About this Event

VANT is the brainchild of frontman Mattie Vant. Born out of discontent and frustra4on at the fucked up world we currently inhabit, he built an arsenal of songs that are short, poignant and socially aware remedies to the ignorance of most modern consumerist pop music. What started as a solo project quickly evolved into the fully formed eight-legged beast that is currently gearing up for its first UK wide ou3ng in mid-March 2015.



MaBe, who hails from the small, ex-coal mining town of Seaham in the North East of England, has secretly been working on VANT for four and a half years since he leG home for Brighton. Although Brighton was produc4ve it was only when MaBe made the move to London in 2012 that he found the direc4on he was looking for.

As a teenager, MaBe started a band with the aim to do everything possible to avoid the shackles of educa4on and the minimum wage. The band supported a liNle-known Swedish group in Sunderland where MaBe struck up a friendship with their drummer Mar3n Söderin. Despite the distance between them they kept in touch, and when MaBe started VANT he couldn’t think of a beNer man to pick up the s4cks. Mar4n was at the 4me taxis driving in Stockholm but as soon as he heard the early demos he made the move to London to join the project.



Anyone who has ever lived in London knows finding your feet can be incredibly difficult. Luckily for MaBe aGer a couple of jobs working in a bar and in a charity call centre he landed a job in the Dalston music venue Birthdays, which has now become VANT’s HQ.



It was at Birthdays where MaBe met Billy Morris, a young kid from a small hippy commune just outside of Swansea. The pair quickly developed a bond over their taste in music, and when MaBe told Billy he was looking to get a band together for the music he’d been developing Billy offered his services on bass.

The final member of VANT is lead guitarist Henry Eastham who was born and bred in Blackpool. From a young age Henry’s excep4onal playing gave him the opportunity have a life on the road as a touring musician. Having met through a mutual friend, MaBe asked Henry if he’d help out with some guitar parts when he went into the studio to record the ini4al VANT demos in late 2013. They worked so well together that Henry immediately became a fully- fledged member of the band.



Some have described VANT as a cross between The Kinks and the Pixies, but MaBe takes influence from a vast spectrum of musical genres which are then all condensed into two and a half minute onslaughts. Lyricism is incredibly important to VANT, they want to leave their mark on this planet. They write music to s4r the mind as well as the heart.

When VANT trickled a few musical outputs to some key figures in the music industry at the start of 2015 it caused a chao4c, feeding frenzy. This furore eventually resulted in VANT penning a deal with Parlophone. However, as the band embark on their first UK tour in support of double AA side ‘Parasite’ / ‘Do You Know Me?’, they are keeping things simple, choosing to release it on limited edi4on, baby pink vinyl through their own label Dumb Blood Records.



VANT have enjoyed an incredible start to the year on all fronts suppor4ng the likes of Royal Blood, The Bohicas and Hinds, and receiving extensive airplay from BBC Radio One, XFM and Amazing Radio. Zane Lowe made them his Next Hype and gave ‘Parasite’ three plays in one show. The excitement is building as they head into a relentless touring schedule and a busy s4nt of fes4vals over the summer ahead of the release of their debut album later this year.