AMBASSADOR Band interview
by Nicole Brice
Ambassador is a post-punk band based out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They released two albums independently, with the most recent one, “Care Vale,” on September 18, 2020. Influenced by many genres, bands, eras, and sounds, they have managed to find a cult following in the underground scene. I sat down with Gabe Vicknair, lead singer for Ambassador, to get a little perspective on the band, the new album, and what the future holds.
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NB: I’m sitting here today with Gabe from Ambassador to discuss their new album and what else makes up this intriguing band and their sound. We have known each other since high school, right, but we’ve never talked. How crazy is that?
GV: [laughs] I know, that’s unfortunate.
NB: We’re into all the same music, and we know all the same people. So, new album, man…it’s amazing…I’ve been listening to it for two days straight. You released it on September 18th, which coincidentally, is my husband’s and nephew’s birthdays.
GV: Oh wow…
NB: You guys have such a unique sound, and you have hints of many influences in your music, but I can honestly say that your band has a sound that is all its own. What other comparisons have been made as far as your sound?
GV: Any band we throw out there is not going to be a direct comparison. We try to give small hints and ideas of what our influences are, which is really the best we can do. When it comes to direct comparison, I haven’t really heard of any that I thought were accurate. The way we write…the music is influenced by many different genres, lots of different bands over different eras, so the best we can really do is pull certain similarities from these bands to describe our sound. Pink Floyd, obviously, would be one that has the mid-tempo kind of spacy atmospheric sound, which we are really influenced by Pink Floyd. We don’t call them out as an influence now, but we used to at one point. It’s kind of tricky, because people are selective on what they listen to, so you don’t want to give them the wrong idea. But as you said, everything from Russian Circles to Depeche Mode. Those influences are certainly there in some form, but you would never say we sound exactly like those bands.
NB: I even hear hints of The Cure in your music with a little Sonic Youth-sounding guitar, and then your vocals are reminiscent of Ian Curtis from Joy Division. You have this nice, smooth, raspy, type delivery of your vocals and I honestly have never heard another singer with a voice like yours. You really can’t compare it.
GV: You mentioned several similarities between some of the New Wave and Dark Wave bands, and I think that’s fairly accurate because I do have a raspy, kind of aggressive at times, tone that would be more in line with Southern Metal or Blues. But I’ve listened to a lot of indie music over the years, and my delivery is a little similar with the timing and sometimes it’s a little more laid back, not really trying to impress and hit the highest notes. It’s about the delivery.
NB: So, new album, which I touched on a bit, and then you had your debut album, “Belly of the Whale,” in 2018. This go-round, you did fewer songs, but the songs are just as long.
GV: Yeah, I think the entire album is like 36 minutes…our songs are between five and six minutes. The run time is not as short as an EP, but then, of course, we can’t call it a full LP either.
NB: The titles of your albums are very interesting. Let’s start with “Belly of the Whale.” What was the inspiration behind that title?
GV: You know, “Belly of the Whale,” there’s a lot of language that’s a reflection of struggles with religion growing up in a pretty religious environment and having that instilled in you from an early age. Everything in your life…regardless of where you’re at in life…whether you’re a strong believer or a weak believer…if you grow up in that environment, it gives you a type of lens that you see everything through. It also plays into your judgement and situations. I think it instills a sense of conviction, and I think a lot of that album, lyrically, is not direct references to the Bible, but there are some references here and there to stories in the Bible and the struggle of the human spirit through the lens of someone that was raised up in religion. I always find myself comparing situations to situations in the Bible. Not literally, I don’t know a whole lot about the Bible itself and have not read the entire Bible. So I go back to these simple parables and stories that I know well. “Belly of the Whale” is like Jonah and the Belly of the Whale…just kind of dealing with temptations and this sense of conviction that never leaves and will probably never leave. The album is a loose reference to a story of Jonah and kind of being in this vessel to escape your own convictions. That’s the best way I can describe it.
NB: Wow! That’s an amazing backstory on the title…so, “Care Vale,” what’s the inspiration behind that title?
GV: “Care Vale” is loosely translated as “Sorrow Valley,” and the album cover has this large, dark, mysterious expanse of landscape. It doesn’t have a true focal point or subject. It’s about this dark void…a place of refuge to be okay to feel sorrow and bask in the darkness at times. And this album is a lot of frustration from the last album…and disappointment…and animosity…toward how it was critiqued. We wrote that album not caring if it was heavy, not caring if it was soft enough to really reach the indie crowd. We just wrote what came naturally. I find myself inbetween with the critiques we received because it was like, “You’re not heavy enough for the indie crowd,” so we felt shortcomings related to that, because we like heavy music, but we didn’t write heavy music and then also on the other side…maybe we’re a little too alternative for the hipster crowd…the judgmental indie crowd…there was also a lot of disappointment, not in the quality or success of the album, but not being able to reach the right people. Nowadays, everything is so stuck in these genres and it’s like, where do you fit? It makes it tough. That’s not really the most important thing for us, though. There were these feelings towards the first album that aggravated us and put us in a bit of a darker place due to how we felt about it. We felt a need to prove ourselves. We were definitely in a sulky mood and at the beginning of it, I didn’t see “Care Vale” as the title. Care Vale was a term that Dustin and I had named a song years back. It seemed like it applied to the vibe of the new record and lent itself to that. The artwork and design were inspired by this sorrow valley and this place of refuge where you can go and be in that state of sorrow.
NB: Yeah, just being a normal person.
GV: Yeah, just away and isolated and dealing with it.
NB: What projects did you have prior to Ambassador?
GV: I guess the most known, or more established project, was Mute Hound.
NB: Ok, I remember hearing about them, but I never saw you guys play.
GV: Yeah, essentially, when we started Mute Hound, it was Slaves of Freedom with a different singer and a different direction musically.
NB: Getting away from the Sludge Metal and moving towards a more commercial sound.
GV: Yeah, we put out one album with that, and then we recorded a second album, but the person that recorded it lost all of the tracks.
NB: How do you do that?!
GV: The issue was that they were trying to clean out hard drive space and accidently deleted it. We tried to start re-tracking it with a different drummer, but it wasn’t working out. And then I moved to Denver for a year shortly after, so that was sort of the end of Mute Hound. Early on, I played in another band with Ean. Ean has actually played drums in every band I’ve been in.
NB: He is definitely a beast on drums! I remember the old Numd days. [laughs]
GV: So, I was in Numd for a period of time. There’s actually a Numd song on YouTube. It’s not labeled as Numd, though. It was uploaded when tagging and meta data were just starting to get popular, so it’s tagged as being associated with Slipknot and Acid Bath and stuff like that. The song has actually gotten around over the years and has over 200,000 views.
NB: That’s insane!
GV: Even more insane is that everyone is trying to find out who the band is.
NB: Oh my gosh. [laughs] What year did Ambassador officially form, and then how did your group of musicians come together? Of course, you’ve known each other for years, but…
GV: I’ll start from the point where we actually had a band name, which would have been probably…2017. Jason and I had started building the project in 2016 writing songs and interchanging musicians, but once we got Ean on the drums, that was the first iteration of Ambassador with one guitar. We actually recorded “Belly of the Whale” without Dustin in the band, and he came in after everything was recorded and laid down his guitar tracks and joined the band. That was in 2018. The project definitely began to be built in 2017.
NB: So you guys had a full year or so before you started recording so you could kind of gel as musicians. If you had to pick one favorite album in the entire world that has influenced you musically, and as an artist, what would you pick?
GV: Hm…that’s tough….
NB: Give me one or two.
GV: I’d say, what really comes to mind, is Metallica’s “…and Justice for All.”
NB: Great album! I remember listening to that album when I was like 12 years old.
GV: That was the first cassette tape I ever bought from a record store. There’s a story where, I guess I was 10…I had a little Walkman my dad had bought me, and I was in the backseat of the car with my headphones in, and they were totally oblivious to the impact I was getting at that moment from the album. Opening up the insert and looking at the lyrics, and it was just like Christmas Day. It was really the first time I was moved by music. The classical nature of it and the angst and the anger…and the poetic lyrics…that really pushed me in the direction, musically, that I’m in today and certainly had an influence on my teen years.
NB: Definitely! For me, it was Depeche Mode. When I discovered Depeche Mode at 7 years old, that was it for me.
GV: We’ve actually considered covering, “Precious” by Depeche Mode.
NB: One of my favorite songs from “Playing the Angel,” love it! I look forward to hearing more from you guys, and I hope to see you live soon.
GV: Yeah, this album is actually kind of a live album.
NB: I read that. You guys recorded it in the course of two days?
GV: Well, two and a half days…everything was based upon enhancing the live shows, so everything is a little more stripped down and more instantly gratifying and definitely has more energy, so we hope it translates really well live.
NB: I definitely think it will. You guys have created a very solid album, and I can’t wait to hear more in the future. What do you think the biggest struggle has been for bands during COVID?
GV: I think the biggest struggle for bands these days is just to reach the right people and get their music heard. So we always encourage people to share our music as much as possible. Not just social media shares…but text a friend a link or just let them listen to the music over a beer. We like to be able to fund our band through our merch sales. The best place to get our merch is on our Bandcamp page, but certainly, a follow via social media is appreciated.