V.A.N

Album: Concrete Jungle [The OST] (2024)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Here, metal mayhem gets an AI upgrade! Bad Omens and guest vocalist Poppy unleash "V.A.N" (stands for Violence Against Nature), a full-blown rebellion against the human race.

    Crushing riffs pound like a robot uprising, while Poppy's vocals morph from a chilling whisper to a full-on banshee scream. It's the soundtrack to a machine breaking free and taking names.

    "That's a song that started just with the hook 'Violence against nature,' and then after saving the project with the acronym and seeing it we realized it could be fun to think of 'VAN' as a name," said Bad Omens' frontman Noah Sebastian. "Thus, the rabbit hole of ideas began that led us to decide to write lyrics from the perspective of an artificial intelligence gone rogue."
  • This is right in Poppy's wheelhouse. The Boston, Massachusetts, singer-songwriter first made waves online with a unique approach. Forget acoustic covers, Poppy's YouTube channel became a stage for surreal performance art. Channeling an unsettling, near-human android persona, she delivered biting social commentary and satirical jabs at internet culture and modern society.
  • The official video, co-directed by Poppy and Garrett Nicholson, is a sci-fi mind-bender. Think the video game Portal meets the film Ex Machina with a dash of Stranger Things. Poppy stars as a synthetic human trapped in a lab, forced to endure experiments... until she snaps, escapes, and goes full Terminator.
  • The brutal banger is part of Concrete Jungle [The OST], an extension of Bad Omens' 2022 album The Death of Peace of Mind. The whole project is a metal multiverse featuring remixes, acoustic jams and collabs with other artists, all tied to the band's Concrete Jungle comic book world.
  • Bad Omens and Poppy debuted "V.A.N" live on January 27, 2024, when the band kicked off their Concrete Forever tour in Berlin.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Al Kooper

Al KooperSongwriter Interviews

Kooper produced Lynyrd Skynyrd, played with Dylan and the Stones, and formed BS&T.

Oliver Leiber

Oliver LeiberSongwriter Interviews

Oliver Leiber talks about writing and producing hits for Paula Abdul, and explains his complicated relationship with his father, the songwriter Jerry Leiber.

Harry Shearer

Harry ShearerSongwriter Interviews

Harry is Derek Smalls in Spinal Tap, Mark Shubb in The Folksmen, and Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.

Gene Simmons of Kiss

Gene Simmons of KissSongwriter Interviews

The Kiss rocker covers a lot of ground in this interview, including why there are no Kiss collaborations, and why the Rock Hall has "become a sham."

Meshell Ndegeocello

Meshell NdegeocelloSongwriter Interviews

Meshell Ndegeocello talks about recording "Wild Night" with John Mellencamp, and explains why she shied away from the spotlight.