So I only ate a piece of white bread with cheese on it for all of my meals for almost the entire early part of my 20 s. For instance: we were both at a bar, and I was leaving with my buddy. We had to walk sideways to get past him through these stalls, and a girl smacked him on the butt as I was walking past. He turned around and it was me standing behind him! We were on [Australian festival] Soundwave and kept playing the same cities, so I kept seeing him and things like that would happen every day.
Just take your pick. When you're on tour, and you're running around the stage every night, you're still putting in percent of yourself physically. All the training that I went through as a kid, to learn how to really hone myself physically in hockey, I use today. I think even when it comes down to being able to deal in a pressure situation -- I mean, when you're 13 or 14 years old and it's the final round of a tournament or a skills competition, all eyes are on you and it's a pressure situation.
I see it the same way as playing a huge venue or something [when] you have a couple thousand people there. I find it to be the same thing. Six: Well, the goalie, to me, will always be the sort of lead singer of the hockey team. At the end of the day, what you're doing sort of makes or breaks the game. When they rush down on you, you either make the save or you don't.
If you don't make the save, everybody hates you. But if you do make the save, everybody loves you. The entire band might have a whole lot of skill and talent. But if the singer opens his mouth and can't sing or trips on his face onstage, everybody will write off the band. I guess I liked that, and I liked the fact that all the pressure was on me. I think it's definitely a very similar mindset of knowing that everybody is looking at you and you can't screw up.
Growing up, which team did you follow? Those were the two teams that I followed the most as a kid. But I was more into minor league hockey. The Cyclones in their day did pretty well. And the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, while they were still in existence, were not a great team. But they had some great players to learn from, [current Blue Jackets goalie] Mathieu Garon and all these other players who wound up going to the NHL. Six: I've always been really into the Blues, for whatever reason.
I think maybe just being a little kid, and when Cujo was still on the team. But I stopped so much following specific players. I like the teams that I liked as a kid, and being on tour I don't get to catch a whole lot of games. But whenever I get to see a Blues game, or certainly a Columbus game or whatever else, I'll watch those.
Six: Obviously, the Blue Jackets, when I was younger they were not a very good team. But they've always been sort of scrappy in the way they play. And the Blues have always seemed to have more finesse in the players that they've had.
Six: From the age of like maybe 13 to By 13 I had started my first band. I was getting a little bit of attention with it, and by the time I was 15, Black Veil Brides, my current band, had done fairly well in the local scene. But I was still playing hockey.
It was the offseason of ice hockey, and I was playing inline hockey. It was the final game, and I was on a team called Cincinnati Storm, and we actually won the game. I was the top player of the skills competition, and I won the MVP of the series.
I went back to the dressing rooms -- sorry, I'm so used to saying green room now [laughs] -- the locker room area. I looked at my coach, I looked at my dad and I was like, OK. But I know what I'm doing in music is really working, and I think I'd rather go out on top.
My dad and I drove all the way back [home] -- I think we were in Minnesota -- we went to a Guitar Center and he bought me my first PA system. I didn't put on skates again for almost five years. The Life: After all those years and that much dedication, you don't think you could have made it into the NHL?
Six: I don't know. Maybe I could have, but that's not really where my heart was at, at that age. And, honestly, to this day, I don't regret the decision. I just recently started skating again and getting back out on the ice whenever I'm off tour. I regret not keeping that as a skill and sort of letting that go. Ultimately, I've wanted to be a rock star since I was young. But I wound up becoming very good at hockey and getting very into that. I'm proud of my decision, and I think I made the right decision -- obviously I did, 'cause my band's working out and doing well.
But who knows what would have happened? I was very skilled at the game, and I'll always love the game. Now that I'm in a situation where I've got a life made for myself and I know what my career is, in my off time from tour I can go to a rink.
This year's going to be kind of busy for us as a band, but if I had time I'd love to join a rec league or something. The first time I actually went skating again, my girlfriend roped me into going ice skating with her, sort of a romantic kind of thing. It was sort of weird for me, putting on skates and going out onto the ice. It was like a bike -- you know, you don't forget how to do it. As soon as I got out there, I had a great time and was doing my old whipping around the rink and everything.
It was a skill that I've always had in my mind and applied to everything I do, but ultimately I'd like to get back to maybe enjoying it in my off time, like any hobby that you have. The Life: For something that was such a predominant part of your life for so many years, there's really not a lot of information out there about it.
Six: Honestly, yeah, I'm always surprised when people don't know that I did it. My bass player has been in my band for almost two years and he had no idea [laughs] until he visited my parents' house, because my parents' basement is just full of trophies and pictures and everything from when I was young playing hockey. Everybody is always surprised, I think. I mean, our publicist had no idea when we were approached about doing this. It's not something that I really think about talking about because I know that it's a part of my life.
I guess I'm always surprised. I think that now, maybe kids will see that I did it and if they have any interest in sports -- you know, you don't have to be a musician solely, or an artist solely or whatever.
If you're interested in sports, you can do both. You can have fun with anything you want to do in your life. The Life: That's a great segue, because the storyline for the "Knives and Pens" video alludes to an outcast kid being bullied by the jock population.
But being an athlete, you were one of them! Six: Yeah. What's so ironic, and almost in a way sort of angers me a little bit, is that hockey was not seen as a mainstream sport in my area of the country when I was a kid. Like I said, I would have to drive pretty far with my dad to play and whatever else. The upper elite, rich families, they played hockey. It was sort of like how you see lacrosse in a lot of areas being a game that's only played by the rich kids, because it's an expensive sport to play as a kid.
I never really had the best in gear; I had to make up for it in talent. Yet this band who look like every emo-fearing Daily Mail reader's worst nightmare — "My parents won't let me come to your shows," one miffed fan wrote to them last month — are actually super-earnest, well-mannered boys who take their music and its message about positive self-identity as seriously as they take their B12 vitamin-pill regime er, sorry to bust another myth.
There's a reason why Black Veil Brides take things so seriously, though: it soon becomes apparent that being in this band is a serious business. Sure there are parties — the kind that saw half the group getting chucked out of the Holiday Inn last night for drunkenly roaming around the executive suite with bin lids on their heads. But there's also the social networking , followers on OfficialBVB , the merchandising their DIY T-shirts outsold those for the Twilight movies before the band even had a record out and the band's impressive dedication to the fans who invest a hell of a lot in them for instance: queuing outside in the Southampton drizzle hours before doors open tonight.
Then there's the frequent heckling and abuse. For every diehard BVB devotee there seems to be a whole load of people who want to throw a bottle of wee at them, as many did at last year's Download festival.
A lot of the hatred seems to stem from the fact that Black Veil Brides like to get busy in the Rimmel department — black lipstick, white face paint, lots of kohl.
It's a point that particularly annoys Biersack. We're theatrical. Nobody is convinced that Johnny Depp goes to Walmart dressed as Sweeney Todd but everyone expects us to …". I have to admit I'm a little disappointed to find Black Veil Brides dressed in little more than tight black jeans and metal t-shirts when I arrive, but Biersack shrugs again in his very self-assured way and says: "We were up against it from day one because we put on make-up.
But we did it anyway because we genuinely loved doing it … that to me is where the authenticity comes from. As a teenager, such outlandish style was a permanent fixture for Biersack and it caused problems.
I used to have to say: "Guys! I'm not going to steal anything here! For a start my pants are too tight … where would I even put it? The transformation from everyday rockers to Black Veil Brides — studded gloves, haircuts that could cause multiple flesh wounds, leather trousers that are more hole than trouser — is actually pretty astonishing, not least on account of its speed.
I don't think we're losing much! I ask if the band have to stock up before they go on tour and he assumes I mean the hairspray.
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