From Devastation To Bliss: Interview With Vision Of Disorder’s Tim Williams

The music business is a tough model. For a young, eager band, it’s a dream to be making a living doing what you love, writing and performing music for fans and filling the shoes of your idols for the next generation. The dream can be shattered easily, as often the expectations don’t match the reality.

In other words, sometimes you get screwed over.

Vision Of Disorder, like many bands who came out of the New York hardcore and metal scene of the early ‘90s, have been through a great deal over the years. Despite a landmark record among underground fans and metal literati in their sophomore album, Imprint, Vision Of Disorder were undersupported through their entire career, leading to a split after their fourth album, From Bliss To Devastation. Singer Tim Williams and guitarist Mike Kennedy formed bloodsimple soon after, whose demos were something else, but two albums into the project, Williams and Kennedy reformed their old band for a few shows, a DVD (Dead In NY), and now, soon, a new record, as Williams explains.

You had just started to work on a new record around last November. How far along are you?

We’re doing alright. We got about seven or eight really, really solid songs/ideas and about five or six other just-ideas. We’re doing good. We want to have about 15 or 16 songs and take the best 11 or 12 and record them. We’re doing pretty good. We take off time here and there, we have a lot of setbacks. We’ll do some shows, take off for a week, and that week will turn into two weeks. Stuff like that.

Have you been playing any of the new stuff live?

We did a couple of shows, we did a show in London and one of the festivals in France and we played one or two new songs over there and they went over pretty well and we plan to play at least one new track on the 10 for $10 tour as well. The one of them that we play is called ‘Annihilator’ and the other one, the working title is ‘At Arms Length.’ We’ll see what happens, we’ll might want to play even a newer one.

Is there a label lined up, do you have like a three-year plan?

We’re planning on doing whatever seems right at the time. We don’t have any plans, we have no label, we’re not in any rush to get on a label, I have a few people in mind that I’d be interested in signing with, but if we had any control of it, it wouldn’t be for any lengthy period of time. We’re about to do a proper demo after these shows in about late August, early September, finish writing the record by late October, and then we’re going to go out and do some more shows in November, and then record in the winter and see where we’re at.

I guess we kind of have a plan, but it’s very loose. That’s the beauty about V.O.D. and where we’re all at in our lives professionally, and we’re doing this really for fun, and it’s good to be doing it for fun again. We don’t have any crazy deadlines or any crazy people talking shit. We’re just basically five guys jamming in a room again and filling it in with a couple of good shows, so it’s pretty cool.