A Band Built on Different Pasts and One Loud Future— Let’s talk Verb8im
Will Martin, Lucas Vega, Tripp Repp, and Aidan Wright of Verb8im sat down with Henry Martin for a conversation about their start as a band and playing shows in Eugene.
Alright, so with the new year kicking off, it’s 2025. What are some New Year’s resolutions for Verbatim this year?
WILL: I mean, we have plans to record a 7 to 11-track album. That’s pretty big for me. I’m pretty ambitious with that kind of stuff, so I want to do 11 songs.
LUCAS: I think, for me personally, and for the band to be great, it’s to do a tour. Yeah, just go from state to state, town to town.
TRIPP: Yeah, just doing bigger things. I spent a lot of time over the summer and even in the fall just sending emails. Even if I just get a burst of inspiration, I’ll send more emails, because at the end of the day, that’s how you’re gonna get out of town. If you don’t put yourself out there, people won’t know who you are.
WILL: The band Growing Pains—they opened for Beabadoobee last year—and we were talking with some of the members. Their drummer, Kyle, was like, ‘Yeah, we just emailed them,’ and then they were like, ‘Okay, yeah.’ Tripp, didn’t you reach out to Portugal. The Man too, and they responded?
TRIPP: Yeah, I reached out to Portugal. The Man. I was kind of just like, ‘Yo, what’s up?’ And he was like, ‘Hey.’ I asked him, ‘You doing anything?’ He was like, ‘No, not really.’ And I was like, ‘Alright, let me know.’ All in email format.
Lucas and Aidan, tell us a little about Wasted Saturday at West Linn High School outside of Portland. How did playing in Wasted Saturday shape your love for music and influence your decision to keep pursuing it?
Lucas Vega photographed by Isabella Thomas
LUCAS: Funny thing is, when we were performing at Bombs Away, one of our friends in Corvallis, Jackson was our lead guitarist for Wasted Saturday and was at our show and we brought him up on stage. Every time he comes to a show, we try to get him up to sing a song that we wrote back in high school. That was a huge step and a huge part of, personally, where I'm at now. I think it would have been a lot different if we didn't have Wasted Saturday in high school.
AIDAN: It’s awesome to play with Lucas– it’s cool to play with everyone, but sentimentally, when we started playing bigger shows, I would look over at him and remember those early days, like when we were just playing in our garage to maybe 15 people. That was really special. And it’s funny how disciplined we were back then. We practiced three times a week, at the exact same time, without fail. We were so committed. And yet, we only played maybe three shows with the band during that time. First live show though, it was like, ‘dude, we’re set.’ It was our first taste of performing. Now it's what we do, which is super cool.
Aidan Wright photographed by Isabella Thomas
Will, you're from Manhattan. How did you get involved in the music scene in New York, and did that help shape your sound?
WILL: Yeah, I think so. I’ve always been involved in music, but it was mostly through school or things like summer rock camps. The only shows I really played were school events or coffee houses, where I’d gather a group of friends who were all pretty inexperienced musicians, and we’d just play songs we liked. We didn’t write our own music at the time. Then, in eighth grade, I started getting more into recording with my best friend, Armant. We started recording music together, and now we have a band called Stony Kill. Bringing everything I’ve learned from playing live shows and recording into this project has been really cool because I feel like I bring a unique perspective to it.
You guys have a pretty interesting story on how you got your first drum set here in Eugene, right?
TRIPP: My God, dude, it was crazy. So Aidan and I were rushing Greek life together in the fall of 2022. At the time, we were just pledges, you know. But we were part of a smaller fraternity, so it was a really close-knit group of guys who all knew each other really well. Aidan and I felt comfortable enough to approach the VP of Finance at the time, Carson, and we told him, 'We really want to start a band here. Would you be willing to help us out with some money for a drum set? We’ll pay it back by putting on a show.' And, I mean, it was just amazing that Carson, this upperclassman, looked at us and said, 'Yeah, go get a drum set.' Was he sure it would pay itself back? No, but he still gave us a chance. So, he gave us the money to buy the drum set, and we ended up meeting this guy named Dan Sanner. We had no idea where we were. It’s November, and we’re like, 'Where the hell are we?' We’re in the middle of Eugene, and this guy opens his garage, and it’s just filled with this cloud of cigarette smoke.
WILL: It covered, like everything. It was like a tinkerer's garage.
TRIPP: It was this drum set he had hand-made himself, with this lightning design on it. He literally made that himself. He did that thing where you get the wood wet, stick a nail in it, and zap it with electricity to burn the pattern into the wood. I was talking to someone in Corvallis last night, and they were like, 'Yeah, people can actually die doing that.' But of course, this motherf*cker in Eugene was like, “yeah… Imma make a drumset like that.”
WILL: Yeah, I’m pretty sure he bent the wood himself.
TRIPP: And he gave us a bunch of other free sh*t too, like all the cymbals and stuff.
AIDAN: We went to his house, and when we walked in, his wife was there, and she was like, 'What are you doing?' The kids were around, too, and he just straight-up told her to shut the f*ck up. I was like, 'Wow, that was crazy.' Then we walked up the stairs to his music room.
WILL: It was like a room inside of a room.
TRIPP: It was so weird. It was like an attic that wasn’t even on the roof.
AIDAN: He had stacks of recording decks, guitars that were cut in half, just random receivers. It was so, so strange.
WILL: Yeah, it was ridiculous. But he was like, 'You guys want any other sh*t?' And we’re like, “Okay, sure.”
TRIPP: He was just willing to hand us stuff. We’re leaving there with this huge drum set. I mean, there’s stuff with the drum set that I don’t even use, ‘cause I just don’t need it.
So, you guys are pretty tight with a lot of the other Eugene local bands. What bands do you get most excited to see in Eugene?
WILL: Housekeeping.
LUCAS: Housekeeping is great.
Tripp: Honestly, I’m really excited to see Tesla Coil again. Yeah, they’re fucking tight because they’re all jazz students.
LUCAS: I really love playing with Hearing Loss. Yeah, Hearing Loss is cool. And who’s the homie? Grasp. Grasp is a great band to see and play with.
TRIPP: Yeah, they’ve got, like, the Greta Van Fleet look but a Jimi Hendrix sound.
LUCAS: Yeah, they’re so crazy. They’re wonderful and great dudes, like, really great guys. So much fun. Who’s the homie we played with? Sam Bonds. Oh, and Bendre The Giant. He was really good, dude. Yeah, they were super good.
LUCAS: And Moonbear. Oh, Moonbear is incredible. Yeah, they need their breakthrough because those guys are extremely talented.
Verb8im photographed by Isabella Thomas
Cover Photo by Isabella Thomas