Interview: Hope Vista of VISTA

We talked to VISTA's frontwoman, Hope Vista, about the change in lineup, musical inspirations and upcoming fall plans. Check out the full interview below!

​Shannon Rae: You call yourself  ‘anthem rock’, explain this genre a bit to the readers?

Hope Vista: Sure! When we were originally first talking about what we wanted to be the VISTA sound, we sat down and listened to a lot of tracks that inspired us, and saw a common theme among them all; they were all anthems. Big, booming, anthems that gave us a ton of motivation. So that laid the groundwork for our sound. There are a lot of elements that are reminiscent of being at a live show, including chants, gang vocals, gritty vocals, pulsing guitars, clapping patterns. Throw in some light, airy synths and some thick bass and that’s how we created the ‘anthem rock’ tag for VISTA!

SR: What drives you to pursue a career in music?

HV: My dad did. I wanted to be just like him, he was a beautiful classical jazz guitarist. I was always awe inspired at his level of talent and he was my sole, original motivator. I miss him.

SR: There are some great female lead bands in the industry today, is there any one in particular that you look to for inspiration?

HV: They’re killing the game lately! I think they’re all inspiring in their
individual ways; every female fronted band around right now is super different. Paramore kind of had that original alternative rock sound, PVRIS really delved into an electropop/hardcore combination, The Pretty Reckless has been doing some revamped classic rock tracks, and Against The Current developed a modern day pop/rock sound on their latest record. A lot of listeners see a female at the helm and think they’re all the same or similar, but these four right now are individually inspiring because of the fact that they’ve taken steps to succeed in originality. There are a few bands that we’re friends with, Royal Street, Six Stories Told, RVLS; and they’re all working day and night to solidify themselves as unique and creative forces. That’s inspiring to me.

SR: Do you have any new material set to release yet this year? If so, will it differ from what we have heard from VERSUS in any way?

HV: We just started writing some new material, but there’s no set date or timeframe yet for any new releases. Ideally, we’d like to get out another new single or two before 2016 if we can. The anthem rock genre will definitely stay there, but with two new members, they both bring forward different creative ideas and thoughts. I’m stoked to see how that mixes in with the original VISTA sound.

SR: You are the main writer, but there are also two new creative minds contributing, how does this affect your sound? And how will the change in the lineup affect the sound of future releases?

HV: Right away, I let both of our new members Matt and Greg know how important songwriting is to me. It’s the only way I really know how to express my thoughts and for others to take a look at what’s in my mind. They were both super understanding of that, but it’s also up to me to make sure that I get comfortable quickly with other ideas coming in. I was given complete lyrical control for “VERSUS,” but if there’s ever a moment where Matt or Greg aren’t too amped up about what’s being written lyrically, their input will always come in. Matt is a very powerful, hard-hitting drummer, and Greg likes to throw in some jazzy kind of elements to his guitar playing. So even though this is still going to be an anthem rock, band, you’ll see at live shows how their influences come into each song. Same with future releases!

SR: What brought upon the change of lineup?

HV: Unfortunately, one of our original members left, and two weeks later I had to let go of the second one. My head was really cloudy in the few months that followers. I was really upset, but I was also embarrassed that the lineup I’d been so confident about didn’t work out. I spent the entire summer looking for new permanents, and there was a month-long period or so where I just completely felt like this wasn’t going to pull back together. Thank god it did.

SR: What are your plans for the rest of this year and going into 2017?

HV: We’re going to be playing a lot of shows. Some are announced, a lot are pending. But besides that, we’re going to write some music and work to get another single released. We haven’t really talked about 2017 yet because we’ve been working on everything that’s coming up this fall, but hopefully we’ll delve into that soon!

SR: Thank you for talking to us, we can’t wait to see more from VISTA!

HV:Thank you so much!