Founded in 2013, Vices and Adulation is comprised of Lucy-may Upton (song writer, published poet, highly skilled artist) and Fabian Upton (musician). Both are self-trained, Fabian playing entirely by ear and by memorizing patterns. He was 8-finger tapping guitar world champion four years running and one time sweep picking guitar champion. Their first instrumental album released on Feb 4th 2013, with their first Vocal Release “Dragon Princess 2” releasing in March of 2013. It won the Akademia Award for best Alternative Rock Song.
With so much innate talent and skill, it was a hands down vote to nominate such a phenomenal band as this week’s RockRevolt Magazine Indie Band of the Week!
How are you doing?
Lucy-may: Very well thank you, making lots of progress in the studio just in time for Christmas holidays.
Lucy-may, you are a published poet. Why did you decide to go an extra mile and turn poems into music?
Lucy-may: It is because you can evoke more emotion through music than just the written word. The music has made the words come to life for me. Music has the ability to tap into anyone’s heart or mind and make them feel something, either happiness or sadness, music brings people together.
Fabian, I’ve heard you have never studied music, you just learned it you own way. Can you tell us something about your learning method?
Fabian: Of course. Well, in the very early stages, guitarists should use GuitarPro6, a tablature notation program. Using this they can learn all their favorite songs. But this wasn’t enough for me. So I joined a competition website guitarwar.com. Here you could enter into “wars” with another player, then the whole community votes on who has the better composition/technique. As I was rubbish at only playing for eight months, I lost almost every competition. But the constructive criticism from the community spurred me on. So I downloaded all of the current champions masterpieces. Luckily I am able to play by ear, so I relentlessly practiced pieces from those championship tracks. After a while I started to get calloused fingers and very quick at playing faster techniques. Eventually (six years later), I earned my most coveted position of Tapping Guitar champion, which really needs 8-finger tapping technique to win. Then I won the sweep picking championship. Which spurred me on to try and take these techniques to a commercial sound, which led to Vices and Adulation.
Wow! That is amazing Fabian? What is your next goal?
Fabian: Thank you! The next tier is ProWar, which is what I aspire to now. It means you have to have all the technical abilities of the other champs, but also have stellar songwriting/production skills.
Think of the best guitarists in the world, then imagine a tier of musicians above that. That is ProWar, and our current champ Ender (Eric Glass) is a great example. Just check out his old winner “Resurrection Mary” on Soundcloud!
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Why did you guys decide to play Gothic rock? What led to that?
Lucy-may: I have always had a disturbed mind, and being brought up on Rock/metal (having four brothers), it kind of meshes nicely. But my main influence was the Rock music my mum played incessantly, my favourite band Def Leppard, a UK Rock band from Sheffield.
We are definitely familiar with Def Leppard! Your very first vocal single “Dragon Princess 2” won the Akademia Award for Best Alternative Rock Song. That must be really exciting!
Lucy-may: We don’t make music for accolades but it was really nice to be acknowledged for all our hard work!
Absorbed Finesse by Vices and Adulation
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You guys seem like a really dynamic and talented duo. How did you guys meet and decide to start playing together?
We met online and our styles just seemed to work. We soon became fast friends not realising that it would develop into our independent recording project Vices and Adulation.
You released an instrumental album last year. Is it in your plans to release a new album soon? With vocals, maybe?
Absolutely we are working on it as we speak it will be released in the new year.
Would you like to say something to our readers?
Hope you enjoy our short interview, if anyone is wondering what we sound like just hit Vices and Adulation into a search engine!
Thank you guys for the interview. I really can’t wait to see what you guys are up next!!
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