighter. Eventually, though, he gravitated to the drums and began practising obsessively.
“I definitely helped push for the band to play a little faster,” Simon explains. “At first we were playing, like, hard rock music. It was very Guns N’ Roses-esque. And then I joined and I was like, ‘No, we’re gonna play fast.’”
In 2019, a year or so after the band formed, the Crahan family was hit by tragedy when Simon’s 22-year-old sister, Gabrielle, died from an overdose.
“I was 15 when that happened and I felt like I was an adult right then and there,” says Simon, who has Gabrielle’s name tattooed on his chest. “I’m definitely different because of it. I’m a different person.”
Vended’s first live performance took place in the spring of 2020 at a small nightclub in Des Moines called the Vaudeville Mews. The show sold out the week it was announced.
“We probably packed 250 kids in there,” recalls Cole with a grin. “It felt like a flash. I think we played 22 minutes. We didn’t know what to do, but it was a great show.”
The future seemed wide open. Then, just days after that first night onstage, Covid-19 landed hard in America, and the music scene went into forced hibernation. Vended embraced the downtime as an opportunity to work on their music, spending their days in a windowless rehearsal space at a warehouse with no insulation or air conditioning.
“We shut the doors. We’d just practise six hours to eight hours a day in that sweaty box of a room,” Cole remembers. They recorded their debut EP, What Is It//Kill It, in Clown’s basement home studio. Griffin says that’s when he discovered his true screaming abilities – specifically on the track Burn My Misery.
“They ran the tape and I just went off on the first take, just guttural growling and stuff like that. And they were like, ‘Where the hell did that come from? More of that, please.’”
Predictably, Vended’s rise has been accompanied by a chorus of jeers aimed at their connections with Slipknot: that they’re ‘nepo babies’ whose career has been gift- wrapped for them. During Vended’s early days, those comments stung.
“I was a teenager with a lot of feelings and a lot of emotions and I didn’t know how to deal with it,” Griffin says now. “It would just depress the fuck out of me.”
Most of the naysayers are online, he notes, though the occasional IRL troll will “scream something from the crowd or just make a joke, like ‘Play Duality!’ And I go up to the mic and be, like, ‘Wrong band, dude.’”
Of course, stardom and success aren’t genetic traits that get passed down from one generation to another. The history of music is littered with the shattered dreams of rock stars’ kids who never even came close to matching their parents’ success. Vended’s connections to one of the biggest metal bands of all time is no guarantee that they’ll follow in their footsteps. They know hard work and great songs are basic requirements for survival in this business, let alone success.
“My dad told me, ‘I would not put you on a tour if you weren’t good’,” says Simon. “We wouldn’t be playing festivals the way we do if we weren’t good. We’re a good band. We play good music. That’s why we’re here. We’ve discovered that talent ourselves. And everyone thinks it’s just been handed to us.”
Their debut album – being self-released by the band – is the perfect rejoinder to the haters. The band spent two months recording it with producer Chris Collier at Korn frontman Jonathan Davis’s studio in Bakersfield, California (Chris produced Korn’s Requiem album and Jonathan stopped by at the sessions to get a preview of the tracks). While songs such as the speedy, growling Nihilism and the jackhammer roar of The Far Side draw some inspiration from Slipknot, Griffin insists his tastes are not limited to metal. As a lyricist, he points to non-metal influences like Green Day, Paul Simon, Amanda Palmer, protest-folk singer Ani DiFranco and Broadway musicals. And then there’s the residual experience of being a choir kid at school…
“I try to incorporate choir techniques that I can remember and certain ranges that I know I can do,” he says. “And then hate myself for doing it because then I have to do it live.”
The clock is ticking down to showtime. Just behind the Intuit Dome stage, Griffin is preparing for his band’s set by growling at the deepest, heaviest edge of his voice: “AHHHH! YEAHHHHHHH!” A moment later, he’s practically crooning a clear melody. When he’s done, he gathers the band into their nightly huddle and shouts in their faces like the coach of some high-flying sports team: “Second fucking show in the same place! Are you boys fucking ready? Let’s go out there and show these motherfuckers a good time, goddamn it!”
A group chant goes up: “Fuck Cali!” It’s the same thing they yell every night, tailored to whichever state they’re in. Even their home state gets this treatment: “Fuck Iowa!” “That’s the place where it matters the most to say that,” says Cole with a laugh.
Their half-hour set begins with Nihilism – sweat and make-up soon dripping from Griffin’s arm – the Vended Virus spread even further. Later, Serenity is the band at their most radio-ready, the singer’s voice slipping from harsh to melodic as thrashing riffs give way to a killer chorus. After they finish, Griffin walks offstage and spots Slipknot DJ Sid Wilson practising at a turntable. The latter is clad in a shiny dark tux. It turns out he’s just come from a wedding. “What’s up, Sid,” Griffin says with a nod, and fist-bumps the older man. Back in Vended’s dressing room, Simon has a shower to rinse off his make-up, then grabs a plate of food. Outside, the hallway is filling up with random visitors. That’s a bad place to be when the members of Slipknot are steamrolling their way to the stage, as the drummer learned as a boy.
“I was being a dumb 12-year-old and I should have stayed out of the way. But I was in the hallway with Slipknot and I got screamed at and reprimanded that night,” he recalls. “You never get in the way.”
Their own work might be done here, but there’s no post- show partying or even an early departure to get a head start on the overnight trip to the tour’s next stop-off in Phoenix, Arizona. Instead, the members of Vended stick around to watch Knocked Loose and Slipknot, the latter celebrating the 25th anniversary of their debut album. Leaving his bandmates to watch the headliners from the soundboard, Simon makes his way to the side of the stage, next to his dad’s metal keg-drum set-up. As Slipknot’s main set finishes and they troop off ahead of the encore, Clown spots his son and gives him a quick thumbs-up before stepping behind the stage.
A moment later, Simon runs up the steps to join him there, no longer merely father and son, but as genuine colleagues in metal. Vended are still just getting started, many years after Slipknot first made a mark around the world, but they seem anxious to add something of their own to that legacy. With years of hard work and many miles of tour dates still ahead, Vended know that family connections can only take them so far.
