Logan Fox and Christian Vead aren’t afraid to lean into their country-grunge sound – that has since been nicknamed “crunge.”
The duo and co-founders of Fox N’ Vead joined the Whiskey Riff Raff podcast and discussed their love for playing live, how their latest album – Playing The Game – felt like a combination of five genres, the process of coming together as a band and choosing a signature sound being difficult, and threw out some of the early band names that they almost went with over Fox N’ Vead.
Fox and Vead also touched on how their latest project was labeled as country (even though they might not call it that), believing that God brought them together, the state of Texas loving them and embracing them as their own (even though they are from North Carolina), and their outlook on why labels don’t do artist development anymore.
It was a jam-packed album, but our conversation with the talented artists kept going back to the signature sound that Fox N’ Vead has landed on. When they released Playing The Game earlier this year, it was labeled as simply “country.” But Logan Fox says it really encompassed upwards of five different genres:
“This album we just put out is like five different genres, but I guess the biggest one is alternative. Or ‘y’allternative,’ I guess.”
Even the band themself has trouble defining what genre they fit into.
But that’s the thing. Fox N’ Vead prefers to not be put in a box – genre wise – and are proud to let all of their influences bleed through. Christian Vead also suggested they are an alternative band, but admitted that blues and country are also weaved into their DNA:
“Alternative rock. Definitely blues. We have a lot of blues elements, which in a big part, is because of (Fox). Because of how bluesy he is. We like to call it ‘crunge,’ (which is) country-grunge. We called it that for a while. But it really is just… we love so many different types of music, and the fact that we have four people playing on every record, it kind of just brings that different vibe from everybody.”
@whiskeyriff New Whiskey Riff Raff podcast out now. @Fox N’ Vead #whiskeyriffraff #whiskeyriff ♬ Long Way Down – Fox N’ Vead
If you think “crunge” is a tough word to say, I’ll just put out there that it flows a lot better than “gruntry,” which is another combo word that has been used to describe the band hailing from North Carolina.
Fox N’ Vead will always have a bit of a country twang, and that’s because they originated as a country and southern rock group. Vead told us that the band started out as country, and moved more into the rock space as time has gone on:
“We had an EP that we made, and it had some rock stuff on it, but the rock was southern rock. It was not grunge sounding. We had some very country stuff on there. But we’ve kind of just evolved into that as we’ve just grown as people and musicians.”
One of the unofficial but implied reasons Fox N’ Vead moved towards a rock sound? They love to play live, and they love to quite literally rock.
Do yourself a favor and go see the band if they ever come to a city near you. They pride themselves in their live performances, and as Christian Vead told us, the Fox N’ Vead loves to win over new fans in person:
“Playing live has always been our thing. We always knew that whenever we would go and we would open for people, and we’d know that they don’t know who we are, we’d be like, ‘We’ve got to win them tonight.'”
Logan Fox also added that their lives shows “have always been their No. 1” priority, and when you see them live, that’s impossible to miss.
You can hear about all of that and more from Fox N’ Vead by checking out the interview on YouTube or making sure to download the podcast on Apple Podcasts by searching “Whiskey Riff Raff” or by clicking here.
We’re also available on Spotify and wherever else you can listen to podcasts.
Cheers, y’all.
